MLJ ReviewsEdited by JUDITH E. LISKIN–GASPARRO

University of Iowa

MLJ Review Policy

The MLJ reviews books, monographs, com-puter software, and materials that (a) present re-sults of research in—and methods of—foreignand second language teaching and learning;(b) are devoted to matters of general interest tomembers of the profession; (c) are intended pri-marily for use as textbooks or instructional aids inclassrooms where foreign and second languages,literatures, and cultures are taught; and (d) con-vey information from other disciplines that relatesdirectly to foreign and second language teachingand learning. Reviews not solicited by the MLJ canneither be accepted nor returned. Books and ma-terials that are not reviewed in the MLJ cannotbe returned to the publisher. Responses shouldbe typed with double spacing and submitted elec-tronically online at our Manuscript Central ad-dress: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mlj

THEORY AND PRACTICE

ALLFORD, DOUGLAS, & NORBERT PACHLER.Language, Autonomy and the New Learning Envi-ronments. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang, 2007.Pp. vii, 292, $71.95, paper. ISBN 3–03910–567–1.

Autonomous language learning is grounded inthe latest research on second language acqui-sition (SLA) and computer-assisted languagelearning (CALL), which provides direction andimplications on how technological advances canbe utilized to improve second language profi-ciency. The global literature base is considerable,and in Language, Autonomy and the New LearningEnvironments, Allford and Pachler argue that asnew technological and institutional learning envi-ronments appear, there is a need for language un-derstanding and autonomous learning. Framedwithin three main strands (language understand-ing, autonomous language learning, and the newlearning environments) and with examples takenfrom the United Kingdom, the authors examinedifferent aspects of language learning. Although

co-authored with significant collaboration, sevenof the nine chapters (ch. 1–6 and 9) were writtenby Allford. Prior to beginning the text, readersshould bookmark or spend time becoming famil-iar with 35 mostly uncommon acronyms listed be-fore the first chapter.

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of how theinformation age has removed learning from thetraditional classroom and has taken it to a pos-sible mixed-mode and distance-learning setting.This new digital venue allows for the constructionof knowledge through computer-mediated inter-action and more pronounced learner autonomyvia online networks. Stating that lifelong learningmay not be optional any longer and that learningnew skills will probably be necessary to earn a liv-ing, the authors remind readers that new technol-ogy is changing the face of education. Here, thegroundwork for the book is set when the authorspresent the framework for the text and “examinehow discussions of language education can be-come easily confused” (p. 11). Near the end, thegoals of the book are set forth, which may help thein-service language teacher to think and decideabout language understanding and autonomouslearning without reducing the subject to any sin-gle theory.

Chapters 2 through 4 discuss different aspectsof language learning. In chapter 2, the authorspresent their concept of language understandingas an alternative to the term language awareness,which may be of service to the language instructor.This new definition includes proficiency in bothfirst (L1) and second (L2) languages, literacy inelectronic media, and learner consciousness ofthe language in metalinguistic terms, which hasthe “practical advantage of making language moreintelligible” (p. 32).

In chapter 3, language understanding inrelation to the L1 is explored through a varietyof recent approaches in the United Kingdom,including traditional grammar instruction andcontemporary approaches to grammar. The au-thors also examine whether grammar study canbe linked explicitly and effectively to writing andreading texts. Chapter 4 deals with the type ofknowledge required for the learner to be pro-ficient in the L2. Although the conditions for

440 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

effective grammar study are presented, the au-thors note several objections to explicit gram-mar teaching and present the notion that gram-mar can be integrated during real language useopportunities.

Chapter 5 provides the premise for au-tonomous language learning, in which learnersaccept responsibility for their learning with L2proficiency as the goal. Two broad approaches toautonomous language learning—radicalism andgradualism—as well as the learner’s metalinguis-tic and metacognitive knowledge in the learn-ing process, are discussed. The discussion may behelpful to the in-service instructor who is attempt-ing to learn more about the changing learningenvironment.

Chapters 6 and 7 should be of particular inter-est to administrators and language coordinators.Chapter 6 describes the learning environmentfor autonomous language learning in the UnitedKingdom, pointing out that effective autonomouslanguage learning is costly. Allford and Pachlerexplain that reducing teaching staff positions andincreasing new technology do not create the con-ditions for autonomous language learning. Theauthors argue that greater teacher involvementmay be necessary, and they advocate elementsof constructivist and sociocultural theories as aconceptual framework for autonomous languagelearning. Chapter 7 contains a discussion of UKeducational policy as it relates to information andcommunication technology. A description of howtraditional education is being revised as learningtakes place outside of educational establishmentsprecedes a discussion of the major implications ofdistance learning opportunities. The authors notethat “traditional notions of literacy are no longeradequate” (p. 210) because of the stability of tech-nology in our lives. New technologies are emerg-ing, and the authors discuss their characteristicsand potential for language learning, which maybe of interest to veteran teachers who tend to notinclude technology in the language classroom.

Chapter 8 focuses on cognitive and social–interactionist perspectives, in which Allford andPachler give a concise and valuable overview ofCALL for the language educator, which leads to adiscussion of models and principles of online ande-learning. A critical examination of the implica-tions from distance learning in the L2 context fol-lows. The final chapter summarizes the previouseight chapters, and the authors offer some con-clusions that they feel are significant yet contro-versial. Although the authors highlight examplesfrom the United Kingdom, the content appearsto be universal for a variety of readers and rel-

evant to the discussion of autonomous languagelearning.

PETER B. SWANSONGeorgia State University

BRANDL, KLAUS. Communicative LanguageTeaching in Action: Putting Principles to Work. Up-per Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.Pp. 464. $86.60, paper, ISBN 9780131579064.

Filling the need for a new text to guide second andforeign language (FL) methodological instruc-tion, this book describes and demonstrates princi-ples and practices associated with communicativelanguage teaching (CLT) and task-based instruc-tion. With an intended readership that includes“pre- and in-service teacher education majors, uni-versity teaching assistants, and English as a secondlanguage (ESL) majors and instructors” (p. vii),the author presents a conceptual approach to CLTthat does not adhere to one particular theory oflearning but rather is based on “a plethora of theo-retical and empirical findings drawn from secondlanguage acquisition research, cognitive psychol-ogy, and brain research” (p. vii). Unencumberedby the need to promote one particular theory orapproach, Brandl presents an expansive and thor-ough overview of the current state of CLT andoffers practical suggestions for task-based instruc-tion in the FL classroom.

The work begins with a general review of thehistory associated with CLT and task-based instruc-tion and identifies eight methodological princi-ples that form the theoretical foundation that un-derlies Brandl’s approach to language teaching.Brandl then discusses lesson planning before in-troducing specific components of language teach-ing, including vocabulary instruction, grammarteaching, and error correction. Later chapters fo-cus on instructional sequencing, task design, andthe development of listening, oral communica-tion, and reading skills. The book concludes witha chapter dealing with assessment and languagelearning.

Chapters that are particularly well developedinclude those treating the role of feedback and er-ror correction and lesson planning and the chap-ter on instructional sequencing and task design.Especially welcome is the chapter on lesson plan-ning, a topic of importance to new language teach-ers that is often overlooked in FL methodologytexts. All of the chapters contain a variety of prac-tical suggestions and activities that demonstrate

Reviews 441

how concepts can be implemented in the class-room environment. In addition to clearly delin-eated objectives, each chapter concludes with an“Explorations” section that presents topics for dis-cussion and activities such as lesson and languagetextbook analyses. Also included at the end ofeach chapter is an “Application” section intendedto allow novice teachers to demonstrate and usewhat they have learned.

The decision to begin the book with a chap-ter that provides an introduction to CLT, a com-mon practice for FL teaching texts, makes sense.However, many new teachers are required to in-struct language students while taking a languagemethodology class. Given that new instructorscome from a variety of cultures with diverse ap-proaches to language instruction, clear guidelinesdescribing their instructional role and explor-ing issues related to classroom management inthe CLT context would have been helpful andwill likely need to be provided through anothersource, given that instructors new to the CLT en-vironment are in need of more practical adviceand less theory during their first weeks in theclassroom.

In addition to classroom management, othertopics not thoroughly addressed are FL writingand the teaching of culture. Although Brandlmakes references to each throughout the book,one wonders why neither topic merited its ownchapter. The absence of coverage is especiallyperplexing with regard to FL writing, as the au-thor repeatedly advocates a process rather thanproduct approach to language instruction andyet he focuses primarily on writing as a product;for example, when he refers to writing, he paysmore attention to feedback, error correction, andgrammatical concerns than he does to contentand rhetorical issues. This treatment of writing isnot in line with the process-oriented, multidraftapproach currently advocated by writing special-ists in both first and second language instruction.With regard to culture, perhaps the vastness of thetopic makes it difficult to address adequately; yetits absence, except for the occasional reference,is obvious and a bit disconcerting.

Another interesting aspect of the text is the roleof the student in the FL classroom. Although themethodological approaches to instruction advo-cated in this work are varied, the individualiza-tion of instruction to meet specific learner needsis not consistently treated, nor is the need forstudents to become active participants in theirown learning. A description of the benefits oflearner-centered instruction does not appear un-til page 288, and although instructors are repeat-

edly asked to reflect on the rationale behind in-structional choices, rarely are they reminded todiscuss these choices with students. Additionally,although Brandl refers to learner self-evaluationand self-monitoring, he does not suggest that stu-dent input be solicited with regard to instructionalpractices. In addition, nowhere is it suggested thatinstructors explore students’ individual learningstyles in an attempt to tailor instruction to stu-dents’ needs.

Still, the work is refreshingly open-ended, as theauthor does not stake out a position in the theo-retical debates on how second languages are ac-quired. This openness to eclectic ways of teachingallows for the inclusion of approaches that havefallen out of favor in other methods texts, such asrepetition for pronunciation practice and read-ing aloud by students and instructors. Moreover,Brandl suggests presentation of grammatical ex-planations and paradigms when appropriate, aswell as the occasional reliance on students’ firstlanguage codeswitching in the FL classroom set-ting. By including a wider variety of activities thanseen in some CLT methods texts, Brandl leaves itto instructors and students in the teaching meth-ods classroom to discuss the merits and limitationsof each.

Finally, some small editing errors in the text,particularly with regard to erroneous appendixreferences and page numbering in the subject in-dex, are distracting. These minor diversions, how-ever, do not detract from the text’s overall quality.The book is replete with useful information, and itprovides a broad conceptual foundation for CLTand task-based FL instruction.

MARY E. O’DONNELLSouth Dakota State University

BRUCE, IAN. Academic Writing and Genre: A Sys-tematic Analysis. New York: Continuum, 2008. Pp.v, 268. $150.00, cloth. ISBN 0–8264–9844–2.

In the field of second language (L2) teaching,there is a general consensus that instructionthat focuses on isolated pieces of language, bethey phonemes, words, or sentences, is inade-quate. This belief has led to arguments for akind of pedagogy that integrates various languageskills and knowledge sources to develop learners’ability to interpret and produce extended dis-course. Bruce’s book provides a detailed discus-sion of how genre-based approaches to languagepedagogy can inform the teaching of academic

442 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

writing. It consists of seven chapters as well as fiveappendixes, which provide further informationabout the themes discussed in the book.

Chapter 1 begins by discussing the major con-cepts underlying genre-based approaches to lan-guage pedagogy, including the notions of com-municative and discourse competence and thedifferent definitions and classifications of genre.The chapter then introduces two main categoriesof genre: social genre and cognitive genre. Socialgenre is taken to refer to the classification of textsin terms of their social purposes (e.g., personal let-ters, academic texts, novels) and cognitive genreto the classification of texts in terms of their cog-nitive orientation and rhetorical functions (e.g.,narrative, expository, argumentative). The authoruses these two genre categories as a frameworkfor discussing the various proposals about genre-based approaches to teaching academic writing insubsequent chapters.

Chapter 2 focuses on social genre. Two influ-ential pedagogical approaches to this kind ofgenre are subjected to critical discussion: a sys-temic functional approach, which defines genrein terms of its schematic and lexicogrammaticalstructure, and an English for specific purposesapproach, which examines genre in terms of thespecific needs of the groups for which a text isintended. The author concludes that these twoapproaches to genre tend to focus on convention-ally recognized organizations of text and the lin-guistic features used to represent them. However,to be adequate, an approach is needed that con-siders not only the social and linguistic elementsof texts but also the cognitive knowledge involvedin textual representation. This discussion leads tochapter 3, which reviews in detail the inadequaciesof a primarily social approach to genre analysisand then presents a cognitive genre structure thatcan reconcile the socially organized patterns oftext and the embodying linguistic system. To thisend, the chapter discusses a number of cognitivemodels of genre categorization such as prototypetheory, schema theory, and concepts related torepresentation of knowledge in specific domainssuch as scripts, plans, frames, and scenarios.

Chapter 4 focuses on the operationalization ofa cognitive genre model in academic writing. Theauthor discusses issues related to the identifica-tion of cognitive knowledge underlying extendeddiscourse, and he then presents a model of cogni-tive discourse that includes four types of cognitivegenres (report, explanation, discussion, and re-count) and their underlying discourse structures.The chapter ends with a review of the empiricalresearch that has contributed to the development

of the model. Chapter 5 provides a detailed dis-cussion of the pedagogical application of the cog-nitive genre model proposed in chapter 4. It be-gins by relating the model to language learningtheories and presenting a discussion of the issuesconcerning curriculum design for general Englishfor academic purposes (EAP) courses. It then dis-cusses the different ways in which the proposedmodel can be used as a basis for developing aca-demic writing syllabi. The chapter concludes withan example of a cognitive genre-based syllabusunit for general EAP courses. Chapter 6 revisitsthe concept of social genre introduced in chapter2. It discusses the different aspects and types ofknowledge related to social genres and cognitivegenres. Chapter 7 demonstrates the relationshipbetween the two by providing an example of asyllabus unit on writing “research reports” in apostgraduate writing course. The aim of the unitis to assist learners to develop skills in examin-ing and analyzing the different sections of suchreports (e.g., introduction, methods, results, anddiscussion) to discover the social and textual struc-tures and conventions within that particular typeof genre.

A real strength of the book lies in its thoroughdiscussion of a genre-based model that can beused as a tool for designing and teaching generalacademic writing courses. The model is mainlycognitive, but it also takes into account the so-cial domains of genre. The basis of the model iswell explained and is informed by both theoryand research. Although the model is meant tobe general and not domain-specific, it highlightsthe importance of various types of knowledge thatare involved in teaching both lower level studentsin general EAP courses and higher level onesin more advanced discipline-specific courses. Myonly comment concerns the emphasis on the top–down nature of the model. Of course, the authorconsiders the need for a bottom–up perspective,as well. However, still the major focus is taken to beon top–down discoursal processes. Given this em-phasis, I wonder how, by using such a model, wecan ensure that balanced attention is paid to bothmacrolevel discourse features and microlevel lin-guistic forms needed to encode them accurately inacademic writing. Perhaps it would have been use-ful to have a section on the potential limitationsof genre-based approaches to academic writing oran overview of the empirical studies that have ex-amined the efficacy of such proposals for learners’development of academic writing competence.

Taken together, this book provides a com-prehensive examination of genre-based ap-proaches to academic writing. It contains detailed

Reviews 443

information of how genre-based models can beconceptualized and utilized as a basis for develop-ing EAP writing courses. It is a valuable resourcefor anyone interested in the use of genre-basedapproaches to academic writing.

HOSSEIN NASSAJIUniversity of Victoria

COHEN, ANDREW D., & ERNESTO MACARO.(Eds.). Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years ofResearch and Practice . New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2007. Pp. 344. $31.50, paper. ISBN 0–1944–2254–2.

As a graduate student in an Applied Linguisticsprogram 20 years ago I was required to read “Whatthe ‘Good Language Learner’ Can Teach Us,” firstpublished in 1975 by Joan Rubin. That article, ac-cording to chapter 1 of Language Learner Strate-gies (LLS), marks the emergence of what is nowknown as LLS research. This book attempts to syn-thesize the work that has been done to unearthwhat good language learners do intuitively.

