MLJ Reviews
Edited 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—foreign
and second language teaching and learning;
(b) are devoted to matters of general interest to
members of the profession; (c) are intended pri-
marily for use as textbooks or instructional aids in
classrooms where foreign and second languages,
literatures, and cultures are taught; (d) convey
information from other disciplines that relates di-
rectly to foreign and second language teaching
and learning. Reviews not solicited by the MLJ
can neither be accepted nor returned. Books and
materials that are not reviewed in the MLJ cannot
be returned to the publisher. Responses should
be typed with double spacing and submitted elec-
tronically online at our new Manuscript Central
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THEORY AND PRACTICE
BLOCK, DAVID. Second Language Identities. Lon-
don: Continuum, 2007. Pp. vii, 230. $160.00,
cloth. ISBN 0–8264–7406–3.
Individual learners have long been the focal point
of second language learning (SLL) research. Re-
searchers have examined the influence of biologi-
cal factors, such as age, and psychological and en-
vironmental influences, such as the first language
of the learner, on SLL. This focus on relatively
fixed factors changed in the 1990s when Bonny
Norton and others began to examine SLL from
a social constructivist perspective, incorporating
learner identity—that is, how individuals position
themselves and are positioned by others—in re-
sponse to the context of their learning. This move-
ment is the focus of Second Language Identities. In
it, Block examines second language (L2) identi-
ties of three groups: adult migrants, foreign lan-
guage learners, and study-abroad students. He
describes how identity work varies across these
contexts, how this research has been shaped by
poststructuralists in the social sciences, how it de-
veloped from the 1960s to the present, and how
future researchers can enhance identity research
in SLL.
Following an introduction and overview in
chapter 1, in chapter 2 Block examines identity
in the social sciences today, arguing that it springs
largely from the poststructuralist influence of An-
thony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Chris Weedon,
and others. Block explains the poststructuralist
views of identity as socially constructed through in-
terpersonal interactions, face-to-face or electronic
and, thus in flux; this contrasts to the earlier view
in applied linguistics that assumed that the indi-
vidual was a stable entity.
In chapter 3 Block examines several classic SLL
studies, arguing that some of them acknowledged
the role of identity, beginning with Wallace Lam-
bert’s work on motivation in the late 1950s. Block
sees this early research, including that by Lambert,
Guiora, and Schumann, not as “a theoretically im-
poverished epistemological playing field” (p. 46)
that some critics have claimed, but rather as plant-
ing the seeds of a poststructuralist view of identity
in SLL.
Chapters 4 through 6 present recent identity-
oriented research in the three different physical
and sociocultural contexts that are the focus of the
book. In chapter 4, Block examines identity issues
of adult migrants, including studies of migrants in
Western Europe, the United States, Canada, and
England. Block suggests that migrant language
learners face the greatest challenge to their iden-
tities, with learners forced to reconstruct and re-
define themselves. The 36-page chapter, like the
two chapters that follow, includes detailed sum-
maries of a few illustrative studies.
Chapter 5 is devoted to examining identity in
foreign language contexts and, like chapter 4,
is limited to an in-depth treatment of a few key
pieces of research. In this case, Block describes
studies of learning French in Australia, German in
the United States, Mandarin in the United States,
and his own research with an English learner
in Spain. While Block believes that foreign lan-
guage classrooms typically allow for few situa-
tions in which new identities linked to the target
642
language can emerge, he describes two cases
about which he is hopeful. One is a feminist
English as a foreign language class in Japan and
one is an Internet-mediated class in which users
communicate with others in the target language.
In these cases, he concludes that they succeed by
helping learners to engage explicitly with the tar-
get language and its speakers.
In chapter 6 Block examines identity in study
abroad contexts. As in the previous two chapters,
Block examines a few seminal studies in detail,
here focusing on how the study abroad context
affects the development of learner identities con-
nected with the target language. The first half of
the chapter focuses on gender, in which he cites
studies that deal with sexual harassment reported
by students. The second half of the chapter an-
alyzes other positions that arise for learners, in-
cluding the roles played when learners are part of
host families, mixing family life with pedagogy.
The last segment explores an interesting phe-
nomenon: that study abroad learners sometimes
gain an enhanced national identity rather than
greater intercultural awareness.
Throughout the book Block points out the
methodological limitations of prior studies, no-
tably the lack of longitudinal studies and in-depth
accounts of learner experiences, such as transcrip-
tions of conversations and interviews. In the final
chapter he focuses on strategies for research and
lays out recommendations for change. These in-
clude (a) a greater emphasis on social class, (b)
expanding our dichotomous notions of first lan-
guage and L2/foreign language to more accu-
rately represent learners who speak multiple first
and additional languages at varying levels of de-
velopment, (c) acknowledging the role of lingua
francas in multilingual communities (i.e., mutu-
ally accessible languages that are not the language
of the dominant language community), (d) exam-
ining how technology-mediated communication
affects the identity of users, and, finally, (e) con-
sidering the application of concepts from psycho-
analytic theory to SLL.
This book has much to offer readers. Block
manages to make an intellectually challenging
topic accessible, even for newcomers to the field,
without sacrificing the nuances necessary to un-
derstand underlying theory. Part of his success
lies in his clear, straightforward organization and
language and in his ability to unpack terminol-
ogy and outline multiple perspectives on identity
without overwhelming the reader. Those expect-
ing a comprehensive treatment of SLL identity re-
search that includes minority language children
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
in mainstream education and in postcolonial con-
texts will be disappointed, but, as Block notes,
these topics have been covered extensively else-
where. He also acknowledges the dearth of re-
search published in languages other than English
and thus the lack of such studies in his book. In
spite of the less-than-comprehensive coverage of
L2 identity the title led me to expect, the breadth
and the depth of the introduction and the criti-
cism of research Block offers make this a relevant
text for scholars in all areas of L2 research. Block’s
examination of theoretical and research founda-
tions for identity are likely to initiate new conver-
sations and enhance research not only on identity
issues in language learning but also in SLL.
ROBERTA VANN
Iowa State University
DE ANGELIS, GESSICA. Third or Additional Lan-
guage Acquisition. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual
Matters, 2007. Pp. vii, 152. $49.95, paper. ISBN
1–978–1–84769–003–6.
This review of research in language acquisition
among multilinguals adds to what language teach-
ers need to know about their students. It offers
a new perspective on issues that affect foreign
language learning, in that it explores issues af-
fecting students who have already acquired two
languages (or more) and are learning an addi-
tional language. As the writer notes, although
there have been decades of research on second
language acquisition, there has been compara-
tively little research among multilinguals acquir-
ing additional languages. This book opens the
way to future research in this area. The book is
organized into seven chapters: The first two give
an overview of multilingualism and factors affect-
ing nonnative language influence, the third and
fourth chapters examine phonology and speech
production issues, the fifth looks at lexical acquisi-
tion, the sixth looks at cognitive development and
language acquisition, and the last chapter summa-
rizes findings detailed in the preceding chapters.
