The 13 essays of the present volume deal with how adults understand and how children develop coherence and textual cohesion. The collection possesses unity because the editors requested that the contributors emphasize the clause-level and linguistic markers, that they present an overview of current research, and that they show how the acquisition of particular cohesive functions manifests general principles.

Translating by factors (henceforth TBF) is an attempt at systematizing the multiplicity of factors affecting the translation process, in particular those relevant to the translation of the modals between English and German. TBF is an example of the so-called linguistic approach to translation and an illustration of why such an approach has often been criticized by translation scholars and professionals. Although it is useful to linguistics engaged in descriptive and contrastive studies of modals, the predominantly formal, sentence-based, contrastive-analysis approach embraced by the authors (who adopt, without discussion, formal equivalence as the goal to strive for in translation activity) will not be of as much use to those engaged in the teaching and practice of translation for purposes of communication. This is especially true in light of mounting empirical evidence in the translation competence literature that supports functional considerations as a dominant factor in professional translator processes.

All too often, the festschrift consists of a disparate and uneven collection of papers on a range of subjects that often only vaguely intersect with the interests of the individual whose work is being honored by the volume. This is a festschrift with a difference. It consists of a coherent collection of original papers addressing an area of applied linguistics in which Van Els made his most outstanding contribution, that of foreign language policy. The collection is given added coherence by the fact that most contributors relate their papers to the work carried out by Van Els and his team on the Dutch National Action Programme on Foreign Languages. Although the majority of the papers describe initiatives in the Netherlands, there are also contributions from researchers working in a range of other contexts including Israel, the United States, and Finland. As the editors of the volume point out, the contributions from abroad highlight the international impact of Van Els's work on language policy.

Using a conversation analytical, social interactionist approach to cognition, Wootton examines the requests made by his daughter between 18 and 36 months of age in interaction with her parents. He analyzes in detail “distressing events” or seemingly irrational temper tantrums to develop a theory of cognitive development based on the sequentiality of conversational interaction. By correlating her use of imperatives and, later, of more polite forms of requests, Wootton is able to show how the child identifies and draws on expectations of shared understanding, established through local interactional sequences of conversation, to develop her sense of cognitive relevance and moral rectitude. The intensity of the child's distress at seeing her expectations flouted leads Wootton to claim that the nature of these understandings is local, public, and moral: The child's cultural awareness is fashioned and critically conditioned precisely by those forms of sequential and interactional organization she begins to come to grips with at about the age of 2.

The goals of this volume are: (a) to demonstrate that young children are sensitive to properties of language structure (such as word order), (b) to detail a new method for studying early language comprehension, (c) to provide a novel theoretical framework for understanding early syntactic development, and (d) to provide a clear and accessible account of language acquisition. The authors succeed splendidly on all four counts.

Hickey's volume is a welcome addition to the already important body of literature on the immersion experience. This comprehensive account of preschool immersion education in Ireland provides interesting insights into areas not previously looked at. Although its focus is on Ireland, its relevance is universal and it compares the Irish experience to similar ones in New Zealand, Catalonia, Canada, and Wales.

This book is an introductory text intended for nonspecialists in sociolinguistics or linguistics. It is organized into four sections and designed so that its first section, the “Survey of Sociolinguistics,” may be read alone or along with the accompanying selected readings in the second part. The third and fourth sections are references and a glossary. The readings section also contains study questions that refer to both the survey and the readings, leading the reader to integrate the information in both sections. The topics covered in the survey include the social study of language, the ethnography of speaking and structure of conversation, locating variations in speech, styles, gender, and social class, bilinguals and bilingualism, societal multilingualism, and applied sociolinguistics (which covers language policy and planning).

Grauberg has undertaken the ambitious task of presenting in a relatively short book the linguistic and pedagogical aspects of teaching French and German as foreign languages. Despite many serious omissions, including a framework for discussing language proficiency, his classroom observations may prove useful for future French and German teachers.

Inside Language offers a somewhat new organization in the presentation of basic linguistics. Additionally, certain areas receive greater (e.g., writing) or lesser (e.g., pragmatics) emphasis than that which is traditionally found in introductory texts. Intended for both a lay audience and students of linguistics, portions of Inside Language may prove difficult for the novice, but features such as the references for further reading at the end of each chapter make this text a valuable resource for teachers and students.