The edited volume is divided into two parts,with seven and five chapters respectively, each co-authored by an expert in the field. Part 1, “Issues,Theories and Frameworks,” begins with a historylesson. Chapter 1 chronicles the field of LLS fromthe mid-1970s to the present. Prior to that time,language learning was understood first in psycho-logical terms as a habit or response to a stimulus.Even Chomsky’s departure from tradition did notinclude the environment of language learning.Not until Dell Hymes (1972) and the recognitionof the importance of social context did strategybegin to be studied. Next, the chapter consid-ers controversies and counterclaims. The earliestcritics argued that externalizing what is going oninside learners’ heads is impossible and that theeffectiveness of teaching strategies could not becausally linked to improved language learning.More recent criticism comes from those who dis-miss LLS because of the inability of those withinthe field to agree on what exactly a strategy is,which brings us to the next chapter.

Chapter 2 reports on the results of a 2004 survey(accessed on the book’s Web site) of 19 experts,intended to uncover how experts understand anduse “terms and issues in the field of LLS” (p. 29).Andrew Cohen, the chapter author, volume ed-itor, and designer of the survey, concludes that“the areas of consensus outweighed those of dis-agreement” (p. 43) and proceeds to candidly enu-merate each one. Interestingly, an agreed-upon

definition of strategy was not among the results.However, two definitions are offered in chapter 3.The first, from a psychological perspective, is “aspecific plan, action behavior, step, or techniquethat individual learners use, with some degree ofconsciousness, to improve their progress in devel-oping skills in [a second language]” (pp. 47–48).A strategy from the sociocultural perspective is “alearner’s socially mediated plan of action to meeta goal, which is related directly or indirectly to L2learning” (p. 48). After exploring self-regulation,motivation, aptitude, and activity from the twoperspectives, the authors conclude by calling forgenuine dialogue between the two camps, whichhave historically been at odds.

The next two chapters are largely literaturereviews. Chapter 4 summarizes strategy researchin relation to six variables (e.g., age, personal-ity type) and then focuses on studies that report,first, on individual learner variables and, second,on how strategies are cultivated in the classroom.Chapter 5 considers the methodology of LLS re-search starting with “the most frequently usedand efficient” (p. 94) self-report questionnaires.Pros and cons of other research approaches, in-cluding journals, interviews, and observation, arepresented. Much attention is given to a methodknown as think-aloud. Detailed examples andrecommendations serve as counsel for would-be researchers, especially those who work withchildren.

The goal of chapter 6 is to advance grammar toa place among the other categories of strategy re-search. This is done by considering various typesof second language (L2) grammar instruction andstrategies that might be associated with each. Thelast chapter in part 1 is a practical presentation ofstrategy-based instruction for all ages and levels ofL2 education. Important features include model-ing strategies and encouraging learner awarenessof how the strategies aid their learning.

Each chapter in part 2, “Reviewing Thirty Yearsof Empirical LLS Research,” is a review of one ofthe following strategies: listening, reading, oral,writing, and vocabulary learning. Readers are di-rected to appendixes found on the book’s Website, one per chapter, which contain charts sum-marizing the studies reviewed. An introduction topart 2 explains how the systematic review was ac-complished, admitting limitations due to, amongother things, volume and accessibility of research.

A strength of this book is that it covers 30 yearsof work with a depth and scope that is approach-able to the uninitiated while also contributingsomething meaningful to those familiar with thefield. That said, this book is not for the faint ofheart. That no one even suggests a definition of

444 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

strategy until the third chapter is somewhat off-putting, especially to those new to the field. Thefact that the 15-page chapter that claims to coverterminology never offers a working definition ofstrategy lends some support to those who claimthat there is a lack of consensus in the field. How-ever, the first chapter does a good job of orientingthe reader to the history of the field.

The editors and authors are to be commendedfor the collaborative nature from which they ap-proached the book. In the introduction, the ed-itors state their commitment to multiperspectivedialogue, peer evaluation, and team effort. Fur-ther, the editors assert that this book is to cele-brate the work that has been done in the LLS field,but also that it will be “highly self-critical” (p. 1).Included in the book are instances in which theauthors accept criticism, but certainly their biasshows as they advocate, promote, and defend LLSresearch.

Accessing the book’s Web site is cumbersome.One has to register, supplying name and contactinformation. Once granted access, I found the ap-pendixes (Word documents) to be inconsistent.Not all of the research-review charts have the sameheaders, some are spaced such that reading is dif-ficult, and one even had a note in the margin thatthe work was incomplete. Even so, it was helpfuland impressive to see all of the research organized(more or less) in one place by type of publica-tion, subjects studied, language of subjects, andso forth. The breadth and depth of coverage iswhat not only makes part 2 of this book impres-sive, but it also adds credence to the conclusionsdrawn in each of the review chapters.

Practitioners, researchers, and advanced stu-dents of second language acquisition and appliedlinguistics will find this book a valuable additionto their bookshelves if they want to better under-stand the history, application, shortcomings, andbenefits of language learner strategy.

KATHLEEN TACELOSKYWilliam Jewell College

CONACHER, JEAN E., & HELEN KELLY–HOLMES. (Eds.). New Learning Environments forLanguage Learning: Moving Beyond the Classroom?Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang, 2007. Pp. 206.$39.95, cloth. ISBN 3–631–55342–0.

As stated by the editors, this collection of es-says seeks to explore the currently popular termnew learning environment (NLE) from a varietyof perspectives. The work is divided into five

parts: “Interpreting New Language Learning En-vironments,” “Changing Contexts for LanguageLearning,” “Developing Teaching and Learning,”“Promoting Intercultural Learning,” and “Explor-ing New Media.” The essays are written in English,French, or German. The abstracts are written in adifferent language, which makes the content ac-cessible to a broader range of readers.

In the first chapter, the editors set the directionsfor the book by emphasizing that new environmentsis often understood as the use of information andcommunication technologies, such as virtual envi-ronments. Instead of limiting the term NLE by ex-clusively associating new learning environmentswith virtual environments, they suggest an envi-ronment be considered new every time a changeoccurs or when a teacher switches to a learn-ing environment that differs from the languageclassroom context. This perspective has led theeditors to integrate contributions with a focuson a wide array of topics, such as Web pagesto support teacher development, project-basedlearning, teachers’ use of error correction tech-niques, using the Internet to teach film, learner-self-reported assessments of their languagescompetencies in online portfolios, and online-based courses for cultural explorations.

The treatment of such a breadth of topics makesit easy to lose sight of the connecting theme ofthe book. The book could have benefited fromconcentrating on a more focused range of top-ics. At the same time, many of the environmentsor general themes that are explored in the bookcan hardly be considered new, given that project-based learning dates back more than a centuryand the Internet has been around for more thantwo decades. Nevertheless, this collection of es-says offers some interesting and innovative ideason how different learning environments can beexploited by teachers and students alike, such asusing the Internet for sharing resources and forspecific instructional purposes, like teacher devel-opment or cultural explorations through the useof multimedia.

For those readers who are not familiar withproject-based learning, Vollmer’s contributionprovides a brief overview of different types of lan-guage learning projects. Mishan’s contribution,which describes the linguistic and interactionalfeatures of online chats as used by English na-tive speakers, is also informative. The reader willalso find a variety of project and course descrip-tions. One of them is the LOLLIPOP project(see Bruen and Sherry’s contribution), in whichlearners are asked to describe their qualifications,self-assess their learning skills, and provide fur-ther evidence of their competencies by submitting

Reviews 445

collected samples of work. In another contri-bution, Kidd describes a WebCT–based onlinecourse, entitled Paris Virtuels Urbains, which is or-ganized around a range of theme-based itinerariesmoving between metro stations. Such a course de-sign makes for a rather innovative approach toexploring French culture.

The book also includes a number of researchstudies exploring questions and issues, such ashow students perceive the potential of transfer-able skills acquired through language learning,the usefulness of the Internet as a tool for teachertraining, and different occurrences of correctivefeedback. This section of the book was clearly theweakest. In nearly all of the studies, the focus is onthe learning environment itself, such as the use ofWebCT. Such a focus is problematic. There is nodoubt that a learning environment affects learn-ers’ affective and cognitive engagements. Whatmatters most, however, are the types of learningtasks that learners engage in and how they explorecontent. It is the design features and characteris-tics of tasks that drive the learning process, andlearning environment plays only a peripheral andsupportive role. A focus on the use of tasks is miss-ing. The results reported by these studies in thisbook can be considered only as suggestive andneed to be interpreted with caution.

In conclusion, I am left with the question ofwhether this work makes a valuable contributionto the field of applied linguistics and lives up toits claims. My response is that it does so only inpart. Considering the wide variety of topics dealtwith in this book, a more appropriate title mighthave been Conference Proceedings of the 10th Interna-tional Colloquium on Foreign Language Teaching , or-ganized by the European Doctoral Network (nowLandscape), because that is what this book seemsto be. Nevertheless, readers may find some of thecourse or project descriptions in this book inno-vative or inspirational.

KLAUS BRANDLUniversity of Washington

FARRELL, THOMAS S. C. Reflective LanguageTeaching: From Research to Practice . New York: Con-tinuum, 2008. Pp. viii, 202. $150.00, cloth; $39.95,paper. ISBN 0–8264–9657–1, cloth; 0–8264–9658–X, paper.

Achieving a high level of language proficiency,as the National Security Language Initiativeproposes, requires highly qualified teachers.However, according to the U.S. Department of Ed-ucation 2008 report, one third of new language

teachers leave the profession within 3 years andhalf leave within 5 years. Additionally, high-qualityforeign language (FL) teachers are hard to recruitand even harder to retain due to lax professionalstandards, as well as a lack of human and finan-cial resources. In the absence of financial supportfor professional development and qualified men-tors, FL teaching professionals at all levels are leftalone in their endeavor to improve their teach-ing skills and FL education. Although research isavailable on how to educate high-quality teachers,little research is available on how to retain highlyqualified teachers and how to help them to main-tain the quality of their teaching. Farrell’s bookon reflective teaching is intended to assist lan-guage teachers who wish to improve their teach-ing. It is especially suited for teachers who are notcurrently part of a formal pedagogical trainingprogram.

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to reflec-tive teaching. The following 12 chapters addressdifferent aspects of and strategies for the follow-ing topics: “Reflective Language Teaching,” “Self-Reflection,” “Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices,”“Teachers’ Narratives,” “Teachers’ Language Pro-ficiency,” “Teachers’ Metaphors and Maxims,”“Classroom Communication,” “Action Research,”“Teacher Development Groups,” “Classroom Ob-servations,” “Critical Friendships,” and “ConceptMapping.” The book concludes with a chapteron professional development through reflectiveteaching.

Each chapter has the same structure: introduc-tion, summary of previous research, a case study,reflective questions about the case study, practicalsuggestions for teachers, a conclusion, a scenario,and reflection questions on the scenario and thechapter. The consistency of chapter layout allowsthe reader to skim the text. The bulleted sum-maries of the research provide a quick referencefor practicing teachers. These sections would bestronger if they included references and would beenhanced if they were accompanied by a short an-notated bibliography (especially of current stud-ies).

The case studies and scenarios provide thereader with a deeper insight into the topic. How-ever, the text-based descriptions and transcriptswere sometimes hard to follow. Additional annota-tions of the transcripts or, ideally, video segmentswould make these scenarios and case studies evenmore beneficial for a practicing teacher who maynot have extensive knowledge of classroom sec-ond language acquisition research. Similarly, theaccompanying reflection questions are a greatstarting point, yet a workbook with step-by-stepactivities would increase the value this book has

446 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

for practicing teachers or teacher trainers work-ing with in-service teachers.

The book has good intentions to help teach-ers have the courage to self-reflect, improve theirteaching, and thereby have a larger stake in theirteaching. The goal is to help teachers throughchallenges that might otherwise prompt themto leave the profession. Reflective teaching isalso seen as a mechanism to improve the qual-ity of language instruction in general. Althoughthe intended audience for this book is in-servicelanguage teachers, the book is not addressed di-rectly to language teachers. Farrell talks about theteacher in the third person—for example, “a fun-damental component of a language teacher’s pro-fessional competence is his or her proficiency inthe language he or she teaches” (p. 55). Giventhat reflection is such an introspective and per-sonal process, the book would be more accessibleif it were addressed directly to teachers.

The book claims to be written for all languageteachers, yet the examples are almost exclusivelyfrom English as a second or foreign language(ESL). Furthermore, several of the strategies sug-gested would need an environment such as thosetypically found in college ESL programs, ratherthan the K–12 FL context. Many K–12 FL teach-ers work in isolation. For example, it would beunrealistic for a K–12 German teacher to engagein peer observations, as is suggested in chapter12, because there might not be another speakerof German at the school. The only chapter thataddresses FL teaching specifically is chapter 5,which discusses teachers’ language proficiency. Al-though Farrell and Richards discuss the problemof the insufficient language proficiency of nonna-tive speaking teachers who enter the field, they donot address the issue of language attrition in bothnative and nonnative speakers.

The topics in the book were interesting, andthe chapters offered a good starting point for self-reflection for in-service language teachers. I es-pecially liked that Farrell encouraged teachers toengage in action research to help them feel con-nected to empirical and theoretical discussions inthe field. Overall, the book has great potential,but without additional work on the part of thereader or the teacher trainer, this book’s recom-mendations are challenging to implement. Giventhe intended audience, the book would greatlybenefit from an accompanying multimedia work-book with video case studies, step-by-step activities,and an annotated bibliography.

SENTA GOERTLERMichigan State University

GARCIA MAYO, MARIA DEL PILAR. (Ed.). Inves-tigating Tasks in Formal Language Learning . Cleve-don, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2007. Pp. 267.$114.95, cloth; $49.95, paper. ISBN 1–85359–927–1, cloth; 1–85359–926–3, paper.

This book focuses on task classification and theeffects of pedagogic tasks on aspects of linguis-tic behavior (performance) in a second language(L2). Chapter 1 deals with issues related to taskclassification, whereas the other 11 chapters re-port on studies on the relationship between tasksand performance. As Garcıa Mayo clarifies, “thebook is addressed to researchers in second lan-guage acquisition, as the different types of taskused may help in the design of further work alongthe lines presented in the different contributions,and to teachers who might want to try out thedifferent proposals made, adapting them to theirparticular language learning settings” (p. 5).

In chapter 1, Robinson discusses the need for atask classification system that introduces order re-garding existing research findings, allows us to re-late categories of task learning and performancedemands to SLA processes, and can be used inthe design of instructional programs. The chapterconsiders previous work on task characteristics:the need to accommodate cognitive criteria withinteractional criteria in an expanded taxonomyof L2 tasks; three approaches to task classification;three proposed constraints that a classificatory sys-tem should attempt to accommodate; and the rel-ative merits of three proposals (the skills hypoth-esis, the capacity hypothesis, and the cognitionhypothesis). Robinson concludes by highlightingthe strengths of the cognition hypothesis, such ashow, unlike the other two proposals, the cognitionhypothesis assumes that “behavior descriptions oftarget tasks for populations of learners are thestarting point for pedagogic task design” (p. 22).

In chapter 2, Lambert and Engler assess theeffects of goal orientation (open, closed) andinformation distribution (shared, one way, twoway) on speech complexity, fluency, and accuracyamong Japanese learners of English as a secondlanguage (ESL). Their results indicate more com-plex production when students were allowed toshare task-essential information and more accu-rate production when tasks involved a one-wayflow of information. Additionally, an open goalorientation produced more complex production,whereas goal orientation did not produce morefluent production except in one of the three tasksexamined.

Reviews 447

Chapters 3 through 5 offer studies on task typeand oral production. In chapter 3, Gilabert re-ports on a study with ESL learners, demonstrat-ing that increased planning time positively af-fected fluency and lexical complexity but hadno impact on accuracy, whereas increased com-plexity related to +/− here-and-now positively af-fected accuracy, did not affect structural or lexi-cal complexity, and negatively affected fluency. Inchapter 4, Fernandez Garcıa provides empiricalsupport for the viability of using communicativetasks with beginning L2 learners, as evidenced bya study on English-speaking learners of Spanishin which both one- and two-way information gaptasks led to substantial amounts of learner inter-action and negotiation of meaning. In chapter 5,de la Colina and Garcıa Mayo report findings sug-gesting that collaborative tasks (dictogloss, text re-construction, jigsaw) can promote focus on formand linguistic metatalk. The value of couchingthis study within sociocultural (Vygotskyan) the-ory can be questioned given that specific pre-dictions of sociocultural theory versus alternative(e.g., more psycholinguistic) approaches were notcompared or put to the test. For example, analysisof why different types of tasks “focus students’ at-tention on different features” (p. 111) from an al-ternative theoretical perspective, such as transfer-appropriate processing, might have led to a moreprecise and fruitful explanation of this finding ofthe study.