In general, it is a clearly written and comprehen-
sive introduction to research in language acqui-
sition among multilinguals, an area that deserves
more attention than it has previously received.
To summarize the findings, we may go directly
to the author’s concluding section, “Major Find-
ings and Some Suggestions for Future Research,”
in which she states that “multilingual learners are
Reviews
influenced by the L1 as well as the non-native
languages” (p. 132). The author summarizes re-
search that finds that transfer from second (L2)
or third (L3) languages also can influence the
acquisition of later languages. She shows that
language distance is a significant factor, in that
multilinguals are affected more markedly by lan-
guages closest to the target language, regardless
of whether this is the native or a nonnative lan-
guage. Also, cross-language influences (CLI) may
be combined, such that learners are influenced
by more than one language at the same time. The
combined CLI effect is most pronounced when
all of a speaker’s languages belong to the same
language family and to the same subgroup within
the family (p. 133).
De Angelis also reports on language proficiency
factors in CLI in multilinguals. The languages in
which speakers are most proficient are commonly
the source of CLI, whereas such languages are less
subject to CLI at the receiving end. The opposite
holds for languages in which speakers are less pro-
ficient. Even so, CLI in the acquisition of an L3
has been documented in cases in which learners
have had only brief experience with an L2.
Other factors in CLI in multilinguals that De
Angelis covers include recency of use, length of
residence and exposure to the L3, and order of
acquisition. In the case of recency effects, there is
research that documents transfer from languages
most recently used. Transfer from languages not
recently used, in some cases for as long as 30 years,
seems to be limited to lexical influence. CLI tends
to increase with length of residence and exposure
to a language, which often is correlated with profi-
ciency. In terms of order of acquisition, the L2 has
been found to exert more CLI in L3 learning than
does the speaker’s native language. This finding
suggests the possibility of more research, and it
has important implications for language teaching
methods.
The book includes a section on the lexico-
semantic organization of bilinguals and multilin-
guals. Researchers in bilingualism posit that an ad-
ditional language may develop a word-association
or a concept-mediation type of organizational
structure, depending on the proficiency level
reached in that language. When extended to mul-
tilingual learners who have weak and strong non-
native languages, “the weak language was hypoth-
esized to show a word-association type of structure
and the strong language a concept-mediation type
of structure” (p. 136). This area is another that
beckons future researchers.
The writer includes two important factors com-
mon to bilingual learners: (a) a reduction in pro-
643
cessing speed for some language tasks and (b)
a reduction in the time needed for learning ad-
ditional languages. Overall, any negative conse-
quences CLI may have are far outweighed by the
positive cognitive effects of multilingualism.
De Angelis concludes with a reference to soci-
olinguistic variables, a topic that is not included
in the book.
In general, I found this an informative and use-
ful introduction to research on multilingual learn-
ers, one that language researchers and teachers
will read with great interest.
JAMES KOHN
San Francisco State University
HIDALGO, ENCARNACIÓN, LUIS QUEREDA,
& JUAN SANTANA. (Eds.). Corpora in the Foreign
Language Classroom: Selected Papers from the Sixth
International Conference on Teaching and Language
Corpora. New York: Rodopi, 2007. Pp. xiv, 362.
$101.60, cloth. ISBN 978–90–420–2142–6.
Linguistics research regularly sparks changes in
language pedagogy, and the relationship between
the growing field of corpus linguistics and sec-
ond language (L2) instruction is likely to be no
exception. Insights provided by formal and func-
tional linguistics in the past 30 years have af-
fected research design in second language acquisi-
tion (SLA) research and, in turn, the pedagogical
grammars with which we teach today. Phenomena
such as the preterit and the imperfect are increas-
ingly described with terms and conceptualizations
that are informed by theories of aspect, premises
that did not underlie such explanations 30 years
ago. Corpora in the Foreign Language Classroom is
an edited volume of papers presented at the 6th
Teaching and Language Corpora Conference in
2004. This collection gives readers an understand-
ing of the role that corpus-based research plays for
language pedagogy today, as well as insights into
the internal debate about how corpora and asso-
ciated tools should inform SLA research and L2
instruction.
The volume is divided into three sections, the
first of which contextualizes important applica-
tions, both practical and impractical, of corpus-
based tools to research and instruction. In the
first section, Chambers and Johansson separately
contextualize important practical and impracti-
cal applications of corpus-based tools to research
and instruction. Both emphasize the notion that
research and pedagogy are symbiotic, and both
644
conclude that corpus-based tools will affect both
endeavors in an important way. The next section
contains papers examining corpus design and cor-
pora use in the foreign-language classroom, which
is followed by a section on the practical applica-
tions of corpora in the classroom. It is, admittedly,
difficult to produce a coherent series of papers
from a conference, and the line between theory
and practice in both of these sections is not (and
may not be able to be) well contrasted. The papers
that constitute the bulk of these two sections ad-
dress the following issues: how to design a corpus
for language learners (Braun; Chujo et al.), using
corpora for learners studying a target language
for special purposes (e.g., Lam; van Rij-Heyligers;
Fuentes), as well as in communicative classrooms
(Basanta; Papp; Olivier et al.; Cresswell), exami-
nations of language use in textbooks (Meunier &
Gouverneur) and how to improve materials vis-
à-vis native norms (Coffey; Gesuato), and, finally,
using corpora for learners at more advanced levels
of proficiency (Lavid; Tribble).
However, corpus linguistics is a research
design—in other words, a methodology for ob-
taining and organizing data. This discipline and
its tools do not constitute a theory of the organi-
zation of the lexicon or of grammar in the mind
of a learner or native speaker, as is the case with
functional and formalist approaches to linguistic
theory. Thus, the use of corpus analyses in lan-
guage instruction endeavors will seem premature
to many SLA researchers and language instruc-
tion experts. Corpus-based tools allow learners to
see language in authentic situations and how it
varies from one context to another. To readers
who view corpus linguistics in this light, the pa-
pers in this volume that will be most informa-
tive are those examining the potential of cor-
pus tools to help learners understand that the
L2 that they are studying is not monolithic, but
rather that it varies sociolinguistically (e.g., by for-
mality, gender, and even within the oral mode).
The papers by Braun and Tribble demonstrate
how corpora could help learners understand nu-
ances of different discourse types. Lam demon-
strates how a proper corpus analysis might better
inform English for Special Purposes students tar-
geting the tourism industry. Minugh explores the
use of corpora to examine metaphors in differing
metaphorical and historical contexts.
