Florian Coulmas, Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers' choices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 263. Pb $29.99.

In his new textbook, Coulmas provides readers an easy introduction to sociolinguistics, using speaker choice as the central notion for discussion. In a comfortable conversational style, the author slowly introduces topics, using common examples to demonstrate how sociolinguists think about language use. He provides summaries of findings of key sociolinguistic studies that illustrate ideas without overloading readers with unnecessary and cumbersome details of those studies. The book is accessible for beginning sociolinguistics students and is equally engaging for those already familiar with sociolinguistic concepts, largely because the author uses such interesting and global research to illustrate ideas.

Jake Harwood and Howard Giles (eds.), Intergroup communication: Multiple perspectives. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. Pp. viii, 277. Pb $29.95.

Social psychologists have long been concerned with the ways in which group categories operate in the organization of social life, but communication scholars have been slower to examine such intergroup processes. Editors Jake Harwood and Howard Giles present a pioneering collection on intergroup communication, which, they argue, deserves to stand on its own as a distinct research area. It is notable that while this volume examines intergroup issues, this endeavor is – in and of itself – intergroup in nature, bringing together the fields of social psychology and communication. Covering an impressive breadth of social groups and contexts, the chapters in this collection draw heavily on social identity theory (SIT) in the study of intergroup communication. Linguistic anthropologists and qualitative sociolinguists investigate many of the same issues covered in this volume – most notably culture, gender, sexuality, and multilingualism – with vastly different theoretical models and methodological tools. Still, this book should appeal to all types of scholars who may be at the very least curious about how theoretical trends in social psychology and communication might inform shared areas of concern, despite what may be irreconcilable ontological differences.

Robbins Burling, The talking ape: How language evolved. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 286. Hb $30.00.

Among those who theorize about the evolution of language, there are several camps, including those who argue that language evolved slowly from primate gesture-calls, and those who surmise that syntax is so complicated that it must have come from a single genetic mutation. Robbins Burling agrees fully with neither and argues that language is a separate system from gesture-calls, but that language did evolve slowly through natural and sexual selection. He invites us to look at the social uses of language and the cultural value of its complicated, embellished nature.

Noriko O. Onodera, Japanese discourse markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004. Pp. xiv, 253. Hb $132.00.

Onodera's work is one of the first historical-pragmatic studies of Japanese, which is typologically dissimilar to Indo-European languages. After providing background information (Ch. 1 and 2), Onodera (hereafter O) presents her latest thoughts on the evolution of Japanese discourse markers (DMs), dealing with two types coming from different sources: demo type connectives (so-called adversative conjunctions), originally from clause-final connecting devices (Ch. 3 and 4), and na elements (often called sentence-final particles (SFPs)/interjections of agreement), originally from SFPs (Ch. 5 and 6), followed by the conclusion.

Coulter H. George, Expressions of agency in ancient Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 288. Hb. $85.

Expressions of agency in ancient Greek is a meticulous study of the development of passive-with-agent constructions (PACs) in ancient Greek, covering the timespan from Preclassical Greek to the 12th century ce. The author focuses on the complex history of the various, primarily prepositional, agent markers of passive voice verbs in various moods and tenses, such as participles or perfect verbs. He defines a passive verb as a detransitivized verb that retains the idea of agency whether or not it is expressed. The agent is to be defined as an oblique nominal occurring with a passive verb that would be the subject if the sentence were rewritten in the active voice.

Christopher Williams, Tradition and change in legal English: Verbal constructions in prescriptive texts. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. pp. 216. $46.95.

Christopher Williams analyzes the use of constructions such as modals and semi-modals such as shall and may and the use of the present simple as these constructions appear in English prescriptive legal texts. Using a large corpus of texts from a variety of English-speaking countries and international organizations, Williams focuses primarily on legislative texts, which are often characterized as including archaic or rarely used words and foreign words, the repetition of particular words and phrases, the use of long, complex sentences, and the passive voice (p. 31). Williams's analysis, thoughtfully designed and carried out, is an informative examination of how and why legal language has resisted change. The book also provides an engaging look at the Plain Language Movement and the impact this movement has had on legal texts.

Roy Harris, The semantics of science. London: Continuum International, 2005. Pp. xvi, 240. Hb $149.00, Pb $49.00

At least back to The language myth (1981), Roy Harris (not related to this reviewer) has plied variations of the same salvationist argument, in his customarily grumpy and entertaining style. If you're familiar with this argument, leap ahead to the third paragraph; if not, a quick synopsis, both of the errors he wants to save us from and of the salve he wants us to buy, will best place The semantics of science for you.

Christopher J. Hall, An introduction to language and linguistics: Breaking the language spell. London/New York: Continuum, 2005. Pp. xvii, 344. Pb. $24.95.