Chapters 6 through 8 present studies on tasksand written production. In chapter 6, Kuiken andVedder focus on the effects of task complexitywith regard to [+/− few elements] and [+/−no reasoning demands] based on a study withDutch learners of French. The results indicatedthat students performed more accurately on aless complex task, which the researchers inter-pret as providing partial support for Robinson’scognition hypothesis and no support for Skehanand Foster’s limited attentional capacity model.In chapter 7, Ishikawa reports on a study withJapanese learners of English on the effects of the[+/− here-and-now] dimension of task complex-ity on accuracy, complexity, and fluency. Ishikawafound multiple effects of task complexity and in-terpreted the findings as being more compatiblewith Robinson’s cognition hypothesis than withSkehan and Foster’s model. In chapter 8, Storchand Wigglesworth report on a study with ESLlearners comparing the effects of writing individ-ually versus writing in pairs on accuracy, fluency,and complexity in writing. They found no signif-icant differences for fluency or complexity but

significantly greater accuracy in scripts written inpairs. As with chapter 5, the sociocultural princi-ples underpinning the study are not put to the testagainst any competing approach in the design ofthe study or in the interpretation of the results.

Chapters 9 and 10 focus on tasks and issuesof lexis. In chapter 9, Peters reports a study ontask complexity with Dutch learners of German.The study manipulated +/− information abouta pending vocabulary test and comprehensiontest prior to reading. The results indicated thatstudents with single tasks tended to outperformstudents with dual tasks. According to Peters,this finding is not consistent with Robinson’s tri-adic framework for task complexity. In chapter10, Gonzalez Alvarez presents data from Spanish-speaking learners of English that reveal an in-creased tendency toward word coinage duringmore controlled and linguistically challengingtasks and greater use of alternative strategies,such as reduction and avoidance, during less con-trolled tasks.

The final two chapters concern, respectively,consciousness-raising tasks and metachat . In chap-ter 11, Alcon Soler presents a study on howconsciousness-raising tasks affect Spanish ESLlearners’ noticing and pragmatic awareness re-lated to requests. Both explicit and implicitversions of the consciousness-raising tasks werefound to produce improvements. Finally, in chap-ter 12, Lamy reports a quantitative and qualitativestudy on metachat—metalanguage that reflectsinteractive and informal qualities—among L2learners of French. The ethnographic accountprovided by Lamy leads to the conclusion thatmetachat “offers rich possibilities for identity-building and enactment of agency within socialsettings, while discharging its traditional functionas a source of information on the L2” (p. 261).

Overall, this book is a valuable contributionand, as intended, should be of benefit to bothL2 researchers and instructors. It offers thought-ful analyses and proposals related to develop-ment of a task classification system and a substan-tial amount of new data on key issues related tothe use of different tasks in L2 instruction. How-ever, provision of abstracts for each chapter inthis book could have made the range of infor-mation presented (e.g., the multiple participantpools, L2s, and task types from study to study)more readily accessible for the reader. Finally, asa more general observation, the vast majority ofthe studies reported in this book included depen-dent measures that did not directly reflect theamount of learning of target L2 structures. Al-

448 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

though examining how tasks affect the natureof learner interactions and immediate perfor-mance is clearly informative, new research directlyconnecting task-related variables to learning out-comes may facilitate the development of theoryand task-related L2 instructional practices that aregrounded in research in more transparent andtangible ways.

JOE BARCROFTWashington University in St. Louis

HADI–TABASSUM, SAMINA. Language, Spaceand Power: A Critical Look at Bilingual Education.Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2006. Pp. v,295. $124.95, cloth; $49.95, paper. ISBN 1–85359–879–8, cloth; 1–85359–878–X, paper.

Given the increase in availability of two-wayimmersion (TWI) programs, Hadi-Tabassum’squalitative scrutiny of dual immersion studentinteractions is both timely and valuable. Theauthor presents a yearlong study using criticalethnography methodology in a fifth-grade, Span-ish/English, 50/50 dual immersion classroom.Ambitious in scope, the book seeks to locate theboundaries established between Spanish and En-glish, identify spaces of resistance to these bound-aries, and explore mediatory third spaces wheretensions may be addressed.

The book includes an introduction, a chap-ter describing the research setting, four chaptersof data woven together with thematic theoreticalframeworks, and a concluding chapter. The in-troduction examines structuralist principles of bi-narity and equivalence, through which both lan-guages are set up as equals, but the author takes adecidedly poststructuralist perspective to addressthe counterpoints of power and resistance thatexist in the classroom. Chapter 1 provides infor-mation on the school, classroom, teacher, andstudents, emphasizing the use of thick descrip-tion, based on field notes and recordings, supple-mented with interviews of selected “participant-informants” (p. 25). Particularly strong in theauthor’s methodology is comparing her owninterpretations with those of the participant-informants, despite the inherent challenges of do-ing so with young informants.

Chapters 2 through 5 focus on four kindsof classroom experiences. Chapter 2 links thedebate about the bilingual brain to the dichotomyof curricular and physical spaces often seen in

TWI education. In Hadi-Tabassum’s discussion ofclassroom spaces, however, the rug area was aninclusive and playful space where students nego-tiated linguistic boundaries. Two episodes pointto the marginalization of Spanish as the Other inclassroom discourse, a positioning that some stu-dents resisted. Chapter 3 focuses on the creationof classroom cheers alongside cultural and lin-guistic dichotomies. Although linguistic consider-ations are not prevalent at the outset of the chap-ter, the discussion is riveting and the author ablydemonstrates the impact of these dichotomies onthe students’ creative process, with significantlydifferent linguistic and cultural outcomes in theproduction of their cheers. Chapter 4 investigatesthe production of a bilingual Cuban play, high-lighting the role of student agency in challengingthe amount of Spanish used, the freedom of ac-tors to add lines, and the elimination of archaicSpanish. Chapter 5 explores the crossing of socialboundaries as students engaged in participatorymusic activities.

The conclusion in Chapter 6 links these fourchapters as “scenes of encounter” (p. 272) thatpresent language boundaries as a discourse topic.Hadi-Tabassum observes, however, that thesescenes remained functionally limited. Althoughthe discourse did create dialectical reflection onlinguistic form, and at times even helped to pro-duce a third space, it did not yield significantchanges in classroom language use.

This study provides significant insight intohow dual immersion students negotiate and re-sist language boundaries in the classroom. Hadi-Tabassum’s work confirms that the two classroomlanguages are often not truly equal. Her workpushes TWI programs to further develop curricu-lum, structures, and discourses that respond to lin-guistic border tensions and that further equalizethe two languages. Also indispensable is her callto teachers to a more critical pedagogy regard-ing classroom materials, such as the representa-tions of the character Juan Bobo and the symbolicassignation of students in the classroom to theserepresentations.

Although this study focuses on the places wherelanguage boundaries are perceived and how theyare resisted, the author also carries out a meticu-lous examination of the other components (spaceand power); she carefully weaves a discussion oflanguage into this broader framework. Acknowl-edging that these three are the “main theoreti-cal lens” (p. 23), she also asks larger questionsabout themes such as identity and agency, as seenin a remarkable breadth that includes the discus-sion of aesthetics, the nature of Caribbean folk

Reviews 449

tales, the study of music, and more. Readers in-terested in the specific treatment of metalinguis-tic discourse will find themselves moving morequickly through some sections. However, this isalso a strength of the book: It connects what areoften seen as disparate areas (language, aesthet-ics, music, literature).

The goals of thick description are clearly suc-cessful in providing context-rich descriptions ofthe classroom. However, given the primary goalof locating resistance within the discourse itself,inclusion of more transcripts would have beenhelpful. For example, the author references a mo-ment when students were moving toward usinga “postmodern pastiche” of all three cheers (p.144); this statement leaves the reader wonderingwhat exactly happened in that discursive space.The inclusion of transcripts would have allowedthe students’ voices to speak for themselves. Onetechnical aspect difficult to overlook was the inclu-sion of fragmented transcripts in chapter 5 sepa-rated by ellipses in the representation of the musicteacher’s Spanish; a portrayal of a particular di-alect may be intended in places, but in others, or-thographical errors and grammatical structure donot logically represent the speech of the teacher(a native speaker of Spanish).

Overall, the book provides a great wealth ofknowledge that contributes significantly to ourunderstanding of where the theoretical equalityof languages actually meets the road in the two-way immersion classroom.

ELAINE M. SHENKSt. Joseph’s University

JAATINEN, RIITTA. Learning Languages, Learn-ing Life Skills: Autobiographical Reflexive Approachto Teaching and Learning a Foreign Language . NewYork: Springer, 2007. Pp. xii, 230. $94.00, cloth.ISBN 0–387–37063–3.

This book, the eighth volume in the Educa-tional Linguistics series, complements the focusof the series, characterized as innovative, transdis-ciplinary, contextualized, and critical. Its contri-butions extend beyond the experiential details itprovides about the general nature and content ofthe autobiographical reflexive approach (ARA)to foreign language learning and teaching—explicating holistic ways of exploring the partic-ularity and locality of personal experience in sec-ond language (L2) learning and teaching.

Situating the study into a broad theoreticalfoundation and merging it with qualitative in-

terpretive evidence, Jaatinen addresses the philo-sophical and conceptual bases of personal knowl-edge, holistic paradigms in the conception of ex-perience, meaning, and language, and the ARAto foreign language learning and teaching. Inthis sense, Jaatinen’s study skillfully integrates avariety of topics ranging from the conceptualbases of a personal teaching philosophy to cur-riculum design, instructional materials, and themethods of teaching English as a foreign language(EFL), specifically English for specific purposes(ESP).

The book’s seven chapters and an epilogue canbe grouped into three main parts. In the firstpart, the introduction, Jaatinen offers the ratio-nale and purposes behind intertwining theoreti-cal and experiential knowledge in studying ARAin the field of EFL teaching and learning. In “ThePersonal Knowledge of Being a Teacher,” she dis-cusses the concepts, nature, and modes of autobi-ographical knowledge, and the role of reflectionin the creation of the self and use of personalknowledge, which she presents as the creation ofa “personal frame of reference” (pp. 25 and 71).Before describing the methodological aspects ofher study, Jaatinen engages in a thorough discus-sion of a holistic approach to the paradigmaticunderstanding of meaning and the interaction ofmeaning, experience, and language in the chap-ter entitled “A Paradigm of Meaning, Language,and ‘Silence.’”

In the second part, Jaatinen discusses an ARA-driven approach to teaching language and cul-ture for specific purposes, describing its goals,principles of curriculum, and methods in thechapter entitled “Autobiographical Reflexive Ap-proach in the Context of Teaching Language andCulture for Specific Purposes.” “Exploring andImplementing the ARA Approach,” the longestchapter in the book, covers a wide range of au-thentic, planned and unplanned, and individualand collaborative group activities related to theimplementation of ARA in this particular EFL set-ting. In the third part, the chapter entitled “ThreeStories Exploring What a Good Foreign LanguageLearning Is” includes the reflective stories (es-says and recorded interviews) of three successfullanguage learners regarding their language learn-ing processes and Jaatinen’s interpretation of thedata.

Despite the fact that this book is based on aqualitative narration of the author’s experienceof teaching EFL to social services students at apolytechnic institution, it contributes to the fieldof foreign language education significantly. Thebook is comprehensive and thorough, and it raises

450 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

many interdisciplinary questions related to learn-ing theories, including sociocultural theory andtheories of second language acquisition, as wellas critical pedagogy, L2 teacher education, EFLmethods, and learner and teacher variables. Nev-ertheless, it could have benefited from directreference to recent research in the EFL field.Most of the theoretical foundation referencescome from work published in the late 1990s byLehtovaara, Kaikkonen, Kohonen, and Rauhala.Throughout the book, the author makes severalgeneralizations regarding contentious issues inthe field without substantial references to currentresearch. For instance, the inclusive and compre-hensive nature of the proposed holistic approachcould be seen as constructive to the field; however,the attempt to provide an ARA-driven definitionof what teaching a foreign language is (p. 142)may make the reader question what should notbe considered as important in the realm of for-eign language teaching.

Among the many strengths of this study arethe humanistic, caring, and collegial approachto teaching and research, the inseparableness oftheory and practice, the conception of L2 attain-ment as the individual construction of meaningwith social mediation and responsibility, and thesimultaneous investigation of both the teacher’sand students’ experience of learning and teach-ing. Nevertheless, the presentation of some topicsand concepts may occasionally sound repetitious.

Finally, Jaatinen uses a large amount of quali-tative data collected through journals, writing as-signments, and interviews. However, the method-ological rigor of this study emanates from hertriangulation of the results of students’ self-reported stories and the interview data throughdiscussion interviews regarding her interpretationof the data.

NIHAT POLATDuquesne University

JOHNSON, KEITH. Quantitative Methods in Lin-guistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. Pp. xv, 277.$99.95, cloth. $45.00, paper. ISBN 1–4051–4424–6, cloth; 1–4051–4425–4, paper.

In the introduction, entitled “Design of the Book,”Johnson notes that his aim is “to present a rela-tively representative and usable introduction tocurrent quantitative research across many differ-ent subdisciplines within linguistics” (p. x). In-tertwined with this aim is Johnson’s assertion,

stated in the final chapter, that quantitative anal-ysis should play a critical role in the disciplineof linguistics. As noted in the introduction, thechapters of the book, with the exception of thefirst two, focus on different subfields within lin-guistics: “Phonetics” (ch. 3), “Psycholinguistcs”(ch. 4), “Sociolinguistics” (ch. 5), “Historical Lin-guistics” (ch. 6), and “Syntax” (ch. 7). In each ofthese chapters, data from the subfield in questionare analyzed quantitatively. The first two chapters,“Fundamentals of Quantitative Analysis” and “Pat-terns and Tests,” lay the groundwork for the sub-sequent chapters, covering such basic concepts asmeasures of central tendency and standard devia-tion (ch. 1) and sampling (ch. 2).

A software package (“R”) is used in the quantita-tive analyses and in the production of figures andtables. Explanatory notes on the software pack-age (“R notes”), a package that Johnson notesis readily available, are incorporated throughoutthe book. Each of the chapters concludes witha number of exercises, thus providing the readerwith the opportunity to test comprehension of thematerial. In the opinion of this reviewer, Johnsonhas achieved his aim in this substantive treatmentof the topic of quantitative methods in the multi-faceted discipline of linguistics.

This book has many commendable features, ofwhich one of the most noteworthy is its organi-zation. Dedicating a separate chapter to differ-ent subfields of linguistics heightens awareness ofthe importance of quantitative analysis in eachof these subfields and fosters an overall under-standing of quantitative methods. Such an un-derstanding should assist readers in developingthe ability to utilize appropriate statistical tests inoriginal research. Despite the chapter divisions,Johnson rightly points out that methods are notto be thought of as unique to a given subfield (al-though exceptions do exist) but may apply acrossdisciplines of linguistics as well as to other fieldsof scientific research. The organization and se-quencing of material within chapters is also ap-propriate. To provide one example, the discus-sion of correlation based on data comparing menand women on F1 values for a set of vowels infour languages begins with the construction of acontingency table (p. 58). Although the contin-gency table is accurate, it has major limitations.Discussion of the limitations (with reference tothe relationship between the variables in ques-tion) serves to introduce and lead smoothly intothe subsequent sections dealing with covarianceand the regression line.

The comprehensive treatment of quantitativemethods in terms of both breadth and depth is

Reviews 451

also a strength of this book. The inclusion of fivesubfields of linguistics makes the book appealingto a broad range of students studying linguistics.Further, the treatment of this number of subfieldsis done without rendering the content in any ofthem less than substantive. Of particular note andas an illustration of breadth is the inclusion of achapter on historical linguistics. Although mostrecognize the importance of quantitative meth-ods in a range of subfields of linguistics, this isnot necessarily the case when it comes to histori-cal linguistics. Explaining the role of quantitativemethods in the production of phylogenetic trees,which show how languages are related to eachother historically, is the central focus of this chap-ter. The illuminating discussion outlines the roleof cluster analysis, and it extends to cladistic anal-ysis (an illustration of depth), a method linkedclosely with research in evolutionary biology. Ac-cording to Johnson, “biologists have worked outa set of methods to reconstruct family trees ofspecies on the basis of shared inherited traits andthis ‘cladistic’ analysis is now also being used inhistorical linguistics” (p. 191).