A couple of papers will interest researchers
looking to exploit corpus-based tools in projects
charting learner development over time, a tech-
nique that is growing in English SLA research
but is in its infancy in foreign language research
projects. Guo and Lenko-Szymanska provide in-
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
teresting papers on how to data mine a learner
corpus, whether it be the design of the corpus for
general purposes (i.e., consisting of a variety of
texts and so it could be used to answer various
research questions) or for specific purposes (e.g.,
consisting of texts specifically designed to study
the use of learners’ use of the past tense).
Taken together, the papers in this volume ad-
dress a variety of important issues being discussed
by those interested in corpus-based tools in the
language learning enterprise, whether the per-
spective on acquisition or materials development
and task design. For researchers or pedagogues
interested in knowing the main questions in this
field, Corpora in the Foreign Language Classroom will
be a worthwhile read.
JOSEPH COLLENTINE
Northern Arizona University
LARSEN–FREEMAN, DIANE, & LYNNE
CAMERON. Complex Systems and Applied
Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press,
2008. ISBN 978–0–19–442244–4. $30.50, paper.
In 1997, Diane Larsen-Freeman published her
groundbreaking article on chaos/complexity sci-
ence and second language acquisition. As she has
indicated in various publications, it took time for
this article to have an impact. It was clearly ahead
of its time, and apparently too few applied lin-
guists understood that it was a new and promising
development in the field. Things are clearly dif-
ferent now: A growing community of researchers
interested in complexity theory, dynamic adaptive
systems, and related theoretical approaches is now
adding to the momentum of the dynamic move-
ment. With their new book, Complex Systems and
Applied Linguistics, Larsen-Freeman and Cameron
set a new milestone in this movement.
The aim of the book is to show the relevance
of applying theories and concepts from complex
systems to applied linguistics in the broad sense.
As the authors mention in their preface, they
were faced with two major problems. The first was
to come to grips with the vast and often techni-
cal literature on complex systems (the term they
propose to refer to the class of theories on com-
plexity, dynamic systems, and chaos); the second
was to translate that information for applied lin-
guists. This is a formidable job, and the authors
have been effective in dealing with many of these
challenges in most cases. However, at times one
gets the impression that it was hard to deal with
Reviews
some of the technical and conceptual issues at a
meta-level. In such cases, the authors have pru-
dently opted to use literal citations from the orig-
inal texts to invite the reader to make those con-
nections they are able to find.
A 1,000-word review cannot do justice to the
richness of this book, which sets the scene for
discussions on the relevance of complex systems
for applied linguistics. The book is organized into
eight chapters. The first three chapters provide
an introduction to the basics of complex systems
as they have emerged in related fields of research.
Chapters 4 and 5 discuss language and first and
second language acquisition from a dynamic per-
spective. Chapters 6 and 7 describe the applica-
tion of the concepts and tools of complex systems
theories to the study of discourse and the analysis
of what goes on in language classrooms. Finally,
in chapter 8, information is provided on how ap-
plied linguistic issues can be studied. Several ap-
proaches to research are discussed, but the infor-
mation given is generally not enough to actually
do the research proposed.
I tend to use a yellow marker when reading rel-
evant literature. Important parts of the text are
highlighted with the aim to make rereading eas-
ier and to help focus on parts of the text. In the
copy of the book used for this review, most of the
pages in the first four chapters are almost com-
pletely yellow. This highlighting may reflect the
high density of the text or my own cognitive limi-
tations, but most likely a combination of the two.
Chapters 6 and 7 rest comfortably on the theo-
retical notions laboriously elucidated in the previ-
ous chapters. These two chapters can be read; the
other chapters must be studied.
One of the main problems with the adoption
of a new theoretical framework is that we tend
to think and speak in terms of the concepts with
which we are already familiar. As the authors write:
“In writing this book, we have faced the dilemma
of how to talk about matters of complexity theory.
This is because our ways of knowing are so bound
up with the language we use to discuss them . . . .
It is easy to fall back into old ways of thinking, and
it requires continual monitoring to ensure that
ways of talking (or writing) reflect complex dy-
namic ways of thinking” (p. x). In the book there
are many instances in which the reader feels the
authors have taken great pains to explain various
issues in such a way that they are not too triv-
ial, technical, or circular. Still, even with all the
care given, some traces of earlier paradigms re-
main. An example can be found in their discus-
sion of formative experiments and dynamic as-
sessment in the chapter on researching complex
645
systems. Larsen-Freeman and Cameron say: “For-
mative experiments attempt to investigate the po-
tential of a system rather than its state” (p. 244).
This statement seems to be a return to the com-
petence/performance distinction to which the
authors vehemently object. What is potential in
dynamic terms? If a runner does the 100-meter
sprint in 10 seconds one day and in 11 seconds
the next day, does that mean that he didn’t use
his potential on the first day, in the sense that he
could have run faster? The point is that he didn’t;
he used his resources to run as fast as he could.
The system does what it does in its trajectory over
time. The fact that on other occasions the set of
resources was different does not mean that there
is potential. It is not important what the resources
may be; what matters is what they are at a given
moment. All we have is variation, but that does
not necessarily imply potential.
The audience for this book is not easy to define.
A simple solution would be to advise all applied
linguists and their students to read it because it
is an important book on a potentially important
development in the field, but that may be taking
it too far. As indicated earlier, this book is not
bedside reading. For a novice reader or a student
without a solid background in second language
acquisition (SLA) literature, it will be hard work.
It is aimed more at advanced M.A. students and
researchers than at students who are beginning
to explore the area. Reading some of the earlier
work on dynamic systems and SLA, like the articles
in the recent special issue of The Modern Language
Journal (92.2), may be recommended first.
The authors summarize their view on the rele-
vance of complex systems as follows: “We feel that
seeing the evolution of language, its development,
its learning, and its use as complex, adaptive, dy-
namic, non linear processes rings truer to us than
the theories in which we were trained or in what
our professional experience has been since. We
think that we are not alone in this regard” (p.
251). Indeed, they are not, and this book will no
doubt lead to an increase of the number of people
who share their views and who are willing to think
along with them.
KEES DE BOT
University of Groningen
OMONIYI, TOPE, & GOODITH WHITE. (Eds).
The Sociolinguistics of Identity. London: Contin-
uum, 2006. Pp. x, 239. $160.00, cloth. ISBN 0–
58901–118–X.
646
RILEY, PHILIP. Language, Culture, and Identity:
An Ethnolinguistic Perspective. London: Contin-
uum, 2007. Pp. ix, 265. $49.95, paper. ISBN 978–
0–8264–8629–5.
The problem of identity has preoccupied social
scientists for centuries and philosophers for mil-
lennia. These two books from Continuum’s Ad-
vances in Sociolinguistics series make important
contributions to the already enormous identity
literature. Such scholarship is increasing expo-
nentially in response to the need to reconcep-
tualize identity in a globalized, poststructural-
ist, postmodern world. Identity reconceived is
fluid, not fixed or unitary, but socially con-
structed, co-constructed, and continually recon-
structed through language. It is unstable, mal-
leable, ongoing, negotiated, and multiple—in
other words, a repertoire of roles or subject posi-
tions and a combination of individual agency and
social influences.