Part 1, “Magic,” introduces language and linguistics. The “Language Spell” is Hall's metaphor for human beings' misperception of the nature of language as primarily social. The insights of (generative) linguistics hold the key to breaking the Spell, by revealing the “essential biological reality” of the “language faculty” (xii). The book opens with a discussion of language and thought (“mentalese”), where terms like “mystery” (10), “miracle” (11), “cognitive magic” (14), and the assignment of increasingly volitional features to the Spell (e.g., 26) set the tone.

Valerie Pellegrino Aveni, Study abroad and second language use: Constructing the self. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xii, 188. Hb $75, Pb $32.99

Aveni's book is the result of her experiences in Russia as a coordinator and researcher with a cohort of 76 American students in a study abroad program during the 1995–1996 academic year. The volume consists of four chapters and three appendixes. Focusing on the construction of “the self,” Aveni's study examines the social and psychological factors that affect language learners' spontaneous use of a second language (L2) and the ways in which learners exploit and avoid spontaneous speaking opportunities (p. 2).

Samy Alim. You know my Steez: An ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of styleshifting in a Black American speech community. Duke University Press, 2005. pp. Xi, 309. Hb $20.00.

Samy Alim's book is a balanced blend of hip hop linguistics, ethnography, and advocacy. There is an underlying intensity to his writing that challenges all researchers to become more active in applying their research to the benefit of the community. Most impressively, Alim puts his money where his mouth when it comes to linguistic advocacy. Paying lip service to the idea that African American English or Black Language is linguistically and socially legitimate is one thing; it is another to employ it in written form in a scholarly text. Yet Alim seamlessly shifts back and forth between a hip hop form of Black Language and Standard English, alerting the reader to his own stylistic range while serving to legitimize the language he uses. Furthermore, he does so in a style that is both lucid and transparent for readers less familiar with linguistic jargon.

Claudia V. Angelelli, Medical interpreting and cross-cultural communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xiii, 153. Hb $75.00.

Claudia Angelelli's study of medical interpreting, based on her 2001 Stanford dissertation, constitutes a valuable addition to a series of empirical studies of community interpreting (Wadensjö 1992, 1998; Metzger 1999; Bolden 2000; Roy 2000) that make use of discourse analysis to uncover what actually takes place in interpreter-mediated encounters between professionals and their clients (or patients) who do not speak the same language. These studies share a common theme: to reveal the interpreter as an interactive participant in cross-cultural communication rather than a mere relayer of linguistic messages from one language to another. Adopting a primarily ethnographic approach, Angelelli sets out to refute the “myth of invisibility” (p. 2) by showing that medical interpreters are visible, interactive agents in interpreted communicative events.

Ronald K. S. Macaulay. Talk that counts: Age, gender, and social class differences in discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005. Pp 3–225.

In Talk that counts: Age, gender and social class differences in discourse, Ron Macaulay tackles two contentious but very different issues within Labovian Sociolinguistics. The first is the analysis of discourse level phenomena, specifically how to deal with ‘higher level’ variation within a quantitative paradigm. The second is Bernstein's (1971) restricted vs. elaborated code and the claim that middle class speakers have access to a more complex range of discourse structures when compared to lower class speakers. His findings on both are revealing.

Martin J. Ball (ed.), Clinical sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Pp. xx, 335. Pb $39.95.

Clinical sociolinguistics is aimed primarily at speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and similar professionals. Its purpose is to bridge the historical gap between sociolinguistics and clinical speech-language pathology. The book is relevant not only to SLPs, however, but also to sociolinguists interested in the clinical applications of their field and in addressing the gap between the two fields.

Nils Langer and Winifred Davies (eds.), Linguistic purism in the Germanic languages. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005. Pp. viii, 374. Hb $137.00

Prescriptivist attitudes toward language have always been with us, and complaints about decline and decay, about foreign infiltration, about the inadequacy of certain dialects – these matters are as perennial as misgivings about the younger generation. Within the scholarly community, there is a long tradition of studying language attitudes, supplemented recently by a revived interest in “folk linguistics” and “perceptual dialectology.” This sort of attention has generally coincided with arguments against prescriptivist intervention, on the grounds that it is neither appropriate nor feasible to attempt to direct vernacular usage. (Hohenhaus, however, in his chapter on computer communication patterns, points out that a refusal to intervene is, itself, a sort of “reverse purism.”) Historically, of course, matters were rather different in intellectual and policy circles and, indeed, prescriptivist intervention remains common: Decisions have to be made when national languages “emerge” and when some print standardization is found necessary; debates about identity choice and maintenance are often argued in linguistic arenas; language-planning exercises involve some degree of control; and contemporary debate about what (if anything) ought to be done on behalf of “endangered” varieties also implies a prescriptivist attitude. As Kristine Horner points out in her chapter on Luxembourg, labels can often confuse in such broad areas of activity: What is seen as purism when directed toward “foreign” elements may be tagged as standardization when the focus is inward. In a broad sense, then, there is a great deal of information in the literature about prescriptivist attitudes and activities; when the editors suggest that “only one monograph” (by George Thomas) has so far attempted to theorize about purism, they are being a little too restrictive.