Other features of the book worthy of commen-dation should be noted. To mention a few, thecontent is sufficiently supplemented with figuresand tables, the studies used as the basis for elab-orating on quantitative methods are appropriate,and useful and substantiated insights are providedon design (e.g., the comparison of magnitudeestimation and category scaling in syntactic re-search).

It would have been useful to see additional sub-fields of linguistics included. This comment doesnot imply a weakness of the book, which pro-vides a thorough treatment, but is a suggestionfor building on a strength. Fortunately, Johnsonindicates (p. ix) that he envisions doing so in apossible second edition. Providing responses toquestions/exercises is a useful and common prac-tice in mathematics/statistics texts. Having a sep-arate section of responses to even an appropriatesubset of exercises designed for a subsequent edi-tion of the book should be considered.

In sum, this book is one that merits praise andwill, it is expected, be well received by its targetaudience.

MARTIN R. GITTERMANLehman College and The Graduate Center, The CityUniversity of New York

LENGYEL, ZSOLT, & JUDIT NAVRACSICS.(Eds.). Second Language Lexical Processes: Ap-plied Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives.

Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2007. Pp. v,191. $99.95, cloth; $27.70, paper. ISBN 1–85359–987–0, cloth; ISBN 1–85359–966–2, paper.

In this work, Lengyel and Navracsics present amultifaceted approach to second language (L2)lexical processes, making reference not only toEnglish but also to Hungarian. The book presentsstudies on psycholinguistics, corpus, and educa-tional linguistics.

Part 1, entitled “The Nature of the L2 MentalLexicon,” contains two chapters. Singleton sum-marizes findings regarding the degree to whichtwo languages have two separate lexicons. As somestudies show, if individuals can select the languagethey wish to use, they possess a separate mentallexicon for each language. Additionally, speakersoften resort to their L2 while attempting to com-municate in a third language, thus revealing psy-chotypological aspects of cross-lexical interaction.In the second chapter, Navracsics discusses theways in which bilinguals store language and the re-lated influence of age. Participants were subjectedto PER and MRI scans to localize the areas of thebrain activated by each language. Navracsics con-cludes that bilinguals store elements accordingto the conceptual representations that are oftenshared by their languages.

Part 2, “L2 Lexical Perception and Produc-tion,” contains three contributions. Gosy inves-tigates perception processing among bilingualsand L2 learners. Findings indicate that there isa need to spend more time on perceptual pro-cesses when teaching the L2. Simon’s compara-tive study of first language (L1) and L2 speechperception, lexical access, and speech compre-hension processes shows that there are similari-ties as well as key differences between L1 and L2acquisition and speech processing abilities. Evi-dence shows that L2 grammar is likely to fossilizeat some point and rely on L1 grammar and that L2learners tend to map L1 perceptions onto the L2rather than to develop new processes. More im-portant, if perception in the L2 is impeded, easyaccess to higher levels of comprehension is pre-vented. Keresztes investigates whether Hungarianmedical personnel were able to recognize Englishcontact-induced features in Hungarian medicaltexts. She finds that participants with more En-glish did not identify as many words as partici-pants with less English. She concludes that moreknowledge of English modifies the mental lexiconof speakers.

Part 3, “The Lexicon in L2 Writing,” is com-posed of two chapters. In chapter 5, Witalisz revis-its Laufer and Nation’s (1995) lexical frequency

452 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

profile (LFP), noting its inadequacies. The LFPdoes not take into account the nature of the tasksthat may require everyday language instead of ahigh number of low-frequency words. Addition-ally, the author finds that poor writers’ attemptsto use sophisticated vocabulary may result in moreerrors. Doro’s contribution pertains to the useof high- and low-frequency verbs in English. Shecompares a corpus of writing samples producedby students of English as a second language (ESL)with an English L1 corpus rather than compareL2 vocabulary to a larger native corpus. Doro alsopoints out some of the shortcomings of Nation’sLFP. She finds evidence that high-frequency verbsthat have an equivalent in the native language ofthe ESL student are often overused because theyare learned in the early stages of language study,whereas verbs that are found in idiomatic expres-sions tend to be underused. The author concludesthat the use of native-speaker samples can show L2learners how to use sophisticated vocabulary.

Part 4 deals with the lexicon in L2 acquisitionin naturalistic and classroom situations. The firstof the three chapters that comprise this part isGergely’s study of early bilingual development.The study refers to her Hungarian–English bilin-gual son between ages 2.6 and 3 years old. Startingwith a review of studies that propose an initial one-unit system in bilingual children, the author dis-cusses theories that claim that eventually there isa differentiation of the two systems. In her study,the child mixed the two languages only in thepresence of both parents, who were competentbilinguals, and never with monolinguals. All ofthis child’s utterances follow the rules of both lan-guages, revealing a coherent system in the child’sgrammar at this early stage.

The second contribution in this part deals withlanguage-specific features of vocabulary acquisi-tion. Cvikic discusses some of the problems ofCroatian learners that lead to misunderstandingand communication breakdown. She used a test inwhich students who had recently arrived in Croa-tia would translate words from Croatian to theirnative language (English or Italian). The resultsof the test show that some common errors appearregardless of the native language, providing in-formation that can be used in the design of moresuitable teaching materials. Lengyel, Navracsics,and Szilagyi close this section, and the book, withresearch concerning word class identification inL2 lexical processes. The researchers used the lan-guage command test of the Common EuropeanFramework as a model to prepare a cloze test. Theresults of the study indicate that among all wordclasses, adverbs are the most difficult to identify

in both languages—probably because word orderin Hungarian does not allow V + adverb and thestudents were completing a cloze test. With theimprovement of proficiency, the identification ofword classes comes closer to that of native speak-ers. The results also show that the influence ofthe L1 is most evident in word order and lexicalidentification.

Studies are explained in a way that does not re-quire knowledge of Hungarian, although it wouldhave been helpful to add some phonetic cuesto the examples that pertain to pronunciation.In part 2, two chapters present strict quantitativemeasures and are closely related, whereas the lastof the three contributions appears to be out ofplace because the premises seem tentative andconclusions are, at best, weak. Part 3 presents re-search that aims to point out the deficiencies ofLaufer and Nation’s LFP by providing valuable al-ternatives. These studies present a clear method-ology that overcomes the shortcomings of LFPand provides reasonable pedagogical suggestions.Gergely’s account of her son’s language devel-opment lead her to some conclusions that lacknovelty: that of bilingual children not violatingthe rules of either language while code-mixing orcodeswitching. The briefness of the time span inwhich the observations were made is a source ofconcern. In addition, the chapter that examinesa language other than Hungarian—Croatian—alters the cohesion of the rest of the chapters,but the lack of L2 studies in Croatian and its sub-ject matter may justify its inclusion. Although thisbook contributes to issues of L1 and L2 acquisitionof less studied languages, the lack of experimentalrigor in some of the chapters weakens the overallvalue of the book. This work, without a doubt, con-tributes to Hungarian studies of second languageacquisition and lexical processes.

CARMEN SCHLIGGeorgia State University

NI.ZEGORODCEW, ANNA. Input for Instructed L2

Learners: The Relevance of Relevance . Clevedon, UK:Multilingual Matters, 2007. Pp. xii, 182. $44.95,paper. ISBN 978–1–85359–937–8.

This book provides a fresh interpretation of theconcept of input in the foreign language class-room in light of relevance theory—a theory of theinterpretation of incoming messages. Accordingto relevance theory, learners expect any incomingmessage to be optimally relevant and, therefore,

Reviews 453

make automatic assumptions about the message’sintended meaning. In applying relevance the-ory to foreign language learning, Ni .zegorodcewposits that in communicatively oriented class-rooms, students tend to interpret verbal inputfrom the teacher in terms of its content and, there-fore, may miss the teacher’s attempts to call atten-tion to linguistic form.

Ni .zegorodcew claims that by skillfully inter-weaving a “[focus] on form in otherwise meaning-focused activities,” teachers can “change the levelof expected optimal relevance from an automaticsearch for meaning to momentarily focusing onthe code” (p. 95), thus facilitating students’ ac-quisition of linguistic structures while improvingtheir fluency.

In addition to its novel interpretation of rel-evance theory in a foreign language classroomcontext, Ni .zegorodcew’s book is unique in its syn-thesis of other theoretical perspectives on secondlanguage (L2) learning, especially in relation tostudents’ focus on meaning versus form in incom-ing messages. Ni .zegorodcew reviews the role of in-put in L2 acquisition models, including Krashen’scomprehensible input hypothesis and Long’s in-teraction hypothesis, as well as the models of Gass,Ellis, and others. She also examines sociolinguis-tic and sociocultural theories, including those ofTarone, Hatch, and Vygotsky, emphasizing theways in which these theories’ explanations of lan-guage acquisition are complemented by relevancetheory.

Other issues that are addressed in detail in thebook are teachers’ choice between the use of theL1 and L2 in the classroom and their use of cor-rective feedback. With regard to the latter issue,Ni .zegorodcew takes the position that correctivefeedback from the teacher is both useful and nec-essary if students are to develop accuracy as wellas fluency in their language use. With respect tothe use of the L1 and L2, Ni .zegorodcew maintainsthat teachers should make the L2 the language ofclassroom communication unless affective or in-structional circumstances demand the use of theL1. Again, she provides support for both of thesepositions in terms of relevance theory.

The book’s many examples of interactions be-tween teachers and students make it particularlyuseful to classroom teachers. Ni .zegorodcew drawsupon the qualitative studies of seven of her grad-uate students at the Jagiellonian University inPoland to provide word-for-word transcriptions ofteacher–student interactions. In her commentaryon each episode, Ni .zegorodcew illustrates ways inwhich teachers can use recasts, repetition of stu-dents’ errors, clarification requests, and explicit

feedback to momentarily focus students’ atten-tion on linguistic forms without losing the overallfocus on meaning.

The book concludes with a useful summary ofthe practical implications of relevance theory forL2 classrooms. In addition to reemphasizing theteacher’s role as a provider of input and a medi-ator between meaning and form, Ni .zegorodcewcalls attention to the need for teachers to moni-tor their students’ pair and group work to providecorrective input. She recommends that L2 teachertraining institutions “include in their courses ateaching module which would specially focus ontraining future teachers how to communicate inthe L2 classroom, and how to provide learnerswith potentially explicit corrective input” (p. 168).

If the book has a weakness, it is the lack ofa comprehensive summary of relevance theory.Ni .zegorodcew makes repeated reference to theconcept of expected optimal relevance in relation toforeign language input, but I often wondered ifthere was more to the theory. Readers who wishto study relevance theory in more detail may wantto consult some of the works in the reference listat the end of the book. A secondary weakness ofthe book is that the author nearly always refersto teachers as “she” or “her,” even in the abstract,which appears to convey a certain degree of sex-ism. Readers who are willing to overlook theseissues, however, will be rewarded with a thought-provoking discussion of the role of input and cor-rective feedback in L2 classrooms, as well as awealth of authentic examples of the applicationof these principles.

BLAIR E. BATEMANBrigham Young University

O’KEEFFE, ANNE, MICHAEL MCCARTHY, &RONALD CARTER. From Corpus to Classroom: Lan-guage Use and Language Teaching . New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 2007. pp. 332. $34.00,paper. ISBN 0–521–61686–7.

From Corpus to Classroom is a textbook thatrepresents the tension between pedagogicalgrammars—that is, the grammatical structuresthat we teach in second language (L2) classes—and the assumption of instruction today thatlearners need access to naturalistic language,which frequently means authentic oral instancesof the L2. Course and materials designers incor-porate new perspectives about structures into thepedagogical grammar over time. Yet, just as digital

454 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

technologies have altered various classroom prac-tices with, for instance, the incorporation of on-line workbooks and synchronous chat into ourcurricula, so has the ability to amass large corporaof digitized representations of the L2 changedhow we design pedagogical grammars. It is worthnoting here that corpus-motivated grammars suchas Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written En-glish (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Fine-gan, 1999) have had an important impact in thisregard, because they describe the target languagein terms of how it varies systematically from reg-ister to register and along a variety of other so-ciolinguistic lines. The corpus perspective chal-lenges us to examine grammar in the context ofwhere it is used, which often contradicts prescrip-tive grammar predictions and which shows us thatthe distinction between grammar and vocabularyis a tenuous one (e.g., certain constructions arelimited to a few vocabulary items and are not asopen to creative use as teachers might expect).From Corpus to Classroom is the first attempt toequip course and materials designers with a basicunderstanding of how corpora are designed andsearched and how corpus linguistics might affectthe design of classroom activities. It is importantto note here what this book is not: Corpus lin-guistics has started to have an influence on mate-rials design in the form of so-called data-drivenlearning , by which learners work with samplesof words and constructs extracted from corporaso that they might learn some phenomenon inan inductive, input-oriented (albeit highly decon-textualized) fashion. The authors state their in-tent: “[The book] aims to highlight the outcomeswhich we consider relevant and transferable interms of how they can inform pedagogy, or chal-lenge how and what we teach. But the book stopsat the classroom door.” (p. 1).

The text breaks down into 11 chapters. Theauthors start with an overview of the tools ofthe corpus linguistics trade: the design of cor-pora, concordance software, key words in con-text, and a brief treatment of the current rela-tionship between corpus linguistics and languageinstruction. Chapter 2 examines how corpus tech-niques provide educators with some surprisingperspectives on what vocabulary words studentsat different levels need and how many. Chap-ters 3 and 4 introduce us to a fascinating find-ing of corpus linguistics—namely, that chunks(or what some L2 acquisition theories call formu-laics) have a more important role in our gram-mars than we suspect. At best, this chapter en-courages us to not just provide learners with listsof important idioms but rather to find a place

for chunks as a nexus between vocabulary andgrammar. Chapters 5 and 6 concentrate on howgrammar instruction ought not consider that wehave learned much about the frequency of cer-tain constructs in authentic language (i.e., someare overemphasized in instruction, given their fre-quency in language use) and on how pragmat-ics determines much of our grammatical choices.Chapters 7 and 9 show how corpus linguistics pro-vides a unique perspective on the role of the lis-tener in interactions, although the latter chap-ter concentrates on sociocultural phenomena re-vealed by a corpus perspective. Chapter 8 bringstogether the preceding chapters by showing thatsome phenomena ignored by pedagogical gram-mars (e.g., backchannels, like “Okay”) are em-ployed systematically in the language, suggestingthat they deserve some principled treatment insyllabus design. Chapter 10 elucidates how cer-tain corpora help educators designing syllabi forspecial-purpose courses (e.g., academic writingfor foreign students in the United Kingdom andthe United States). Chapter 11 provides teachers(and researchers) with hints for taking a corpusapproach to studying classroom interactions.

The authors are to be applauded for not over-stepping into the classroom, as they claim not todo, although they do provide numerous exam-ples of how corpus techniques lend themselves tothe creation of data-driven activities. For exam-ple, in chapter 1 we are introduced to the useof concordance data as an exploratory activity;additionally, the chapter on grammar, lexis, andpatterns demonstrates how corpus linguistics canteach students about ellipsis in narratives. Thetext also gives L2 researchers an understandingof how corpus linguistic research has called intoquestion and shed new light on long-standing dog-mas about the nature of grammar itself (e.g., thenexus between grammar and lexis). The insightsare anecdotal tidbits spread throughout the textabout which assumptions are undergoing revisionin the theoretical literature, and the authors invitereaders to explore the data themselves. If there isa bias in the implicit pedagogical approach of theauthors, it is that grammar and lexis are learnedinductively by exploring written input. The chap-ter on relationship building may be of interestto socioculturalists, although reading this chapteralone may be less than satisfying because we donot see how the corpus methodology could domore than expose how we establish relationshipsthrough language (e.g., intersubjectivity).

This reviewer was stumped as he attempted toanswer a simple question: For what sort of class(undergraduate or graduate) would such a text

Reviews 455

be most useful? No answer came to mind aftermuch mulling, but perhaps that is the point ofthis text. Digital language and corpus linguisticsare forcing us to reconsider how L2 educators un-derstand the role of technology in the curriculumand in the classroom and, most important, howwe determine the most important aspects of thelanguage to teach.

JOSEPH COLLENTINENorthern Arizona University

CHINESE

EVERSON, MICHAEL E., & YUN XIAO. (Eds.).Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language: Theoriesand Applications. Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2009. Pp.xiv, 253. $29.95, paper. ISBN 0–88727–668–7.