These new identity definitions, however, often
leave gnawing doubts in the minds of identity
scholars, who find the notions of a more integral,
less fragmented, and less socially changeable iden-
tity more accurate and psychologically satisfying.
Have identity studies veered too much toward the
social to the detriment of the psychological?
In addition to addressing this question by dis-
cussing the philosophy and sociology of identity,
both books report on exciting applied linguistics
research. The main contexts of this research are
the political, social, and commercial worlds out-
side the foreign language classroom. Thus, for-
eign language researchers will need to go one step
further to apply the results of these studies to the
classrooms that prepare students for the worlds
outside them.
Omoniyi and White compiled their collection
from 11 papers presented at the Language and
Identity Conference at the University of Reading,
with two papers added from the 2005 AILA Con-
ference. Only two papers, those by Vann et al. and
Spotti, are explicitly classroom based. A major pur-
pose of the book, the editors explain, is to intro-
duce researchers to new conceptual and method-
ological tools for analyzing postmodern identi-
ties (e.g., Ominiyi’s hierarchy of identities, moments,
and identification—the process of identity con-
struction). Readers not convinced by postmod-
ern identity definitions may be more interested
in one contributor’s suggestion that there may
be a core self or psychological identity that man-
ages the expression of social identities. “Is there
nothing stable deep inside, behind the different
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
subject positions?” David Block asks (p. 46). Block
uses the age-old method of psychoanalysis to study
the identities of foreign language learners already
studied and written about by other researchers.
Then he wonders whether psychoanalysis is too
intrusive or not appropriate for studying actual
foreign language learner subjects, rather than tex-
tual representations of them.
As important as the new tools for studying iden-
tity are the surprising results of a number of the
empirical studies, whose unpredictable findings
seem to conflict with conventional sociolinguis-
tic wisdom about language learners’ identities
based on their relationships with their second
language, their first language (L1), or their her-
itage language. Developing what she calls English
as a Lingua Franca (ELF), a dialect with only
the pronunciation features necessary to ensure
communication, Jenkins attempts to free nonna-
tive English teachers from the pressure to model
their own and their students’ English on the En-
glish of native speakers, especially given that most
of their conversations are with other nonnative
speakers. However, results of her study showed
that most of her subjects were not interested in
ELF and identified linguistically with native speak-
ers of English, even though some identified cul-
turally with their own L1 communities. This dual
alliance also was found in Spotti’s study; expec-
tations that African and Arabic children in the
Netherlands would feel alienated from the Dutch
language were not met. On the contrary, the chil-
dren took pride in their mastery of Dutch and
felt empowered in relation to their parents, who
did not speak it as well, although many still felt
ties to their country of origin. Another surprising
finding was from Sallabank’s study of language
attrition: Guernsey French, which, at stage 7 on
Fishman’s 8-point scale, is rapidly dying, does not
seem essential to maintaining a Guernsey identity,
similar to co-editor White’s finding that the Irish
prefer Standard Irish English to Gaelic because
English allows them to communicate their iden-
tity internationally. Also unpredictable was the
embarrassing role that a U.S. science teacher was
found to have in assigning active and passive stu-
dent identities in the classroom, privileging boys
over girls and the Spanish speakers in the majority
over the Sudanese speakers in the minority (Vann
et al.).
Riley’s book, which is based on a lifetime of
thinking and writing about these relationships
and includes passages from 14 of his previous pub-
lications, appeals to readers with a sociological
rather than a sociolinguistic perspective on iden-
tity, language, and culture. Riley offers his readers
Reviews
a friendly sociology of knowledge textbook. Cul-
ture and knowledge for Riley are the same:
Culture is the knowledge members of a society need if
they are to participate competently in the various sit-
uations and activities life puts in their way. It includes
such things as knowing how to fish or dance, how to
use a telephone or a credit card, how to drive a car or
a bargain and how to talk. (p. 36)
Because such knowledge is distributed differ-
ently, according to the different “socio-discursive
positions” of individuals (p. 19), identity for-
mation processes vary. The processes that Ri-
ley explores are membershipping strategies (see
next paragraph), phatic communion, and child-
rearing practices.
Riley is a role model in the profession, hav-
ing mastered many languages (among them En-
glish, French, Swedish, and Finnish) while living
in many countries with his multicultural, mul-
tilingual family. Humorous intercultural stories
that take place in streets, buses, and restaurants
abroad inform the book’s major argument—that
identity is co-constructed by self and other, a
co-construction that he calls ethos. Agency has
its limits; an individual cannot just project the
identity features she/he chooses because how
others see her/him also determines identity, an
observation confirmed by any American who trav-
els to another country. “Socially speaking, identity
is as much the product of the gaze of oth-
ers as it is of our own making” (p. 87). Riley
draws from his rich repertoire of experiences
as well as from studies conducted at the Centre
de Recherche et d’Applications Pédagogiques en
Langues (CRAPEL) at the University of Nancy
to analyze pragmatic failure between people of
different language and cultural backgrounds. He
focuses on a study of the perceptions by foreign
speakers of French as a second language in France
that they are being membershipped first as for-
eign and second as customers, by French service
personnel. His study showed that French counter
people, bank tellers, and bureaucrats believe that
“service with a smile” is unprofessional, superfi-
cial, and “à l’américaine” (p. 223). Because the
perceived rudeness of French service people was
believed to have hurt the tourism industry, they
are now being retrained to assume a customer-
centered attitude. CRAPEL is studying the effects
of this new training program, ironically based on
the American service paradigm that is similar to
call center training programs in India.
As if responding to David Block’s question
about a core identity, Riley’s palpable personality
on the page, whether he is telling family anec-
647
dotes, discussing knowledge and culture, or re-
porting research, appears to us to be integral and
whole, despite the fact that, as he tells us, he has
often been accused of being linguistically and cul-
turally schizophrenic. His personable and schol-
arly voice makes his readers feel whole as well,
thus emphasizing the co-construction of iden-
tity while problematizing postmodern identity
definitions.
CAROL SEVERINO
The University of Iowa
CHINESE
FENG, ANWEI. (Ed.). Bilingual Education in
China: Practices, Policies and Concepts. Clevedon,
UK: Multilingual Matters, 2007. Pp. xiv, 288.
$59.95, paper. ISBN 978–1–85359–991–0.