Walt Wolfram & Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English: Dialects and variation. (Language in Society, 25). 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Pp. xv, 452. Pb $36.95.

American English, an introductory textbook about dialect variation, is a revised version of the textbook that first appeared in 1998 and represents another addition to the array of educational materials about American dialects that the first author has been producing for over three decades. It is a versatile textbook with an intended audience of any student who takes a “course on dialects” (p. x). Its lack of linguistic formalism and statistics makes it accessible to students with no linguistics background, and its continued emphasis on the relevance of dialect awareness to American society will help non-linguists apply the material effectively. Owing to its wide scope, it cannot delve too deeply into any of the theoretical issues; however, its succinct overviews of the debates, annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter, and copious examples from a range of dialects make it a useful reference for experienced linguists.

Kate Burridge, Weeds in the garden of words: Further observations on the tangled history of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 196. Pb $19.99.

In this sequel to Blooming English, Kate Burridge continues her metaphor of the English language as garden, this time by examining its “weeds.” As any gardener will tell you, a weed is a plant which dares to grow where it's not wanted; by extension, Burridge's “weeds” are lexical and grammatical forms in English seen as unwanted by prescriptivists. However, just as one gardener's weed is another's beautiful wildflower, words with very positive connotations nowadays were once an insult reserved for the evil (e.g., wizard), and forms such as passives, which so annoy modern style manual writers, are plentiful in many of the greatest works of English literature. Like Burridge's previous volume, Weeds consists primarily of rewritten pieces she created for a radio program and these can be read in any order.

Anna Trosborg & Poul Erik Flyvholm Jørgensen (eds.), Business discourse: Texts and contexts. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. Pp. 250, Pb. $55.95.

This book consists of nine chapters analyzing various genres of business discourse, and an introduction written by the editors. All of the chapters in the book would be strengthened by more rigorous data analysis procedures, whether quantitative or qualitative. Nevertheless, there is much of value in the book, parts of which will be of use to a wide range of potential audiences. Okamura interviewed office workers in international businesses about the use of address terms in the workplace, both in English and in their mother tongue, comparing Japanese with Swedish, British, Canadian, American, and Dutch speakers. Interviewees' accommodation to the cultural norms of the group differed according to the power of the speaker: Higher-status employees were less likely to adopt local norms over their own country's addressing conventions. While Okamura acknowledges that his sample size is small, and that transcriptions of actual interactions would be a stronger data source than the interviews he relied on, his findings are interesting and potentially useful for courses on intercultural communication, business communication, or the sociology of language.

Susana Mühleisen & Bettina Migge (eds.), Politeness and face in Caribbean creoles. (Varieties of English Around the World, G34.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. vi, 293. Hb.

This collective volume starts with an overview by the editors on “Politeness and face in Caribbean creoles.” Eleven chapters, mostly fieldwork-based, are presented in three sections: I, “Performing rudeness and face maintenance,” II, “Face attention and the public and private self,” and III, “Socialization and face development.”

Joan A. Argenter and R. McKenna Brown (eds.) Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: on the Margins of Nations. Proceedings of the Eighth FEL Conference, Barcelona (Catalonia), Spain, 1–3 October, 2004. Bath: Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2004. 228 pp. Pb £17/US$32.

Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers originally presented at the Foundation for Endangered Language's (FEL) annual conference; the 2004 meeting was held in Barcelona. The great majority of the papers are written in English, with a few in Spanish and one in Catalan.

Sol Steinmetz and Barbara Ann Kipfer, The life of language: The fascinating ways words are born, live, and die. New York: Random House, 2006. Pp. xii, 388. Pb $16.95

In 1862, Max Müller published the first of his two volumes on The Science of Language, lectures delivered at the Royal Institution the previous year. The books are among the very earliest examples of “popular” discussions of important linguistic issues, and no doubt the first by a distinguished scholar. They set a standard that has been very frequently emulated, but very rarely equaled. We see in our own time an avalanche of popular books on language, all aimed at a broad and continuing interest that is hardly surprising in a subject of such immediate and ubiquitous presence. Of course, the quality varies immensely. There are basic problems even with the best of them, and the most basic of all are the reconciliation of an appealing scope with a reasonable amount of depth and, relatedly, the provision of some thematic continuity in treatments typically composed of a large number of entries. The most common results, then, are books that are something like dictionaries, something like encyclopedias and, often, something like cabinets of curiosities.