In this inaugural volume in the Cheng & TsuiProfessional Development Series, the publicationinformation provides a perhaps unintended butsignificant reflection on the time sensitivity of thechallenge being addressed. In putting into printa book with a copyright date of 2009 6 monthsbefore the beginning of that year, the publisherand the editors have reacted swiftly, and for themost part solidly, to the tidal wave of demand forqualified teachers of Chinese in all institutionalsettings, and the K–12 setting in particular. If thecontent appears at first glance somewhat scatter-shot in terms of both topical focus and analyticaldepth, it is indisputable that all of the topics be-ing addressed are essential and that the targetaudience, in the words of the editors, “teachers-in-development” (p. xi), are the most crucial el-ement in the potential for success of the fieldof Chinese language pedagogy in the 21st cen-tury. Equally indisputable is that the editors havebrought together a stellar corps of leaders in thefield of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL).

Central to the 11 essays appearing in TeachingChinese as a Foreign Language (hereafter TCFL)is the attempt to mainstream CFL within thebroader context of American foreign languageeducation. Divided into three sections, the vol-ume commences with four essays under theheading “Teaching Chinese in Context,” a some-what unclear mantle that might more accuratelybe dubbed “Standards-Based Models for TCFL.”Section 1 leads off with a chapter by the vol-ume co-editor, Michael Everson, on the NationalStandards. He provides a succinct overview ofthe historical evolution of the foreign language

educational field from audiolingualism to theStandards, laying out both what the Standardsentail and the challenges therein for Chinese inparticular. Next, Matthew Christensen focuses ex-clusively on the Culture standard, building onWalker’s conceptualization of culture as perfor-mance. The chapter includes some concrete sug-gestions for pedagogical implementation for anumber of currently widely used textbooks, ad-dressing the implications for all four of the tradi-tional modalities and at all levels of instruction.Cynthia Ning presents a comprehensive analysisof what it means to design a learner-centered class-room. She insightfully notes that such a model istied to the Standards in its attention to what thestudent can do and that it addresses all compo-nents therein, from sample activities, to texts andauthentic materials, to assessment models. Thesection closes with a chapter by T. Richard Chi,who provides a diverse analysis of the AdvancedPlacement (AP) Chinese course and examination,both its historical development and curricular andtext design, including a series of sample activitiesand assessments. He also provides a survey-basedanalysis of the AP’s possible impact on the CFLfield, including an examination of the results fromthe first administration of the AP Chinese Test.

Section 2 is entitled “Teacher Knowledge andPedagogical Decisions.” To a greater or lesser de-gree of success, the four chapters in this sectionprovide scaffolding, based in educational theoryand empirical research, for instructional and ma-terial choices in response to several key curricu-lar challenges of CFL. The most successful of thefour is the lead-off chapter by Michael Everson onliteracy development. He offers a primer of themost important and influential studies on read-ing for foreign languages, in general, and Chi-nese, in particular, aiming neither too high nortoo low with regard to the reader’s academic back-ground and with focused discussions of the impli-cations of the research for the teacher. AlthoughYun Xiao’s offering is equally well grounded inboth theory and research, it is perhaps too ambi-tious, providing more detail than necessary fora book of this type, particularly in her discus-sion of topic chains. Indeed, because the chaptertreats two separate aspects of CFL—orthographicawareness and spoken and written discourse skilldevelopment—it does not hold together well asa chapter. Xiao offers a more cohesive and co-herent discussion of Chinese orthography, bothits linguistic elements and the pedagogical impli-cations for their mastery. Xiaohong Wen bringsback to the forefront the mainstream anchoringof CFL according to the Standards. Although she

456 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

also introduces a substantial educational theoret-ical core in her chapter, ranging from Baddeley’smodel of working memory to more recent modelsof second language acquisition by VanPatten, thebulk of the chapter is devoted to practical applica-tions of the theoretical concepts to the teachingof listening and speaking. The section closes witha jointly authored review by Tianwei Xie and Tao-chung (Ted) Yao of technological tools for Chi-nese language teachers. Self-admittedly selectiverather than exhaustive, it is nonetheless impres-sive and unique in its three teacher-supportingareas of focus: materials preparation, Internet re-sources, and computer-based testing tools. Of thechapters, this one seems to have more than itsshare of proofreading glitches (e.g., confusingthe National Foreign Language Center with anunspecified National Foreign Language ResourceCenter; pp. 164–165), but they do not detractfrom the chapter’s overall value.

Section 3 provides analyses of three elementsof the American foreign language education sys-tem that are shared by many languages and yetpresent some unique challenges for the Chineselanguage teacher. Yun Xiao’s second offering forthe book on issues in heritage language educa-tion is more succinct and successful than herfirst one. She provides an historical, developmen-tal (i.e., a profile of the Chinese as a heritagelanguage [CHL] learner and his/her language),and practical underpinning for the factors thatwill prove instrumental for the success of a CHLprogram. Madeline Spring’s chapter is at onceboth the most lengthy and ambitious of the 11pieces. In the course of examining an excep-tional endeavor, the Oregon K–16 Chinese Flag-ship Program, she is comprehensive and eloquentin describing the challenges implicit in such anendeavor—namely, articulation based on a rangeof assessment metrics, developmentally appropri-ate pedagogy, and experiential learning. Thereis as well an encouraging exemplar of how theFlagship’s features may be applied to other Chi-nese language programs. The volume concludeswith Leslie Schrier’s superb piece addressing theforeign culture of American public education forprospective teachers in American K–12 settingswho have been raised and educated in China. Tothis reviewer’s eyes, it is, along with Everson’s twochapters, one of the most effective and successfulcontributions, providing both clear, historicallybased overviews and concrete suggestions to thefledgling educator.

As noted in the opening paragraph, this volumemay have been prepared with a bit too much haste,as reflected in some glitches in both content and

cosmetics. Although the initial design seemed tobe that each chapter would have a series of dis-cussion questions to serve as the basis for teacherreflection, in fact only 6 of the 11 chapters havesuch a list. A more glaring error is the quotationby Everson in his piece on literacy development,in discussing pinyin Romanization, stating that aninitial q– is “never. . . followed by the letter ‘u’ asit must in English” (p. 100). In point of fact, q– isfrequently followed by the letter ‘u’ (e.g., qu, que,quan); perhaps he meant that it did not have tobe (e.g., qian). There are also errors in format forbibliography (in the Wen article, p. 149) and theprovision of both footnotes and endnotes (also inthe Wen article).

In the concluding remarks of their chapter,reflecting on the rapid changes in technology,Xie and Yao comment that their contribution is“‘ephemeral’ and its contents will be and shouldbe updated in the near future” (p. 171). The samemay certainly be said for all elements of TCFL.However, it is at once a timely and timeless re-source for all teachers of Chinese in the early yearsof the 21st century and is highly recommended toboth preservice and in-service teachers.

SCOTT MCGINNISDefense Language Institute–Washington Office

LIU, YUE HUA, & TAO–CHUNG YAO. IntegratedChinese Level 1, Part 1. 3rd ed. Simplified Characters.Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2008. Pp. xxxi, 335. $39.95,paper. ISBN 0–88727–638–5.Character Workbook. Pp. 142. $21.95, paper. ISBN978–0–88727–648–4.Workbook. Pp. 192. $21.95, paper. ISBN 978–0–88727–640–8.Textbook and Workbook Audio CD set. $43.95.ISBN 978–0–88727–6422.

As a textbook that has been used in different col-leges and universities since its first publicationin 1997, Integrated Chinese has gained increasingpopularity for its focus on communicative skillsand the application of task-based pedagogical phi-losophy to Chinese instructional materials. Thethird edition of Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 1starts with an “Introduction” section to presentan overview of Chinese language, pronunciation,the writing system, and some useful expressions.There are a total of 10 chapters and two reviewlessons in the book. Each chapter centers on athematic topic in two separate dialogues, each di-alogue with its own vocabulary list, grammar, andlanguage practice. The language practice of the

Reviews 457

second dialogue is followed by the personalizedexercises called “How About You?” “Culture High-lights,” and English translation of the dialogues.In addition, learning objectives and a progresschecklist are provided at the beginning and endof each chapter, respectively, for students to mon-itor their learning. At the end of the book, threevocabulary indexes list all of the vocabulary in thebook by Chinese–English, by English–Chinese, bygrammar category, and by lesson. In addition, analternate form of text is displayed in traditionalcharacters. As illustrated in the preface, the thirdedition has introduced new features, including arevised storyline, contextualized grammar and in-teractive language practice, updated cultural andlinguistic information, and a new colorful design.

The first noticeable difference in this edition isthe effective use of visual tools, such as coloredpictures in the dialogues and practice and the useof avatar icons instead of character names in in-troducing the dialogues. Throughout the book,new grammatical points are highlighted in redin sequence, and detailed explanations can befound in the grammar sections that correspondto the sequenced numbers in red. This highlight-ing catches readers’ attention immediately andquickly. The cross-references in the same colorand sequence make it easy for learners to navi-gate through the text and grammar explanationin each dialogue. Another good use of color is thepractice of marking low-frequency words in gray.The three vocabulary index charts in full color atthe end of the book are useful as a quick referencewith full information for each word.

Another improvement comes from the reorga-nization and optimal distribution of information.In the third edition, each chapter starts with learn-ing objectives and the first dialogue and then in-troduces its vocabulary, which is the opposite ofthe previous edition. Another improvement is todraw a clear line between the two dialogues. Inthis new edition, two dialogues are presented sep-arately, and each is followed by vocabulary, gram-mar, and language practice. It saves teachers andstudents from having to separate the grammar foreach dialogue, which was the case in the secondedition, in which the grammar related to both di-alogues was presented together at the end of eachchapter.

A clear declaration of a communication-oriented and learner-centered approach in thisnew edition is seen in the revised “Language Prac-tice” and “How About You?” sections. Differentfrom the previous “Pattern Drills” section in theearlier edition, in which sentences were listedin a drill format without further illustration or

context, the new “Language Practice” section in-cludes questions, explanations, colored illustra-tions, and activities in various formats, such asmechanic drills, contextualized drills, pair activ-ities, group activities, class surveys, role-plays, andnarratives. Because this section is no longer de-fined as sentence pattern drills, there is morespace and freedom to include a range of usefulinformation to help learners not only to practicethe language form but also to understand whereand how to use it appropriately.

The “How About You?” section was labeled“Supplementary Vocabulary” in the earlier edi-tion. Although the content does not vary greatlyin this new edition, the change of lens makes thesection more relevant to the learner and, there-fore, an integral part of the chapter, rather thanan add-on.

The authors also made an effort to update thelanguage use in this edition. New words such as

‘email,’ ‘pay with a credit card,’‘to send a text message,’ ‘cell phone,’ and

‘cool’ are included to reflect newly emergingeveryday Chinese language.

Although the overall page count of the new edi-tion is not much different from the previous edi-tion, the information in this new edition is greatlyexpanded. A “Culture Highlights” section and tworeview lessons in the middle and at the end ofthe book are among the new features. Althoughmany parts of the new edition are intended tocreate communicative and learner-centered ma-terials, “Culture Highlights” consists of only a fewnotes on culture, which can be made more in-teractive by including students’ experience in theexploration of such cultural highlights.

Readers expect a published textbook to be freeof errors. Unfortunately, there are some smallmistakes and inconsistencies in characters. Forexample, the character ‘other’ is shown differ-ently (p. 112) from the way it is shown in otherplaces (pp. 153, 281, 306, 316). Another charac-ter ‘north’ is printed in different ways on dif-ferent pages (pp. 28, 135, 281, 298). The word

‘together’ is incorrect (pp. 135, 136, 294, 310,317). Two other mistakes involve a mix-up of tradi-tional and simplified characters: ‘line’ (p. 318)and ‘Portuguese’ (pp. 169, 289, 307). Be-cause these words may appear in other places thanthe dialogue, vocabulary, and indexes, there areinstances of errors that may not be listed here.Fortunately, the words mentioned here are pre-sented correctly in the Character Workbook, butthere should be consistency in the text and prac-tice exercises so that students are not confused bythe variants.

458 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

Organizing the textbook by thematic units fol-lowing a storyline seems like a good idea, but thechoice of topics merits comment. For instance, inthe second half of the book, topics such as ani-mals, books, and movies could be incorporated.The Workbook could be further revised to make itas efficient as the textbook; for example, a singlepage of activities on each skill could be designedfor easy access by learners and teachers. In theCharacter Workbook, color could be used to high-light radicals.

Overall, the third edition of Integrated Chi-nese, Level 1, Part 1 is much improved in itspresentation, illustrations, and organization as acommunication-oriented, learner-centered text-book. Its effort to meet student needs is evidenteven in small adjustments, such as the deletion ofthe word ‘beer,’ which appeared in the pre-vious edition, thus makes the language more ap-propriate for school-age readers at any level. Thestoryline is interesting and easily applicable to stu-dent life. Even though the Workbook and someof the topics selected for the textbook may seeadditional improvement in future editions, Inte-grated Chinese, Level 1, Part 1 still deserves recog-nition for its successful integration of basic Chi-nese language skills into a well-designed and well-presented textbook.

LIXIA MAPhillips Academy at Andover

ENGLISH

COLLINS, BEVERLY, & INGER M. MEES. Prac-tical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book forStudents. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008.Pp. xix, 305. $125.00, cloth. $35.95, paper. ISBN0–415–42266–3, cloth; ISBN: 0–415–42514–X, pa-per. Free Audio Lab Component.

Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Bookfor Students is part of the Routledge EnglishLanguage Introduction series, which assumes noprior knowledge of the field. The stated goal ofthe book is to concentrate on the practical ratherthan theoretical aspects of phonetics and phonol-ogy and to present them in a “down-to-earthway that readers will find easy to follow” (p. v).Its intended audience includes undergraduatestudents of phonetics and phonology, as wellas learners and teachers of English as a foreignlanguage. It is divided into four sections. SectionA introduces the basic concepts of general

phonetics and phonology. Section B developsstudents’ knowledge of the segmental features ofthe English sound system and the suprasegmentalfeatures of connected speech. Section C exploresmany varieties of spoken English, historicallanguage data, and guidelines for the teachingand learning of English pronunciation. SectionD includes writings on topics ranging from lan-guage attitudes to forensic phonetics. There are aglossary, suggestions for further reading, and anexcellent audio CD. Additional exercises, answerkeys, and links to Internet pages are available onthe companion Web site: http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415425148/resources/keys-extra.asp.

The book combines essential phonetic andphonological theory with practical application.Terminology introduced early on is reinforced inlater sections, using readily accessible language.Explanations are immediately followed by short,practical activities that illustrate the concept athand. Individual speech sounds and intonationpatterns are not just described but are also re-produced on the useful accompanying CD. Ac-cent varieties of English are, for the most part,carefully described and geographically situated.Illustrative speech samples are composed of nat-ural speech from interviews with native speakersrather than the stilted, exaggerated readings thataccompany many pronunciation manuals. Eachinterview is analyzed, and salient phonetic andphonological features are pointed out, so that thelistener may go back and review the information.Passages for transcription are introduced after apractical list of dos and don’ts, such as “Don’t useany capital letters or show any punctuation” (p.24). A great deal of information, all relevant tothe intended audience, is presented throughoutand is placed in the larger contexts of diachronicand synchronic language change, dialectal varia-tion, sociolinguistics, and the value of phoneticsfor learning and teaching both English and otherlanguages. In sum, this text lives up to its title.

This is a solid resource book, but a few aspectsof this work might be improved upon in futureeditions. Although the accent areas of Britainand Ireland are carefully laid out, illustrated andcommented upon, less care is taken with respectto North American English and other languages(e.g., Spanish). There is a tendency to discuss fea-tures of General or “Network” American (p. 7),with broad brushstrokes. For example, the text as-cribes certain linguistic behaviors to many Ameri-cans “in areas other than the East Coast” (p. 154).Such broad geographical characterizations areproblematic. The East Coast itself includes several

Reviews 459

important and well-documented dialectal areas,as do geographical regions that are not the EastCoast. There are few cited reference works directlyrelated to North American varieties of English.Any discussion of North American English shouldtake into account the authoritative research ofLabov, Ash, and Boberg (2005). A similar prob-lem is that the overviews provided of the Euro-pean languages most commonly studied in Britain(Spanish, French, and German; p. 212) are some-what imprecise in their descriptions. Spanish, forexample, is characterized as having a “dental set-ting” (p. 56), meaning that “/t d n s l/ are dentalrather than alveolar” (p. 56). In fact, Spanish /t d/are dental, but /n s l/ are alveolar, although theymay have dental allophones due to assimilatoryprocesses. Likewise, the overviews contain sweep-ing generalizations that are unsupported by theavailable linguistic evidence. To illustrate, the textstates that in Spanish “all vowels can combine toform diphthongs, but only /ei ai au oi/ commonlyoccur” (p. 214). This statement is simply incor-rect, and the only diphthong that is in any wayuncommon in native Spanish words is /ou/.