In May of 2005, Great Britain’s Finance Minister
Gordon Brown proclaimed that “by 2025 the num-
ber of English-speaking Chinese is likely to exceed
the number of native English speakers in the rest
of the world” (retrieved February 7, 2008, from
http://www.bookofjoe.com/2005/05/the_ascent_
of_e.html). More recently, a Reuters report stated
that Beijing’s Olympic organizers have a cadre of
400,000 English-speaking recruits in preparation
for the Summer 2008 Games. Even while we mar-
vel at the quantitative scale of China’s embracing
the study of English as a foreign language, our
understanding of the qualitative aspects of that
process is still limited. Feng’s edited volume of
a dozen studies is a major contribution to, as
Colin Baker states in the book’s foreword, “the
practices and ideology (emphasis mine)” (p. vii)
of bilingual education in China.
Particularly distinctive about language educa-
tion in China are its roots in the distinction drawn
between the Han majority (92%) nationality and
the 56 minority nationalities (and their 80 differ-
ent languages). Instruction in Modern Standard
Chinese, commonly referred to as Mandarin, has
been dealt with in different ways for these two
groups. Indeed, most research on bilingual edu-
cation in China has focused on minority language
education in Mandarin, although virtually none
of that research has been available in English.
In contrast, Feng avoids this traditional di-
chotomy, choosing instead a thematic approach
with four topic areas: (a) policy (including cur-
riculum and ideology), (b) models, (c) projects
(and their underlying principles), and (d) English
648
provision for minority nationality students. These
four parts are supplemented by two chapters by
the editor, a summarizing overview of the 12 re-
search studies, and a critical analysis of the aims
of bilingual education in China.
For the three studies in part 1, the topi-
cal focus is “Policy, Curriculum and Ideological
Orientations.” Agnes Lam first compares the his-
tory of two bilingual language education mod-
els: Mandarin and English for the Han Chinese
and Mandarin and nationality language for the
non-Han Chinese. She emphasizes issues revolv-
ing around language and cultural rights, and she
makes recommendations for policy goals in light
of the Language Education in China project. Bob
Adamson next provides an historical analysis of
the depoliticization process within English lan-
guage curricula in China over the last half cen-
tury, as well as a sociological perspective on how
the uneven availability of resources for English
language teaching has led to social inequality.
Part 1 concludes with an empirical study by Ger-
ard Postiglione et al. of a special program to
develop Mandarin–Tibetan bilinguals in a loca-
tion physically removed from their home environ-
ment. In theory, such an approach should enable
students to focus on integration with the broader
Mandarin-speaking society. Ironically, the pro-
gram is shown to be a failure for both Mandarin
language skill development and Tibetan language
maintenance.
Part 2, “Varieties in Bilingual Education,” also
has three chapters. Qingxia Dai and Yanyan
Cheng provide a typological review of the past
50 years of Mandarin–minority language bilingual
education on the mainland. Also building from
a historical foundation, Guangwei Hu examines
the current passion for and models of Chinese–
English bilingual education, including two case
studies and an analysis based on them of the con-
sequences for the future of bilingual education
in China. Finally, Minggang Wan and Shanxin
Zheng, echoing some of the themes of Postig-
ilione et al., consider the conduct of Tibetan–
Mandarin bilingual education on home (Tibetan)
turf, reporting (in contrast to Postiglione et al.’s
findings) a success story, as reflected in two dis-
tinct models.
Four research projects comprise part 3, “Prac-
tices and Underpinning Principles.” Ellen Feng
and Jinjun Wang examine a content-based bilin-
gual education model in a well-developed area of
southern China. Ellen Zheng and Bob Adamson
analyze the failure of a national-level, task-based
language instruction model for English, as well
as the ineffective implementation of a language
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
policy. Heidi Cobbey investigates four bilingual
education projects in relatively underdeveloped
areas. The section concludes with Jiazhen Pan’s
unique (for this volume) focus on bilingual edu-
cation in higher education, providing both a crit-
ical overview of all programs and an institution-
specific case study.
In part 4, “English Provision for Minority Stu-
dents,” there are two chapters. Binlan Huang ex-
amines teacher perceptions of the challenges of
teaching English at the tertiary level. Qiuxia Jiang
et al. analyze learner perceptions of the challenges
of English as a Foreign Language education in
remote areas of China, treating aspects such
as motivation, cultural awareness, and teacher
qualifications.
Although there are some small technical
glitches in the volume—for example, incorrectly
placing the editor’s overview of Cobbey’s arti-
cle in chapter 1—the overall editing quality of
the volume is excellent. One always wishes that
there would be Chinese characters rather than
only pinyin Romanization in the substantial lists
of works cited, but that editorial decision does not
detract from the value of those lists of references.
In summary, in its wide-ranging examination of
the “additive relationship” (p. vii) between both
Mandarin Chinese and English language educa-
tion, and minority language and English language
education, Bilingual Education in China is an en-
gaging and impressive work of great value to both
Chinese and English language educators.
SCOTT McGINNIS
Defense Language Institute–Washington Office
WU, JIANHSIN. The Way of Chinese Characters.
Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2007. Pp. xi, 294. $28.95,
paper. ISBN 0–887–27527–3.
Chinese, one of the less commonly taught lan-
guages in the United States, has increased in en-
rollments in recent years. Although learning to
speak Chinese does not require more time than
for other foreign languages, the written language
presents big challenges to beginning learners. The
Way of Chinese Characters provides a concise and
clear explanation of the composition, origin, and
evolution of 400 Chinese characters with picture
illustrations. The explanations are grounded in
the author’s careful study of the origins of those
Chinese characters and are presented in tradi-
tional script, which can be traced to the late
Reviews
Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). If a character
existed earlier, its ancient forms are also presented
to show the origin and evolution of the charac-
ter. The book has both English and traditional
text explanations. The book ends with four use-
ful character indexes, which are arranged by les-
son, pinyin, traditional stroke count, and simpli-
fied stroke count.
There are two informative sections in the pref-
ace: (a) “Types of Script” and (b) “Types of Char-
acters.” The first section lists all of the ancient
script forms that each character may have taken
in the process of evolution. They are presented
in the following chronological order: Oracle-
Bone Inscription (Shang Dynasty: ca. 1600–
ca.1100 B.C.); Bronze Inscription (Zhou Dy-
nasty: ca. 1100–221 B.C.); Seal Script , which in-
cludes Big Seal Script (Eastern Zhou Dynasty:
770–221 B.C.) and Small Seal Script (Qin Dy-
nasty: 221–207 B.C.); and Cursive Script (Han
Dynasty: 206 B.C.–220 A.D.). Exceptions are the
relatively new characters, which do not have any
ancient forms, such as ‘tā, she’ and ‘nı́n, po-
lite form of the pronoun you’ (p. vii). However,
even for those characters, the author should have
provided their origins, although perhaps in a dif-
ferent format. For example, ‘tā, she’ appeared
first in literature in the early 20th century as a
counterpart to the third-person male pronoun
‘tā, he.’ As a language whose written form can be
traced back almost 4,000 years, the origin of any
character reflects part of the history of the lan-
guage and the society in which the language has
existed.
