This note reminds authors that by the time you receive this issue, you should be sending manuscripts and inquiries to the new editor, Barbara Johnstone

Anne Curzan, Gender shifts in the history of English (Studies in English language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 223. Hb $ 55.

In Gender shifts in the history of English, Anne Curzan sets out to analyze how and why the English language came to change its original grammatical gender system, which it shared with all other Germanic languages, into a natural gender system. She also addresses a number of related questions, such as the relationship between this shift and sexist language. The study is based primarily on the Helsinki Corpus, which comprises texts from Old, Middle, and Early Modern English, but the author also makes use of a number of other sources. Curzan's research methodology may be termed eclectic; it includes corpus linguistics, prototype theory, historical syntax, sociolinguistics, and feminist theory, as well as references to a number of other theories and schools. This eclectic mix is, however, composed with wit, elegance, and great learning, which makes it very interesting to readers of any theoretical persuasion.

Mats Deutschmann, Apologising in British English. Umeå, Sweden: Umeå University, 2003. Pp. 262.

One of the most significant problems in speech act research is doubtless the shortage of naturally occurring spoken language in the data under observation. Researchers have applied a battery of techniques to collect examples of speech acts, but the vast majority of the work has been characterized by elicited language, wherein the starting point for the research has been the function of the speech act itself and the aim has been to investigate ways in which it is realized linguistically. Mats Deutschmann's book marks a clear departure from this tradition. His research into apologizing in British English is based solely on data from the spoken section of the British National Corpus (BNC). As a result, his starting point is also different: the form (linguistic realization) of the speech act rather than its function. Furthermore, in addition to conducting a specific investigation of the speech act “apologizing,” he sets himself the more ambitious target of revealing “general characteristics of the use of politeness formulae in British English” (p. 13).

Laura Ahearn, Invitations to love: Literacy, love letters, and social change in Nepal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Pp. xvi, 295. Pb $24.95.

“Sarita, I'm helpless….” Laura Ahearn begins her ethnography with a love letter, 21-year-old Bir Bahadur's first to Sarita, “whose long, black hair, fashionable Punjabi outfits, and demure giggles had caught his eye” (p. 3). Ahearn ponders the increasing use of such letters amid changes in literacy and marriage practices, understandings and expressions of emotions, and efforts of the Nepali state and other organizations to develop places like Junigau, the village in which most of the book's action takes place. By the book's conclusion, Ahearn has provided the means to understand the subtle paradox in Bir Bahadur's letter – that he asserts that he is “helpless” at the same time that he initiates an invitation. Ahearn demonstrates in exquisite detail that such expressions must be considered within the wider, shifting context of practices through which they emerge: that which instantiates the expression, literacy in all of its guises, and that which makes the expression meaningful, the emergence of a discourse of development that characterizes people, places, and activities.

Publications received.

While the current volume, 34, appears under the editorship of Jane H. Hill, I am no longer reviewing new manuscripts. The new editor-in-chief of Language in Society, Barbara Johnstone, is now receiving manuscripts and books for review.