Practical Phonetics and Phonology is heavilygeared toward speakers and learners of Europeanvarieties of English and other languages (e.g.,Castilian Spanish). It is based on nonregional pro-nunciation (NRP), a “British model of English. . .

most commonly taught to students learning En-glish as a second language in Europe, Africa, Indiaand much of Asia” (p. 6). Pronunciations of manywords and their transcriptions are significantly dif-ferent from those of most varieties of North Amer-ican English (e.g., “In NRP, and similar accents,/r/ only occurs before a vowel, e.g., fairy /′fε:ri/,but far /fA:/, farm /fA:m/,” [p. 24]). Many of thethought questions following the texts in Section Dare irrelevant for speakers of North American En-glish (e.g., “From your observations, or perhapseven from your personal experience, would youagree that the status of [Received Pronunciation]has changed in recent years?”) (p. 228). Theseobservations should in no way be construed as acriticism of this work but rather as something tokeep in mind when assessing the appropriatenessof the text as a course book for use in North Amer-ican educational institutions.

REGINA MORINThe College of New Jersey

ZHENG, XIN–MIN, & CHRIS DAVISON. Chang-ing Pedagogy: Analysing ELT Teachers in China.

New York: Continuum, 2008. Pp. xi, 220. $120.00,cloth. ISBN 0–8264–8876–5.

China’s booming economy and business expan-sion have created a massive and unprecedenteddemand for English proficiency. The ChineseMinistry of Education has initiated a reform inEnglish language teaching (ELT) to increase theeffectiveness of teaching methodology and to fos-ter active, communicative competence in Chineselearners. Changing Pedagogy is motivated by thesenationwide curriculum changes for secondary-level ELT. However, rather than focus on the mer-its of the reform or the effectiveness of the newteaching methods, the book presents the changesthrough the prism of three individual ELT teach-ers’ experiences and investigates how the teach-ers’ beliefs interact with the local contexts inwhich their practices are situated and how theseprocesses translate into new pedagogy for the par-ticipating instructors.

Chapter 1 provides a historical overview of ELTin China as grounded in the sociopolitical sit-uation in the country and in the world. Chap-ters 2 and 3 offer a brief account of method-ological changes that characterize the field ofELT in general. The authors argue that to un-derstand how the promoted methods are im-plemented in China, it is necessary to acknowl-edge that the planned curriculum imposed top–down is rarely implemented in the taught curricu-lum because teachers’ beliefs, prior experiences,pedagogical convictions, and situational factorsmediate and invariably transform the prescribedmethodological changes. Although the differen-tiation between the planned and the realized cur-riculum is not a novel idea, the authors use itto explicate important theoretical distinctions be-tween the constructs of methodology and peda-gogy. Methodology is discussed as a generalized,top–down, theoretically coherent range of teach-ing methods applicable to a wide range of class-rooms. Pedagogy, on the other hand, is seen as“the teacher’s personal construct of teaching be-liefs, attitudes, and practices that encompasses allaspects of a teacher’s identity” (p. 47), which ismotivated by and responsive to the practical real-ities of a particular classroom.

Zheng and Davison draw on the methodology–pedagogy dichotomy in chapters 4 through 6 asthey explore beliefs and practices of three teach-ers who differ from each other in terms of biogra-phy, age, educational background, and length andtype of professional experiences. The teachersalso have varying resources and work with student

460 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

bodies dissimilar in socioeconomic condition andprofessional aspirations. Chapters 4 through 6 of-fer an engaging account of how these teachers ne-gotiate the demands of the new communicativelyoriented curriculum with their personal pedago-gies as well as with the grammar-focused systemof college entrance examinations, the ensuing ex-pectations of the administration and parents, andthe rigid timetable. Drawing on 280 minutes ofvideo-recorded lessons per teacher, Zheng andDavison describe the sequencing of lessons, teach-ing foci, student roles, teacher roles, activities, andmaterials that characterize each of the three class-rooms. Chapter 7 compares and contrasts the be-liefs, designs, and practices of the three teachers.The discussion suggests that although all of theteachers are in favor of new curriculum changesin general, their pedagogies are closely associatedwith the grammar–translation method with someinfusion of what the authors interpret as com-municative teaching techniques. Zheng and Davi-son conclude that, consciously or unconsciously,the three teachers’ pedagogies are strongly influ-enced “by their own life experiences, their per-sonal education background, their learning andteaching experiences, professional teacher train-ing, and their beliefs and values” (p. 167). There-fore, the reform, as welcome as it appears to be,influences the teachers’ practices but its adapta-tion is curtailed by counteracting situated forces.A more critical analysis of the underlying roots ofthe implicit resistance to change, including theagency of the teachers themselves, would benefitthe discussion. The final chapter offers implica-tions for practicing ELT in China and suggestionsfor future research directions.

Although it has obvious merits, the book’s seri-ous shortcoming is in its poorly defined analyticaldesign. In fact, information on research method-ology, analytical constructs, coding strategies, anddata interpretation is largely missing. As a result,the analysis is predominantly descriptive and attimes comprised of vague statements (e.g., “inter-actions between [the teacher] and his studentswere obviously frequent and positive,” [p. 83] in-stead of the accepted count of teacher/studentturn-taking). Consequently, as important as theinsights presented by the study are, they cannotbe used for theory-building or generalization toother cases or contexts.

The book would have benefited from a system-atic, in-depth description of the old and new ELTcurricula in China, as well as an analysis of theteachers’ understanding of the nature of the newmethodology, before the descriptions of the im-plemented instructional techniques are offered.

This would have helped the reader appreciate andassess the dynamics and quality of the teachers’pedagogical changes. Otherwise, the descriptionsof the different types of activities offered in thebook are static, as 280 minutes of recorded class-room time is hardly a sufficient time frame fortracing pedagogical changes. As it stands, it is theauthors who ultimately decide which teaching actscan or cannot count as evidence of change. Longi-tudinal studies are needed to capture the dynam-ics of change in teachers’ beliefs and conceptionsof effective methodologies.

Despite its shortcomings, the book offers a richand vivid account of how an imposed languagereform influences the everyday pedagogical reali-ties of regular teachers in the classrooms and how,in turn, the teachers as decision makers shapethe nature of the intended curricular changesthrough personal pedagogies. The authors are tobe commended for their thoughtful and insight-ful engagement with the underresearched andhard-to-capture issue of pedagogical change as in-stantiated through teachers’ beliefs, designs, andpractices.

VICTORIA HASKOUniversity of Georgia

FRENCH

BLOOD, ELIZABETH, & YASMINA MOBAREK.Intrigue: Langue, culture et mystere dans le mondefrancophone . 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pear-son Prentice Hall, 2007. Pp. vii, 436. $71.60, paper.ISBN 0–13–221–378–8.Instructor’s Resource Manual with Testing Program.Pp. 220. ISBN 0–13–243371–0.Student Activities Manual . $98.53, paper. ISBN0–13–242890–3. Companion Web site http://wps.prenhall.com/wl_blood_intrigue_2/.

This intermediate textbook contains 10 chapters,each comprising an introduction, three episodes,and a denouement . Each chapter is divided intoA Apprendre , Fonctions, and Structures, and A Ex-plorer : Cultures, Themes, and Litterature . There isan Interlude between chapters 5 and 6. The gram-mar structures introduced run the gamut fromrefamiliarization of articles to indirect discourse.The functions all begin with comment ‘how to.’ Thethemes include the usual: traveling, food, fashion,family, music, the press, politics, current world is-sues, arts, traditional life, sports, and health. BothFrench and francophone points of view are in-cluded.

Reviews 461

The authors explain their goals for the text-book, to be used for one or two semesters, usingkey words designed to interest an instructor: ori-entation toward proficiency, the five Cs, four skills,grammar review and recycling, communicativeand expansion activities, preparing students forupper level courses, process writing, catering todiverse learning styles, adult learners, and learn-ers with varying levels of preparation.

Most of these goals are fulfilled by the textbookand student activities manual (SAM). The evolu-tion of the book is a story, an intrigue , involvinga Quebecois woman and a French man. On thehunt for an antique manuscript, they encountertwists and turns in the plot throughout the 10chapters. The textbook can thus be attentive tofour skills preparation, grammar review and re-cycling, expansion activities and, with the ancil-laries (audio CDs and a video), diverse learningstyles. With respect to the five Cs, Intrigue is veryeffective. Additionally, the textbook and SAM arewritten 85% in French, with only the grammarexplanations in English.

There is a high level of contextualization in allof the exercises. Chapter 2’s theme is food. The ex-ercises ask the students to think about food, foodpreparation, comparisons of what people in dif-ferent cultures eat normally and on holidays, andso forth. Students are asked to use the vocabularyin myriad ways in combination with the chapter’sgrammar. The SAM supports the textbook witha clean approach; there are no visual detractorson the pages, the instructions are clear, the vo-cabulary used is relevant, and the exercises arevaried enough so that skills are practiced but notto the point of boredom. Also appreciated are theexercises in which students must repeat after themodel; unless required explicitly to do so, moreoften than not, students ignore this aspect of theirlearning.

Another positive note for the SAM is the treat-ment of the video interviews. It is sad to say thatthe authors’ approach is quite traditional, but itis refreshing to see the number of detailed ac-tivities that students are asked to do to prepareto watch the video and to follow up. Video exer-cises include Avant de regarder , Profil personnel (ofthe video’s speaker), Comprehension, Structures, Vo-cabulaire , and Culture . The SAM also introducessecondary characters to the story that can be ahighlight for the students who do their workbookpurposefully. These students will be able to discussin class what happened in the SAM as supplemen-tal information to pique their interest.

There are, however, some difficulties with thetextbook in the areas of communicative activities

and preparing students for future upper levelcourses.

As previously mentioned, the 10 chapters of thetextbook are highly contextualized. It may be dif-ficult, however, to sustain interest in chapter 2’stheme of food for the 40 pages of the chapter. Al-though the prereading questions, vocabulary ex-pressions, and reading exercises are useful, thereare many communicative activities that ask the stu-dents to give their personal preferences on food(p. 52), choose with a partner the expressions nec-essary to invite someone to dinner (p. 54), issuean invitation (p. 54), name items from a menu(p. 55), complete structured grammar exercises(pp. 61, 63, and 74), answer comprehension ques-tions (p. 65), and do role-plays (p. 68). Com-municative activities are not simply those duringwhich students ask and answer questions; this typeof activity should require students to share infor-mation and get information to produce an arti-fact of some sort. Simply asking and answeringquestions is practice but not communicative andcertainly does not ask the students to create withlanguage.

Even later in the textbook, in chapter 10 for ex-ample, students do not do as much creating withlanguage as one might expect from such a de-tailed textbook. It would be difficult to maintainthat students would be prepared for an advanced-level class, given that the themes in Intrigue arethe same ones seen in first-year textbooks and,moreover, are treated similarly with role-plays andquestion/answer models. Additionally, it is notnecessarily the activity that prepares students foradvanced proficiency but also the topic. Speakingabout how one gets physically fit is not the sameas debating whether athletic facilities should becut from universities to save money. There is sucha plethora of activities that some instructors mayfocus on the activities requiring less interactivityrather than on the really good exercises, like theone on page 396 (“What are the links betweensound body and sound spirit?”). Indeed, thereis an evolution of expectations from chapters 1through 10, but there are ways to involve studentsmore interactively than through fact finding, re-peating, and the vocabulary- and structure-basedexercises found in every chapter.

Although the readings chosen to enhance thethemes are authentic, it may be difficult early onfor students to formulate answers to questionslike: “What is the effect of alternating long andshort sentences in Proust’s passage?” “Analyze theuse of nouns and adjectives describing the au-thor’s feelings.” “Which dominate the first andsecond parts, and what effect does this have on

462 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

the reader?” (p. 82). In contrast to the rest of theexercises in chapter 2 described here, these ques-tions seem far beyond the reach of studentstrying to use past tense and form questions.Although this reviewer applauds the attempt atliterary analysis to prepare students for advanced-level courses, the gradation throughout the text-book appears to be slightly off.

It was difficult to find from the Web site infor-mation about the pricing and the availability ofancillaries. It is not obvious whether the Instruc-tor’s Resource Manual is included in the adoptionprice, for example, or if there is a fee to use thecompanion Web site. In addition, why did the au-thors choose to produce a videocassette insteadof a DVD in this second edition? On page 75 ofthe textbook, the picture of a computer accom-panies the caption Regardez, meaning “watch thevideo.” (This reviewer was not able to find a video-cassette player to view the quality of the visual ma-terials.) One more check for small errors wouldhave been appropriate; for example, the textbookuses mostly French, but on page 53, the columnheadings are “Formal” and “Informal.” Finally, al-though the second edition is improved, the “I”(Information) paragraphs are distracting and arenot well integrated into the pages.

In the frontmatter the authors list “Ten Rea-sons to Become Fluent in French” (p. xxvi). Inthese days of program cuts, it is a welcome ideato remind instructors and learners alike why weundertake the production of textbooks and whywe teach French in the first place.

BONNIE L. YOUNGSCarnegie Mellon University

ZARATE, GENEVIEVE, DANIELLE LEVY, &CLAIRE KRAMSCH. (Eds.). Precis du plurilin-guisme et du pluriculturalisme . Paris: Editions desarchives contemporaines, 2008. Pp. 441. $59.50,paper. ISBN 2–914610–602.

Zarate, Levy, and Kramsch have organized an am-bitious volume of essays that explore the compli-cated dimensions of plurilingual and pluriculturalphenomena in a multiplicity of geographic, polit-ical, historical, linguistic, and sociocultural con-texts. Characterized by the authors as both a criti-cal volume and a bricolage (a French term used todesignate constructions as the do-it-yourself type),the Precis presents a series of texts that considerthe intricate relationships among languages andcultures as performed and assessed in a varietyof social settings and cultural contexts. The book

incorporates short critical pieces, characterizedby the editors as microentries, written by scholarsand writers from multiple locations, languages,and academic disciplines. What results is a blur-ring of the boundaries that tend to compartmen-talize, divide, and distinguish categories relatedto the critical discourse, study, and practice oflanguages, including but not limited to nations,academic disciplines, cultural contexts, socioeco-nomic categories, and languages themselves. Asthe editors maintain, the intent of the Precis isto decentrer ‘decenter’ discussions of languagesand cultures as a means of inviting new practicaland critical dialogues that are pluricultural andplurilingual in scope and in nature.

The book is divided into eight theme-basedchapter groupings, each featuring an intro-duction and discussion sections that interpret,analyze, and expand upon the microentry sec-tions contained therein. The first chapter, Del’apprenant au locuteur/acteur ‘From the Learnerto the Speaker/Actor,’ initiates the interdisci-plinary, intercultural, and interlingual dialogueset forth in the Precis. Focusing on psychologi-cal and sociological contributions to the study oflanguages and language learning, microentries inthe first chapter consider questions pertaining toindividuals in their capacities as language learn-ers and practitioners, and they explore how indi-viduals (re)negotiate, (re)invent, and (re)definethemselves through interactions and interfaceswith multiple languages and cultures in localand global contexts. The authors of the microen-tries analyze these themes through different dis-ciplinary and contextual lenses. Kramsch pro-vides the first microentry of the chapter, in whichshe examines the social, cultural, political, andstylistic and literary aspects of identity configura-tion through bilingual or multilingual practices.Other microentries in the section consider top-ics such as how oral and written forms of trans-mission affect not only language learning butalso individual senses of involvement and belong-ing in plurilingual communities, how decentraliz-ing the conversation on languages and languagelearning denies universalist discourse and dis-places perceived monolingual/monocultural au-thority in communities and classrooms, and howforeign and second language teachers can pro-mote plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in theirclassrooms.