The second informative section is the introduc-
tion of types of characters. In addition to listing
the six basic categories defined by the Han Dy-
nasty scholar Xu Shen—pictographs ( ), ex-
plicit characters ( ), associative compounds
( ), picto-phonetic characters ( ), mutually
explanatory characters ( ), and phonetic loan
characters ( )—the author also uses characters
from her book to illustrate each of the categories
(pp. vii–viii). As pointed out by the author, the
picto-phonetic characters ( ) account for the
largest number of characters, and the last two
types, mutually explanatory characters ( ) and
phonetic loan characters ( ), were more rel-
evant in earlier times, when the character went
through the evolution process, and are less obvi-
ous to the current learner, who may not see the
connections indicated in the explanations given
for those words. It would have been helpful had
the author provided the percentage of each cat-
egory of the 400 characters in her book, so that
readers could have had a clear sense of the weight
649
on each category and hence allocate their time
and energy accordingly.
The easiest three characters in Chinese are
probably ‘yī, one,’ ‘èr, two,’ and ‘sān,
three,’ which are explicit characters and have not
changed much since ancient times (p. 21). An-
other interesting observation is that 35 of the 40
radicals listed in the book are pictographs, such
as ‘y ǔ, rain’ and ‘tián, field.’ Radicals are the
most commonly used components that may ap-
pear as a part of many other characters. The fact
that these radicals, or characters when standing
alone, play such an important role in the forma-
tion of many picto-phonetic characters may be re-
lated to the way these characters were created. The
unchanging world that these characters represent
may have guaranteed the position they secured in
the language world of Chinese. An example of a
picto-phonetic character is ‘xiăng, to think,’ in
which the top part indicates its sound and the bot-
tom part indicates the meaning, which is a radical
‘xīn, heart’ (p. 99). Another interesting type
of character is the associate compound, such as
‘róng, to hold; to contain; to allow,’ where the
meaning can be derived from the components of
the character. The top is the radical for roof and
the bottom is the character ‘gǔ, valley; gorge.’
The common characteristic of these two places is
the capacity to hold people or things; therefore,
it is quite natural to infer the meaning of the as-
sociate compound (p. 147).
With each character listed in a single entry with
brief explanations in English and Chinese and a
picture, the book works like a concise dictionary of
400 characters. It explains the meaning in English
for learners of Chinese who cannot understand
the Chinese explanation. The picture that accom-
panies each character stimulates readers’ visual
imagination and helps them grasp the structure
of the character. The use of traditional forms in
the main text fits well with the purpose of show-
ing the origin and evolution of each character
over the past 2,000 years of history. The complete
explanation in simplified characters in the index
makes it accessible to learners who are familiar
with that format. The selection of characters in
this book is based on the words in another pop-
ular Chinese textbook, Integrated Chinese, Level 1
Part 1, and the lessons in both books are orga-
nized similarly.
One addition that would have made the book
more appealing to readers would have been the
addition of color to its content pages, especially
for the picto-phonetic characters, with one color
to highlight the visual effect of the pictures and
another to signify the phonetic part. Similarly, the
650
drawings could be colored to illustrate the rele-
vant part shown in the character.
Overall, the book is well written with solid schol-
arly research on the origin of characters. Its bilin-
gual format, combined with cartoon drawings,
makes the book accessible to beginning learners,
whereas the concise Chinese explanation can be
used as a quick reference for advanced learners
and language teachers as well. With the expla-
nation of meaning, structure, and the evolution
process, learners will find Chinese characters less
challenging when they have more resources to
turn to than merely relying on memorizing with-
out any understanding of the inside world of Chi-
nese characters.
LIXIA MA
Phillips Academy at Andover
YI, ZHOU, & M. LYNNE GERBER. Working Man-
darin for Beginners. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press, 2007. Pp. xxv, 325. $64.95, paper.
ISBN 978–1–58901–139–7.
The first author of this book, Yi Zhou, is a lecturer
in the Asian Studies Department at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the second
author, M. Lynne Gerber, is the executive director
of the Center for International Business Educa-
tion and Research at the University of North Car-
olina at Chapel Hill. One has expertise in teach-
ing Mandarin in the classroom and the other in
the process of knowledge and skills acquisition.
This combination of perspectives is reflected in
the pedagogical approach of the book.
Studying Chinese can be intimidating. Learn-
ers not only face the usual challenges of learn-
ing a new language—vocabulary, grammar, cul-
tural idiosyncrasies, and so forth—but they also
have to contend with a non-Roman script. These
formidable obstacles frustrate many learners. The
authors of Working Mandarin are aware of such dif-
ficulties for beginning learners. They intention-
ally skip over some of these obstacles in the design
of this textbook. For example, the focus is on oral
communication relying on pinyin. Students do not
have to worry about learning the characters at the
initial stage of the language acquisition process.
The lessons are made more palatable by exclud-
ing instruction on writing the Chinese script.
The overall objective of this textbook is clear
and focused. It is designed “to enable English-
speaking business students or working profession-
als with no prior knowledge of Mandarin to de-
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
velop the basic communication skills necessary
for a business trip to China or another environ-
ment in which Mandarin is spoken” (back cover).
Each lesson also has specific objectives for ac-
quiring specific language skills, grammar, and
cultural understanding. These statements ensure
that students understand the goals of each lesson,
which is important for beginning learners who
may feel overwhelmed by how much they have to
learn.
The format and arrangement of Working Man-
darin is unique and excellent. It is organized into
six thematic units, each of which contains its own
set of objectives in language skills, grammar, and
cultural understanding. The topics of the first
five units are “Building Business Relationships,”
“At Work,” “Daily Activities,” “Getting Around,”
and “Business Activities.” Each unit consists of
four lessons, with the fourth lesson designed as
a review of the unit. Moreover, the contents of
the first three lessons have some overlap, which
makes progressing from one lesson to the next a
more encouraging process. In the sixth unit, stu-
dents are required to complete an independent
project, which encourages them to put what they
have learned in the first five units into the context
of an area of their work or interest. In addition,
some fundamentals about the formation of Chi-
nese characters are introduced in this last unit
to lay a foundation for students to continue their
learning of Chinese.
Another desirable feature of this textbook is
the variety of its exercises. For example, the same
phrase mei guanxi ‘it doesn’t matter’ is practiced
in a fill-in-the-blank exercise, a multiple-choice lis-
tening comprehension exercise, and a writing ex-
ercise in which students compose dialogues. Us-
ing different avenues to practice the same phrase
almost guarantees mastery of the phrase. More
noteworthy than other available textbooks is that
Working Mandarin requires students to provide
sound files of their own composed and recorded
dialogues or passages to be submitted to their lan-
guage instructor. In this way, students are likely
to practice frequently to make their recordings
satisfactory. This task type also reduces the em-
barrassment that students often face when asked
to speak Chinese in a classroom environment. At
the same time, the instructor can listen to the stu-
dent recordings and offer corrections and other
feedback on a one-on-one basis.