Methods for assessing children's syntax is an invaluable contribution to the study of child syntax. As the editors note in their preface, the volume has two major aims. First, it is designed in part to function as a how-to manual to aid students and researchers in the selection and use of methods for investigating children's linguistic performance and competence. Second, it is intended to serve as a valuable resource for the evaluation of research in the area of child language acquisition. The volume, which includes contributions by some of the most prominent scholars in the field, succeeds admirably in fulfilling both of the above goals.

Ridley addresses two developments in language teaching and SLA research. The first development is toward learner autonomy through self-reflection. None of her subjects reported learning a language in a classroom with a focus on learning strategies, though Ridley documents their individual preferred learning strategies with data from the beginning of the study. She then formulates her first hypothesis, “that individual learners have their own preferred lexical problem-solving strategies and patterns of reflective monitoring which are manifest when they speak and also write in the target language” (p. 20).

This book is a compilation of informative chapters containing selected papers (1988–1995) that first appeared in the English Language Teaching Journal, edited by Hedge and Whitney. The chapters have been reorganized “to provide a useful resource for teachers, trainee teachers, teacher educators, students, and researchers” (p. 1).

There are few in-depth studies that have attempted to explore the complex relationships among second language proficiency, foreign language aptitude, and intelligence. Information on such studies is usually found only in unpublished dissertations or in greatly reduced form in journal articles. This text is a rare example of a full-length report of such a study. Based on data from 160 EFL students in Japan, the researcher employed an extensive array of analytical procedures relating performance on English language proficiency measures with performance on a three-part aptitude battery and an intelligence measure. The proficiency measures included multiple-choice tests of grammar, cohesion, vocabulary, listening, and reading using short and long texts as well as a cloze and a free composition. The foreign language aptitude battery was a Japanese version of a test modeled after the short version of the Modern Language Aptitude Test. The measures of verbal intelligence and reasoning came from an existing Kyoto University test with 12 subtests.

This book is for teachers who instruct “the culturally and linguistically diverse learner” (p. ix, et passim) in the United States; it reflects American community relations today. The editor's intention is to “assist you [the American teacher] in creating a sociocultural context for literacy learning within your classroom community of learners” (p. xi).

This is an excellent and stimulating book, if like me you have been disturbed at how little material can be found relating the broader psychological processes of learning a second or foreign language to the field of psychology. Narrow cognitive or psycholinguistic treatments of the area are about all that is to be found, and even they are very few in number. (A very distant predecessor of this book would be Steven McDonough's no longer viable Psychology in foreign language teaching.)

Nancy Lemberger's Bilingual education: Teachers' narratives is an interesting book, although probably not to SLA-type scholars. Bilingual education is written “to inform preservice and veteran teachers about the field of bilingual education on a very personal level” (back cover), presumably to be used as a text.

In the article “The relationship between prior knowledge and topic interest in second language reading,” by Patricia L. Carrell and Teresa E. Wise (SSLA 20(3), September 1998), the labels “Females” and “Males” should be reversed in Figure 1, page 298.

As I was preparing to do a workshop on research in second language acquisition, Evaluating research articles by Girden arrived on my desk. The timing was perfect and I was pleased to have this additional resource at my disposal. The book is designed for a wide-ranging audience, with examples presented from a variety of fields (e.g., social work, education, medicine, and psychology), although second language acquisition is not among them. The studies cited as examples include studies that are flawed in one way or the other, with the author leading the reader to understand the flaws.

The papers in Language learning through social computing introduce the classroom practices and philosophical underpinnings of computer-assisted language learning (CALL), which builds on collaborative approaches to L2 teaching and learning. The majority of the essays address general issues in collaborative learning through CALL, describing the authors' experience and reflections on L2 activities designed to engage learners in interesting discussions and projects, many of which rely on target language materials from the Internet.

This book is a timely and important contribution to the study of language acquisition. It should be of value to those engaged in active research in this field, as well as to the general reader with an interest in language acquisition and linguistics. The papers are rather technical and may be difficult for the general reader, but the introductory essay by the editor, Brent, goes a long way to provide the background and describe the contents of the other essays in a more comprehensible language for the nontechnical reader. It should be pointed out, however, that this book is about language acquisition in general (including the theory of learning), particularly the computational approach in the research. It is not specifically concerned with second language acquisition.