Later chapters follow the same introduction,microentries, and discussion format, expand-ing upon themes pertaining to plurilingual andpluricultural phenomena in communities andclassrooms, such as identity negotiation and(re)configuration (ch. 2), migration and mobility

Reviews 463

(ch. 3), social groups and belonging (ch. 4), artand music (ch. 5), communities and social dis-course (ch. 6), language politics and policies (ch.7), and historical models (ch. 8). The editors suc-ceed in incorporating international and interdis-ciplinary perspectives throughout the book in acombination of practical, theoretical, and expe-riential texts, which make the Precis appealingto scholars, teachers, and students interested inthe relationships among language(s), cultures(s),individuals(s), and group(s) that are working infields (or combinations thereof) that include aes-thetics, anthropology, history, linguistics, litera-ture, pedagogy, philosophy, psychology, sociology,and second/foreign language acquisition.

In initiating the Precis du plurilinguisme etpluriculturalisme endeavor, the editors acknowl-edge the limits of the project, affirming that thePrecis represents only a first step toward chang-ing the topography of interlingual, intercultural,and interdisciplinary investigations of plurilingualand pluricultural phenomena. Even so, in tak-ing that first step, the editors open new domainsof practical and theoretical possibilities and, indoing so, invite both monolingual and plurilin-gual citizens of the world—students, teachers,researchers, writers, immigrants, migrants, andtravelers, among others—to participate in the dis-cussion. The editors have demonstrated the sin-cerity of their invitation through the creation ofa companion interactive Web site to the Precis inwhich readers will be able access original versionsof microentries that were translated into Frenchfor the print edition and additional microentriesthat were not included in the print edition due toeditorial constraints. Moreover, the Web site is de-signed to include a forum through which authorsand readers can upload additional bibliographi-cal references, post links to pertinent articles andWeb sites, and interact with each other in a multi-lingual virtual discussion format.

Perhaps through the creation of this plurilin-gual and pluricultural virtual community, the au-thors will be able to further address and improveupon the shortcomings of the Precis, particularlywith respect to the apparent geographic and so-cioeconomic biases reflected in the otherwise im-pressive and innovative book. Although the workattempts to consider plurilingual and pluricul-tural phenomena from a multiplicity of linguistic,sociocultural, geographic, historical, literary, anddisciplinary perspectives, too much of the empha-sis involves discourse situated in European, Ameri-can, Canadian, and Australian contexts. Althoughthere are some notable contributions from schol-ars considering perspectives from Asia and the

Maghreb—including a reflection on languages,institutions, and power written by Samir Mar-zouki, a discussion of the challenges faced byMaghrebi writers in Quebec by Lilyane Rachedi,and an assessment of how economic factors in-fluence national language policies, practices, andperspectives in Asia by Amy B. M. Tsui—LatinAmerican and Sub-Saharan African voices are al-together lacking in the conversation aside froma few references to French colonial history, lan-guage policies in Djibouti and Madagascar, andimmigrant experiences in Canada, the UnitedStates, and Europe. The lack of voices from schol-ars, students, and citizens from the southernhemisphere and, more important, the develop-ing world reflects one of the biases that the Precisattempts to problematize, particularly in its discus-sions of immigrant, migrant, and diasporic groupsand its consideration of the impact of national lan-guage policies on local and global communities. Itis hoped that through the creation of the Web siteand in subsequent collaborative editions, morecontributions will be solicited from scholars fromthe rich plurilingual and pluricultural traditionsof the developing world.

JULIE HUNTINGTONMarymount Manhattan College

SPANISH

CLOUTIER, CAROLE. Introduccion al analisislinguıstico. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Pp. 161.$32.19, paper. ISBN 0–07–338856–4.

This textbook (henceforth IAL) is intended for“Spanish majors, language teachers and all thoseinterested in linguistics” (Introduction, n.p., re-viewer’s translation), is said to hold a “large sourceof practical examples” and claims to be a “refer-ence work even for specialized linguists” (Intro-duction, n.p.). The publisher’s Web site (http://catalogs.mhhe.com/mhhe/viewProductDetails.do?isbn=0073388564) touts IAL’s “hands-onpractice that encourage [sic] the ability toanalyze linguistic data. The. . . students’ roleshould be active, rather than passive.” The bookhas a one-page introduction, a final bibliography(13 pages), and four chapters: La sintaxis (62pages), La fonologıa (25 pages), La dialectologıa(22 pages), and La linguıstica historica (24 pages).Although IAL delivers less than it promises (andits lack of an index confirms it as a poor referencework choice), it does combine much informationinto a small package.

464 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

Chapter 1, La sintaxis, presents overview no-tions of constituent (various types), phrase struc-ture and tree diagrams, subcategorization, basicX–bar notation, transformational rules of move-ment, insertion, substitution, and permutation,plus treatment of Spanish-language phenomenasuch as quantifiers, null pronouns, clitics, sen-tence types, verb classification, se constructions,periphrasis, and subordination.

Treatment is sketchy and superficial, as when‘trace’ (huella) is introduced (p. 20) and exem-plified but not motivated by analytical need. Like-wise, to differentiate between passive and imper-sonal se , the latter is said to have a pro expletivosubject, supposedly different from the previouslymentioned PRO grande y pro chica (p. 12). How-ever, the reason for such differentiation and thenature of the expletive pro are not addressed,rendering it an empty label. (The footnote ref-erence provided here, as in many other instances,to a published article intended for linguistic re-searchers is of no practical value to the beginnerto whom this work is mainly directed.)

The entire book, but especially the syntax chap-ter, suffers from serious typographical errors thatcall into question the care exercised in its prepa-ration. Thus, the initial phrase structure rule toexpand NP is given (p. 4) as SN → (Det), posicionpreverbal (p. 20) should read posicion postverbaland tree (3) on page 42 presents a reflexive con-figuration instead of the reciprocal one intended.Just as puzzling (especially for the beginner) is aconfusion of indexes in trees (4–6) on page 22;the top node of tree (4) on page 28 being O’,unlicensed by the available phrase structure rules(pp. 4–5); alluding (p. 36) to two competing anal-yses of “prepositional” verbs but opting for yet athird, without details or supporting argumenta-tion; and explanation (p. 43) of a certain phe-nomenon as a unidad morfemica and morfema, asthese terms appear for the first time and with noclarification of their meaning.

IAL does offer hands-on practice in the formof a few exercises after each section that ask stu-dents to apply to new data an analysis just demon-strated. Although this type of practice may engagethe students, it is more mechanical than analyti-cal or creative. IAL can familiarize them with cer-tain techniques, but it is unlikely to teach them tocome up with their own analyses.

The Fonologıa chapter presents concepts ofphoneme/allophone, phonetic symbols (includ-ing several non-IPA), parameters of articulatoryphonetics, and phonological rules (with binary adhoc features), and it touches on syllable structure.It also spells out the phonological processes forSpanish voiced stop/fricative alternation, nasal as-

similation (mischaracterized as applying before aconsonant instead of before an obstruent), /s/-voicing, and /r/-strengthening. To its credit, IALtries to explain how such rules express generaliza-tions through natural classes.

The Dialectologıa chapter deals exclusively withphonology (no morphosyntax) and with ge-ographic variation (but not sociolinguistic oridiolectical diversity of register). It identifiestwo main peninsular dialects (central–northernand Andalusian) and four Spanish Americangroups (Caribbean, Mexican/Central American,Andean, and Southern Cone), plus special men-tion for a southwest U.S. dialect (including a sam-ple corpus showing codeswitching).

The Linguıstica historica chapter (which shouldbe more accurately termed History of Spanishor Pronunciation from Latin to Spanish) barelymentions principles of historical–comparative lin-guistics. It does delve deeply into sound changes,not in their broad sweep or general tendenciesbut in excruciating detail, specifying hundredsof examples of two dozen specific historical pro-cesses of varying regularity. This is arguably dataoverkill, especially for the beginner unfamiliarwith Latin, and it makes one wish that someof this minutiae could be traded in for a chap-ter on morphology or acquisition, probably top-ics of more centrality and relevance to languagelearners.

In sum, there are better introductory Hispaniclinguistics textbooks available for most users. Inaddition to its typos and unbalanced content, IALseems more interested in data exposition than inbroad and insightful coverage or in grounding itsanalyses in explicit linguistic reasoning based onuniversals (e.g., markedness), which might opena window on the mind.

PHILIP W. KLEINUniversity of Iowa

FACE, TIMOTHY L. Guide to the Phonetic Symbolsof Spanish. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 2008.Pp. xi, 168. $24.95, paper. ISBN 978-1–57473–026–5.

This welcome reference work presents a compi-lation of the phonetic symbols that have beenused to transcribe Spanish pronunciation in ex-isting treatises on the subject. The book repre-sents a welcome addition to the library of anyteacher of Spanish phonetics and phonology, andit should be made available to students of suchcourses, given that many different transcription

Reviews 465

systems, idiosyncratic symbols, and diacritics havebeen employed in the field.

The book begins with a “Table of Entries,” withpage numbers for the discussion of each phoneticsymbol. Chapter 1, “Introduction to the SymbolGuide,” first discusses the history of the develop-ment of transcription systems used for Spanish,particularly those of the International PhoneticAlphabet (IPA), the journal Revista de FilologıaEspanola (RFE), and the American phonetic tra-dition. The shortcomings of each system are pre-sented. Given the vast amount of phonetic vari-ation among the varieties of Spanish, many au-thors have employed modifications and adapta-tions of the systems. This practice has caused dif-ficulty for interpretation by researchers, as well asconfusion for students of Spanish phonetics. Theorganization of the symbols and diacritics is thenexplained. The symbols included represent onlyphonetic segments. Suprasegmental features arenot represented, with the exception of durationfor marking segments as long or short.

Chapter 2, “The Spanish Sound System,” pro-vides an overview of common phonetic character-istics of Spanish phonemes and key differencesamong different varieties of the language. Theoverview is organized by classes of sounds: 2.1“Vowels and Glides,” 2.2 “Obstruent Consonants,”and 2.3 “Sonorant Consonants,” followed by 2.4“Conclusion” and a list of selected readings on theSpanish sound system. The organization is logicaland the discussion complete, yet succinct. In chap-ter 1, the author states that “there has been a movetoward the IPA in recent years” (p. 3). In fact, theSpanish phonetics and phonology text by Barru-tia and Schwegler, included in the references forchapter 2 (pp. 16 and 166), changed from theAmerican tradition to the IPA system from thesecond to the third edition [now Schwegler, A.& Kempff, J. (2007). Fonetica y fonologia espanolas(3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley], thus followingthe trend noted by Face. The text by Schweglerand Kempff (2007) also uses the IPA system, thusfollowing the trend noted by Face.

The symbols and symbol/diacritic combina-tions are then presented alphabetically, with thediacritics following. The character palette in Mi-crosoft Word, for example, organizes the symbolsin a similar way. The book concludes with pho-netic tables of the RFE system, the IPA system, auseful glossary of phonetic terms, and the list ofreferences.

The book is thorough, giving useful cross-references of terms and symbols. There is goodsynthesis of different uses of diacritics for Spanish.Appropriate critique is also given, such as point-ing out that the diacritics “Circumflex” [ˆ] and

[ˇ], both of which are used over the symbol [c]to represent an (alveo)palatal affricate, actuallyrepresent falling and rising tone, respectively, inIPA usage (p. 28). There is also good critique ofunexplained symbol usage, lack of articulatory de-scription, and lack of explanation of differencesbetween one symbol and another in works suchas Canfield and Zamora Vicente. Instances of au-thors using two symbols interchangeably are alsopointed out (p. 123).

Weaknesses in the book are rare. A few diacriticsare very small in the text of the explanation, suchas “Lowering Sign Beta” (p. 27). Fortunately, theillustrations at the beginning of the explanationof each symbol are greatly enlarged. It is difficultto distinguish the difference between two vari-ants of “Turned Long-Leg R” (p. 108, last line).These symbols should be enlarged. One omis-sion noted was “Reversed-Comma,” which is notincluded in the list of diacritics nor mentionedunder “Comma,” which is included in the dia-critics (pp. 140–149). From the explanations ofsymbols using “Reversed-Comma” (pp. 26, 37, 52,and 106), it is clear that the diacritic indicatesan approximant consonant, in which constrictionis not sufficient to produce frication. “Comma,”however, indicates a dental place of articulation,so the two diacritics are unrelated. The only typonoted was a period instead of a comma following“Additionally” (p. 2, line 13).

Face should be commended for performing asignificant service for students and researchers inthe field of Spanish phonetics and phonology.

DIANE R. UBERThe College of Wooster

MARQUES, SARAH. La lengua que heredamos:Curso de espanol para bilingues. 6th ed. Hoboken,NJ: Wiley, 2009. Pp. xiii, 510. $101.25, paper. ISBN0–470–08155–4.CARREIRA, MARIA, & MICHELLE GEOFF-RION–VINCI. ¡Sı se puede! Un curso transicionalpara hispanohablantes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,2008. Pp. xv, 311. $92.95, paper. ISBN 0–618–06136–3.¡Sı se puede! Student Activities Manual/Cuaderno deactividades. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Pp.vii, 168. $13.63, paper. ISBN 0–618–06137–1.

La lengua que heredamos contains a prelimi-nary lesson, 22 chapters, five review sections, aSpanish–English glossary, three appendixes, andan index. Each chapter features the following:Mapa/datos, Miscelanea, Antes de leer , Lectura,

466 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

Despues de leer , Mejore su vocabulario, Temaspara redactar y conversar , Semejanzas y contrastes,Gramatica, Humor , Ortografıa, and Practica de acen-tos. An answer key is available to instructors onrequest or via the companion Web site, which of-fers additional resources for both instructor andstudent, accessible only to registered users.

The text’s intended users are Spanish-speakingstudents of Hispanic heritage, educated in theUnited States, who wish to increase their formalknowledge of the language. Its traditional gram-mar explanations will help those who arrive al-ready in possession of the required terminologyto polish their skills. Students who lack this meta-language may have a harder time. Overall, manyof the grammar exercises are similar or identi-cal to the ones seen in texts for advanced sec-ond language learners of Spanish. In contrast,exercises and explanations involving translationand comparisons to English, focusing on cog-nates, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation,seem designed especially for heritage speakersand will facilitate the transfer of literacy skills fromEnglish.

The author states that she has “considered somelinguistic difficulties within certain groups” (p. v),and observations concerning nonstandard varia-tion appear in footnotes. Nevertheless, some phe-nomena common to the speech and/or writing ofdiverse groups of heritage speakers of Spanish—aswell as other features whose occurrence is limitedto specific groups—are either missing or couldhave received more prominent coverage. For ex-ample, with respect to /s/ elision, the text states:“Se le recomienda al alumno que se esfuerce por pro-nunciar la s, especialmente en una situacion formal”(p. 109), adding that the use of the s is essentialin written language. However, there are no exer-cises designed to reinforce its use in plural forms.Such material would be very helpful to studentsand instructors in regions of the United Statesthat have a strong Caribbean presence, as wouldsome treatment of nonstandard constructions in-volving the substitution of the infinitive for thesubjunctive, nonemphatic subject pronouns, andrigid SVO word order. An item that would be help-ful to address for instructors and students in anyregion is the regularization of verbs to second- orthird-person singular, as in “Mi hermano vas a laescuela” and “Yo nunca ha ido a Europa.”

As many Spanish textbooks do, whether theyare designed for second language learners or her-itage language speakers, La lengua que heredamosorganizes the presentation of cultural contentaround one Spanish-speaking country per chap-ter. Readings consist of short factual pieces in-terspersed with literary excerpts. Although the

first and fourth chapters are devoted to theHispanic population within the United States—Grupos hispanos en los Estados Unidos and Los mex-icoamericanos—students might appreciate a morecontextualized acknowledgment of the U.S. pres-ence and contributions of various groups, whichcould be incorporated into the chapters corre-sponding to their respective country of origin, asopposed to being relegated to just 2 out of 22chapters.

The aforementioned suggestions notwithstand-ing, La lengua que heredamos: Curso de espanol parabilingues continues to be a solid option for Span-ish heritage speaker courses, offering a valuablerepertoire of information and a comprehensivesupply of readings and exercises, all of whichcould be used for active practice or for reference,depending on the length of the course and thestudents’ linguistic proficiency.