With its online features, Working Mandarin is
not only a textbook but also an interactive tutor.
As Wendan Li, Director of the Chinese Language
Program at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, comments:
Reviews
Working Mandarin for Beginners is specifically designed
for business students and working professionals to de-
velop oral proficiency in work environments. It breaks
away from the traditional classroom, uses modern
technology for course delivery, and incorporates on-
site learning to achieve optimal results. A truly inno-
vative and unique program. (back cover)
It is innovative that each copy of the textbook
includes a CD–ROM with MP3 tracks of all of the
dialogues, vocabulary, and audio exercises in the
book. Students have access to all the audio files
even without going online, although these mate-
rials are also available online at quia.com. Each
copy of the textbook has a Book Key, with which
one can register for online access to interactive
exercises. A recording function is also included
for students to record their homework as many
times as they wish before they submit their sound
file electronically to their instructor.
Despite all of its excellent features, there is still
more to desire. If there is any weak point in this
textbook, it is that it does not contain enough en-
gaging material to promote communicative use of
Chinese among learners and to make the acqui-
sition of communicative proficiency more enjoy-
able.
WENYING JIANG
University of Alberta
ENGLISH
BIRCH, BARBARA M. English L2 Reading: Getting
to the Bottom. 2nd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2007.
Pp. vii, 236. $29.95, paper. ISBN 0–8058–5929–2.
English L2 Reading: Getting to the Bottom, now
in its second edition, provides a comprehensive
overview of the linguistic features that can influ-
ence the bottom level of the second language
(L2) reading process: phonemes, graphemes,
morphemes, and words. The first edition of En-
glish L2 Reading , published in 2002, received the
David E. Eskey Award for Curricular Innovation;
thus, the purpose of the second edition is not
to make significant content changes, but rather
to fine-tune its organization, update the research
reviewed, correct errors, and expand upon cer-
tain topics. The focus of the book is English as a
second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) reading,
and the intended audience is ESL/EFL teachers
or teachers-in-training with an interest in teach-
ing reading. Indeed, this book would serve well
651
as a main or secondary text in an ESL reading
methods course. The book also would be useful
as a reference for ESL reading teachers seeking
tips and techniques for putting bottom-up read-
ing strategies into practice.
Birch adopts a balanced or integrated model of
reading, in which readers use both top-down and
bottom-up processing to assign meaning to a text.
However, prior to the publication of this book,
much of the available literature on integrated
reading models provided only a cursory look at
the details of language that have an impact on
ESL/EFL reading. Birch’s approach is thus novel
in that she focuses on language features central to
bottom-up processing. She argues that knowledge
and processing strategies are highly language de-
pendent and that the features of English make
L2 reading difficult. Instructional strategies that
focus on these features and, thus, on bottom-
up processing may help readers overcome these
difficulties. To underscore this argument, Birch
first overviews the characteristics of various writ-
ing systems and how they are similar to or differ-
ent from English, and she then discusses low-level
transfer of reading strategies from the native lan-
guage to English before looking at the phonemic,
graphemic, morphemic, and lexical characteris-
tics of English. Reading strategies and knowledge
are at the core of Birch’s treatment of bottom-
up reading. For learners to become successful L2
readers of English, they must develop a world and
language knowledge base and a set of cognitive
and language processing strategies. The various
chapters in this book focus on the knowledge and
strategies specific to different features of the bot-
tom of the reading process.
English L2 Reading is comprised of 10 chapters,
two appendixes, and a workbook supplement.
Each chapter begins with prereading questions to
activate readers’ schemata regarding their expe-
riences reading in English (e.g., Do you remem-
ber learning to read as a child? Was it a positive
or negative experience?) and study guide ques-
tions to be answered during or after reading the
chapter. The latter tend to focus on finding facts
presented within the chapter and identifying key
concepts (e.g., What are graphemes? What are
graphs?). Chapters 1 through 9 end with discus-
sion questions that encourage critical reflection
on the chapter. Chapters 4 through 9 also in-
clude “Spotlight on Teaching,” intended to put
certain of the concepts discussed in each chapter
into practice through lesson plans and teaching
sequences. The prereading, while-reading, and
postreading questions throughout the book mir-
ror the integrated model of reading Birch outlines
652
in the introduction; this structure thus models
and puts into practice the method she espouses.
Although the structure of the book is inte-
grated, Birch does not always link the book’s focus
to the integrated reading model she adopts. To
make a case for the direct instruction of bottom-
level strategies and knowledge, Birch often strays
from the integrated model. For instance, in chap-
ter 5 she argues against the notion that good read-
ers scan a text to get meaning from it (a top-down
strategy). She further suggests at various points
throughout the book that instructors teach low-
level processing strategies before asking learners
to focus on meaning. This suggestion seems to
contradict one of the core concepts of integrated
reading models: The purpose of reading is to con-
struct meaning. Birch does claim that top-down
and bottom-up reading are equally important,
and in some instances she does show how they
work together. For example, in chapter 7 Birch
suggests that modern phonics instruction (bot-
tom level) be combined with strategies such as rea-
soning by analogy or relying on contextual infor-
mation (top level), and in chapter 9 she suggests
teaching bottom-up word-learning strategies and
word analysis in conjunction with top-down word-
learning and comprehension strategies. Overall,
however, Birch falls short of showing how bottom-
up and top-down processing serve one another
or how we can structure reading instruction to
effectively develop both types of processing.
In spite of this shortcoming, Birch provides
a thorough and well-researched treatment of
bottom-level reading processes, strategies, and
knowledge. Her writing style is accessible to a vari-
ety of readers, both native and nonnative speakers
of English, both experienced and novice peda-
gogues. Moreover, she provides ample examples
to illustrate concepts and a variety of questions
and exercises to facilitate practice. Indeed, English
L2 Reading is a valuable contribution to the liter-
ature on models and methods of L2 reading.
KATE PAESANI
Wayne State University
HO, DEBBIE G. E. Classroom Talk: Exploring the
Sociocultural Structure of Formal ESL Learning . New
York: Peter Lang, 2007. Pp. v, 254. $52.95, paper.
ISBN 0–8204–7561–0.
Classroom Talk: Exploring the Sociocultural Struc-
ture of Formal ESL Learning seeks to explain some
of the complexities inherent in the English as a
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
second language (ESL) classroom by examining
it as a microcosm within the macro structure of
the formal learning institution. Resulting from an
ethnographic study of an ESL learning situation
in Brunei, where the native language is Malay,
Ho’s analysis implies that the ESL classroom as
microcosm is also embedded within the formal
learning traditions of the culture—in this case,
that of Great Britain, which colonized Brunei in
the early 20th century. Her premise is simple and
logical: Limitations on communicative discourse
within the ESL classroom result from the socio-
cultural setting over and above the classroom at
the institutional level.