¡Sı se puede! contains 10 chapters, each with sub-sections organized into the following categories:Orgullo cultural , Gramatica, Ortografıa, Registro, Es-trategia de lectura, and Estrategia de escritura. A keyin the back of the book contains answers to a smallnumber of exercises. Two indexes contain respec-tively grammatical terms and the titles of read-ings, and names and cultural topics. Exercises inthe Student Activities Manual correspond to eachchapter and include some that require studentsto search for information in Spanish on the Inter-net. A companion Web site offers open access toarticles and essays, plus other resources availableonly to registered users.

This text is intended for heritage speakers withlittle or no formal training in Spanish. It empha-sizes the ability to recognize and move betweenregisters, along with the acquisition of skills thatsupport this objective. Hence, attention is givento all of the usual issues such as accent placement,spelling conventions, temporal concordance ofverb tenses, and the rhetorical devices of academiclanguage. In most cases, the authors have man-aged to couch this type of material in a very acces-sible style.

Linguistic and sociolinguistic information isgiven great prominence in ¡Sı se puede! , with ex-ercises to develop students’ (and instructors’)knowledge of degrees of formality, register, dialec-tal variation (although the phenomena cited ear-lier are also missing here), and language contactphenomena such as borrowing and codeswitch-ing. For example, texts written in an informalor formal style are presented with instructions totransform the language into a different register.Overall, there are some inventive exercises. Forexample, a workbook assignment asks studentsto use an online translator for passages given in

Reviews 467

Spanish and to then analyze the types of errorsthat appear. This provides a more teachable mo-ment than would simply warning students againstusing such devices to complete writing assign-ments. Many exercises promote interaction withclassmates and community members. Examplesrange from a list of words given in English with in-structions to interview people from various coun-tries for their equivalents in Spanish, to sugges-tions for community service.

As in most language textbooks, cultural contentin ¡Sı se puede! serves as material for the develop-ment of reading comprehension. Although to acertain extent this book follows the well-knownformat of featuring one or two Spanish-speakingcountries per chapter, it highlights the presenceof a given culture within the United States or someaspect in particular that connects it to U.S. Lati-nos.

¡Sı se puede! Un curso transicional para hispanoh-ablantes fulfills the objectives outlined in its intro-duction, and it could be used in a one- or two-semester sequence, depending on the students’previous experience with formal instruction inSpanish.

LAURA CALLAHANThe City College of the City University of New York

PARODI, GIOVANNI. (Ed.). Working with SpanishCorpora. New York: Continuum, 2007. Pp. xv, 259.$170.00, cloth. ISBN 0–82649–483–8.

This book is part of a series whose goal is to pro-vide an overview of corpus linguistics work in anumber of different languages. Most of the au-thors in this book are associated in some way withthe research group organized by Giovanni Par-odi of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Val-paraıso, Chile, and the orientation of the bookis strongly affected by the work of that researchgroup.

This orientation and the focus of most of thechapters are related to genre-based (or register-based) variation in Spanish, specifically fromwithin Biber’s multidimensional analysis (MD)model. This model attempts to show how manydifferent syntactic features (passives, pronomi-nal usage, tense, aspect, etc.) cluster in differ-ent texts, in which genres these clusters are mostfrequent (conversation, newspaper editorials, aca-demic textbooks, etc) and then to explain from afunctional perspective why those features clusterin those genres. This model has been dominantin the corpus linguistics community since Biber,

one of the contributors to this work, began workon MD analyses of English in the mid-1980s. Interms of this narrow orientation, the book suc-ceeds well. It is by far the best available summaryof MD-related research on Spanish and on genre-based variation generally, and researchers who areinterested in this field will gain a great deal fromthe book.

There are also many useful insights in the bookfor language teachers. Because of space limita-tions in this review, we cannot cover them in anydetail. However, one of the major points of theresearch is that the frequency and use of differ-ent syntactic constructions often cannot be under-stood without also understanding the function ofthe genre in which they occur. For example, pas-sives are found most in academic writing becauseof the need to downplay the role of the investi-gator and to focus on the results. Biber, Johans-son, Leech, Conrad, and Finegan’s (1999) massivereference grammar of English contains in-depthanalyses of hundreds of issues like this one, butthere are virtually no grammars of Spanish thatlook at syntax from a frequency-based and func-tional perspective. Works such as this book are agood start toward the development of such gram-mars, which can then provide useful insights forlanguage learners.

What makes the book so useful as a discussion ofMD-oriented investigations into Spanish grammaris, however, the same thing that makes it some-what problematic for others who might be inter-ested in Spanish corpus linguistics. If researcherspick up the book and expect to gain an overviewof what has been done generally in Spanish cor-pus linguistics over the past 15–20 years, they willlikely be disappointed. The vast majority of fieldsin which corpora have been used to study Span-ish during the last decade or two are not covered.For example, a search of the Linguistics and Lan-guage Behavior Abstracts database (LLBA) showsthat the most common areas of study with Span-ish corpora during this time have dealt with non-MD studies of language usage (e.g., frequency anduse of one particular syntactic structure), dialects,translation, lexicography and the lexicon, and his-torical linguistics. None of these topics, with theexception of syntactic features, from within theirMD orientation are covered at any length in thebook.

The narrow focus in terms of topics is also foundin the authors represented in and cited in thebook. As mentioned, nearly all of the authors arerelated in some way to one research group inChile. An examination of the bibliography, how-ever, shows little mention of work by the domi-nant researchers in the field of Spanish corpus

468 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

linguistics. For example, a search of the LLBAshows that the six most widely published andwidely cited researchers in this field in the last 15years are (in order of frequency) Davies, Ocampo,DeMello, de Kock, Bentivoglio, and Eddington. Inthe roughly 400 entries in the references section,however, there are only 5 entries from these re-searchers, some of whom have published 15–20articles on Spanish corpus linguistics during thistime, and in most cases the references are notfor the most important publications by these re-searchers.

The last concern has to do with the corporathat were used in these studies. The Grial PUCV2003 corpus that was used in many of thesestudies contains approximately 1,500,000 wordsin several different genres, and other corpora—quite small, proprietary (not publicly available)corpora—were used in the other studies in thebook. Although corpora of this size were commonin the 1960s and 1970s, they are very small by to-day’s standards, where 100+ million-word corporaare the norm. There are much larger (and equallyas diverse and balanced) corpora of Spanish thatare publicly available online, including the 200+million-word Corpus de Referencia del Espanol Ac-tual (CREA) and the 100-million-word Corpus delEspanol . (Only the Corpus del Espanol , however,is tagged and lemmatized and has an architecturethat is useful for a wide range of research on Span-ish syntax.)

It is reasonable that the investigators woulduse their own small, proprietary corpora, giventhat they need full-text access to the corpus forthis type of MD-oriented research. However, theyought at least to mention larger corpora such asthose in the Habla culta collection, which are avail-able in full-text format at reasonable cost. If thebook is attempting to survey the corpora that areavailable for Spanish (as a benefit to readers, whomay not know much about Spanish corpora gener-ally), then it makes little sense to ignore corporasuch as CREA and the Corpus del Espanol , espe-cially when they are the dominant ones in thefield.

MARK DAVIESBrigham Young University

PINEROS, CARLOS–EDUARDO. Estructura de lossonidos del espanol . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pear-son Prentice Hall. 2008. Pp. xviii, 414. $93.40, pa-per. ISBN 0–13–194437–1.

Estructura de los sonidos del espanol is a pedagogi-cal book designed to introduce Spanish students

to the sound system of Spanish. The book is or-ganized in seven units, which comprise a total of24 chapters. Each chapter is supplemented with asection of practice questions, exercises, and Webmaterial for additional study of the content of thechapter. The first chapters in the first unit of thebook are introductions to basic elements of thecommunication process, phonetics science, andthe International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). TheIPA is an excellent tool to describe the Spanishsound system in a consistent fashion, in compari-son to other books on the market that use morethan one system.

The second unit, dedicated to articulatory pho-netics, describes the organs of phonation, mannerof articulation, points of articulation, and the roleof the vocal cords. This section lays out the funda-mental concepts to understand the later chapters,in which details about natural classes of sounds arepresented.

Unit 3 presents the sound patterns of Spanish.It is divided into perception of sounds and Span-ish syllables. Chapter 7 includes new content, incomparison to other textbooks directed at under-graduates, regarding a division of Spanish soundsaccording to their sonority scale and perceptibil-ity. Chapter 7 is also useful for providing studentswith a deeper understanding of sound patternsaccording to their articulatory nature.

Unit 4, dedicated to variation, is composed oftwo chapters. Concepts such as phonemes and al-lophones are introduced, and discussions aboutregional, social, and contextual variation are pre-sented. Both chapters are well conceived in theircontent and they are clearly written and easy tounderstand. Chapter 10, on variation, argues fora division of the Spanish-speaking world into threemajor areas: northern peninsular Spanish, high-land Spanish, and lowland Spanish. In a pedagog-ically oriented book, it makes sense to present acomplex issue in this simple way. The pronuncia-tion differences covered are conservative and arecomparable to other textbooks on Spanish pho-netics. It does not reflect more recent phenomenadiscussed in current Hispanic linguistics research,but the main topics are included and explanationsare on target for the intended audience.

Unit 5 is dedicated to vowels. Chapter 11 is con-cerned with a complete description of vowels froman articulatory point of view, as well as an expla-nation of their orthographic representation. Thechapter also provides students with relevant com-parisons with English vowels. Figures of articula-tion movements to produce vowels and exampleswill be useful for readers. Chapter 12 is concernedwith nonsyllabic vowels and the rules for theformation of diphthongs and triphthongs. Some

Reviews 469

considerations about regional and stylistic varia-tion are included in this chapter. It would be idealto include vowel-related phenomena in an expan-sion of the variation chapter mentioned earlier.Chapter 13 covers vowel coalescence phenomenaacross words. Unit 5 presents a well-informed per-spective on vowels in Spanish, including moredetail than in other similar books on Spanishphonetics.

Unit 6 on consonants includes eight chapters.The rationale for the division of the chapters isbased on natural classes according to manner ofarticulation, so we have chapters on semiconso-nants, trills and taps, laterals, nasals, fricatives,voiceless stops, voiced stops, and affricates. The or-der of the chapters is different from other books,where obstruent sounds are described first andresonants are presented in later chapters. Ped-agogically, it may be more complicated to talkabout the allophonic distribution of syllable-finalnasals than the allophonic distribution of voice-less stops, but the instructors may organize theirclass content as they see best. Each chapter coversissues related to the articulation of the sounds,their distribution, their orthographic represen-tation, and a contrastive analysis of Spanish andEnglish. The discussion about the allophonic dis-tribution and sound pattern shows the currentstate of affairs in Spanish phonology. Technicalcontent is reinforced with several examples ofthe relevant sounds discussed in each chapter.In short, there are plenty of examples and fig-ures to help students to understand the topicspresented, which are pedagogically convenientfor the reader. Unit 7 is devoted to supraseg-mental features of the Spanish language, includ-ing topics such as the prosodic word, the in-tonational phrase, and the prosodic utterance.The three chapters concerning suprasegmentalspresent a complete account of prosodic and or-thographic stress, the hierarchical structure ofSpanish prosody, and a digestible version of thecommon intonational patterns for the target un-dergraduate audience.

The reader will have a very positive impressionof the textbook after reviewing the content. Thebook has included all of the relevant topics thatare analyzed in Spanish phonetics and phonologycourses at the undergraduate level in North Amer-ica. It also goes beyond those expected themesby expanding in areas such as the perception ofsounds and sonority scale, as well as the prosodicstructure of Spanish. The introductory chapters,the organization of the materials, and the incorpo-ration of current approaches to describe Spanishsounds are well conceived. Additionally, practice

sections are included as a pedagogical tool forstudents to use in class and at home. The mostsalient feature of the book is that it offers a com-plete discussion of the sound system of Spanish ina clear way with relevant practice application sec-tions that are pedagogically appropriate for un-dergraduate students.

MANUEL DIAZ–CAMPOSIndiana University

TESTING

NORRIS, JOHN M. Validity Evaluation in Lan-guage Assessment . Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang,2008. Pp. x, 307. $74.95, paper. ISBN 3–631–54946–6.

John Norris gives the field of language assessmenta compelling rationale for why validity evaluationmust move beyond analyses of construct validitytoward the validation of language assessments inuse. His program-evaluation approach to validityevaluation is a radical break from traditions in lan-guage assessment both in terms of how he choseto work reciprocally with language teaching pro-fessionals as an outside consultant and how assess-ment practices were revised according to a widerange of validity criteria to create durable change.Readers will see that validity evaluation should in-volve much more than whether an assessment ismeasuring what it intends to measure.

The book is written as a research report. Chap-ters 1 through 4 provide relevant background anda critical literature review. Chapter 5 describesthe program evaluation framework used to carryout the research. Chapter 6 explains methods inmore detail and reports results as they evolvedthrough the process. Chapter 7 is a discussion-and-implications chapter. The department thatserved as the case study is openly acknowledged asthe Georgetown University German Department(GUGD), known for its innovative Multiple Lit-eracies curriculum.

The literature reviewed is comprehensive andinterdisciplinary. Norris crosses into educationalpolicy and cites broadly from sources outside oflanguage assessment. This quality strengthens theresearch and is likely to bring issues in foreignlanguage assessment to scholars outside the field.Early in the book, Norris zeros in on the power-ful role teachers have in implementing and shap-ing assessment traditions. This perspective provesto be indicative of the rest of the book, which

470 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

sees educators as central to assuring the validityof any assessment practice. The literature reviewalso offers readers a thorough (re)view of the his-tory, value, and practice of language assessment.For example, Norris takes the time to review Mes-sick’s work, including his (1989) “hugely influ-ential (and huge) chapter on validity” (p. 43).Chapter 3 is exciting to read because the case forcontemporary approaches to assessment quality(validity) becomes clear. Norris substantiates hisclaim that validity evaluation must expand to in-clude “the wide variety of actual uses and users fortests within applied educational settings, wheremeasures of psychological variables may or maynot play a useful assessment role” (p. 38).

Chapter 4 continues to debate the status quo byexamining traditional purposes and uses of pro-gram evaluation. Norris contests the idea that val-idation lies only in the hands “of measurementexperts, who exclusively own its highly technicaland prescribed methodologies” (p. 72). Norris’schoice of utilization-focused evaluation as a frame-work for validity evaluation is fitting because itis designed to address the questions that the in-tended users have about their program. Local ac-tors are empowered to examine and act on data.The study, however, did not intend to prove or dis-prove the validity of a test used in the department,but rather to explore “the potential for un-derstanding and improving college [foreignlanguage] assessment practices” (p. 85). Themethodology included multiple stages, which per-mitted much debate, reflection on findings, andrevision of priorities among local educators.

Chapter 6 is a program evaluation report thatpresents more than 100 pages of methods andanalyses of the validity evaluation of GUGD’s as-sessment practices. The scope of these analysesgoes beyond what would be typical of a programevaluation because they include reports on thestages in the evaluation process. This chapteralso includes a contextualization of and rationalefor the methods used and a summary of what

occurred in the department when the findingswere reported. This approach creates a fascinat-ing narrative and a rare view of one foreign lan-guage department’s journey through an examina-tion of its assessment practices. Specifically, the de-partment chose to improve its student placementtest and placement procedure. Statistical analy-ses of placement measures were the focus of thefirst inquiry. The next phase involved evaluatingstakeholder perspectives on the placement assess-ment program. Interview data with many GUGDteachers and graduate teaching assistants were themain data source in this analysis. Finally, the re-lationship between placements and performancewas examined.

The thing I find most compelling in thisresearch is how and why a utilization-focusedevaluation approach worked. However, Norrisrecognizes a number of important tensions im-plicit in the process. For example, local educa-tors’ expertise was needed to guarantee that theprocess would be meaningful, yet someone withexpertise in assessment was needed to facilitatethe process and to take an empirical view of as-sessment practices. Sustained attention to the howand why of assessment practices by the local edu-cators resulted in washback on curriculum, whichis testimony to the effectiveness of productive in-quiry among researchers and educators.

This book is required reading for all researchersin foreign language assessment, but it should alsoappeal to scholars from educational measurementand program evaluation. I predict that this studywill serve as model for how the social and politicalaspects of assessment practices can be accountedfor within a dialogic and flexible program eval-uation model. I hope that this study will be theimpetus for more and more thoughtful studies ofvalidity evaluation in language assessment.

MARTHA BIGELOWUniversity of Minnesota