Her ethnographic methods, including 18 class-
room observations, semistructured interviews,
and study and analysis of videos, audio recordings,
and field notes, proved “messy and not immedi-
ately transparent, but . . . yielded data in their most
natural state” (p. 83). Although the effort was un-
dertaken to understand intricacies and complex-
ities of the school’s ethos to shed light on why
ESL classroom talk is the way it is, in the end Ho
showed in her case study that there was very little
classroom talk. Instead, ESL classroom instruction
was primarily limited to the Initiation-Response-
Feedback (IRF) pattern of teacher–student inter-
action. The IRF pattern is an acceptable norm
within the context of the study, a school sys-
tem that privileges grammatical correctness over
communicative competence, where both students
and teachers appreciate the fact that English lan-
guage learning is geared toward successful mas-
tery of test-taking skills in the target language
and that linguistic codes that are considered for-
mal, correct, and polite within classroom situa-
tions signal both authority and linguistic superi-
ority and therefore are preferred over slang or
informal classroom talk. Ho writes that “students
have been socialized into accepting that this is
the way they interact with their teachers in the
classroom, thus supporting similar findings in lan-
guage classrooms elsewhere” (p. 139). Both the
culture and socialization reinforce noncommu-
nicative patterns of interaction that constrain the
classroom talk and natural interaction that would
enhance the language skills that students might
find useful beyond the educational setting.
Ho’s study is a foray into the sociocultural di-
mensions of ESL learning that could be built upon
by scholars seeking to link the pedagogical prac-
tices of an institution to the discourse practices
of language instruction. Classroom Talk may also
serve the beginning ESL instructor as a tool for re-
viewing the literature related to and synthesizing
observations about second language acquisition
Reviews
in general. The book may prove useful, as well,
to other beginning scholars embarking on partic-
ipant observation-oriented ethnographic studies.
One of the most interesting sections is Ho’s narra-
tive account of the frustration involved in building
the trust that is necessary for such a study and her
own realization that the complexities she sought
to understand were best understood as residing
among people rather than in categories of society
or culture.
ANNE–KATRIN GRAMBERG
Auburn University
JENKINS, JENNIFER. English as a Lingua Franca:
Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007. Pp. xii, 284. $22.00, paper. ISBN 978–
0–19–442237–6.
This monograph “about language change and the
response it elicits among speakers of a language”
(p. xi) takes a sociolinguistic approach to the
worldwide use of English by nonnative speakers
(NNSs), many of whom use English as a lingua
franca (ELF) among themselves rather than as
a foreign language to communicate with native
speakers (NSs) of English. With the globalization
of English, Jenkins asserts, many professionals and
the public find it “difficult to make the conceptual
leap needed in order to allow ELF a legitimate
place alongside the Englishes of the inner and
outer circles” (p. xi). By examining “language at-
titudes, beliefs, ideologies, and identity conflicts”
surrounding ELF, the book is intended to work to-
ward “a reappraisal that will enable ELF, one day
perhaps, to be offered as a pedagogic alternative
to (but not necessarily a replacement for) tradi-
tional English as a Foreign Language” (p. xii).
The choice of a sociolinguistic perspective, privi-
leging the study of language change in terms of
phonology and speaker attitude attached to dis-
crete language varieties, points to the usefulness
of this book, as well as to its limitations.
Throughout eight well-organized and reader-
friendly chapters, Jenkins vigorously pursues the
case for ELF with polemical skill backed up by
a thorough grasp of the issues and an impres-
sive range of research, including her own empir-
ical studies on ELF. Chapter 1 defines ELF and
dismantles criticisms of it as “misinterpretations”
and “misconceptions” (pp. 19–27). Chapter 2 ex-
amines the links between “standard NS English
language ideology” (p. 59) and the devaluing of
NNS uses of English among language profession-
als. Chapter 3 builds a methodological framework
653
for empirical studies on ELF accents grounded in
language attitude research, particularly folk lin-
guistics and perceptual dialectology. Chapter 4
reviews previous research into ELF attitudes.
Chapter 5 reports on Jenkins’s data from several
groups of teachers about their perceptions of NS
and NNS language and speakership. Chapter 6 de-
scribes the author’s questionnaire study of teach-
ers’ beliefs and attitudes in which NS and NNS
participants rated and ranked various English ac-
cents from around the world. Chapter 7 offers a
useful overview of research on language and iden-
tity related to ELF. Jenkins’s thought-provoking
analysis of her interview data collected from NNS
teachers reveals the tensions stemming from their
position in “a test-driven, NS English-oriented ed-
ucation system” (p. 224). The closing chapter on
attitude, identity, and the future of ELF develops
a critique of English NS-biased gatekeeping prac-
tices in teaching and research that affect NNS
teachers and learners, including basic concepts
in second language acquisition (e.g., fossilization,
interlanguage).
Despite extensive and often illuminating discus-
sions of ideology, attitudes, and beliefs, I was left
with the nagging sense that the authority of the
NS remains largely undertheorized and underhis-
toricized in sociolinguistics. For example, Jenkins
criticizes linguists, including some sociolinguists,
who cannot take ELF seriously because it refers to
“unnatural” languages and who are therefore “un-
able to see it as a natural linguistic development”
resulting from language contact and change (p.
16). Although a useful rhetorical strategy, posit-
ing the naturalness of ELF seems to lead Jenk-
ins into the same linguistic legitimacy trap she
purports to deconstruct. As the desire to legiti-
mate ELF drives her argument, the author stops
short of dealing with the larger underlying ide-
ologies of naturalness and nativeness in language
that inform linguistics and language education. A
poststructuralist and postcolonial critique might
interrogate the assumptions of (non)natural and
(non)native language in terms of the basic so-
ciocultural and historical situatedness of all lan-
guage, such that natural and native are compro-
mised notions that ultimately stand in the way of
expanding our popular, pedagogic, and scholarly
concepts of language and speakership.
Employing a folklinguistics approach, which
conveniently separates professional linguists from
everyone else, seems at odds with the growing
body of research (to which this book otherwise
contributes) pointing to the complicity of lin-
guistics and linguists in the construction of na-
tive standard speaker-biased notions of language
and speaker identity. Perceptual dialectology
654
methodology is offered as a way to generate a
significant amount of empirical data on why and
how “community members” react to, believe in,
and share certain perceptions of “language vari-
ety boundaries” (p. 148). However, after finishing
this book, a reader may still feel at a loss to see how
the empirical data showing, for example, the hier-
archy of NNS varieties of English can move us be-
yond increasingly nuanced restatements, however
critical they strive to be, of the linguistic prejudices
attached to the standard NS language ideology.
Perhaps the larger issue here is the role (so-
cio)linguistics plays in naming and inventing lan-
guage(s) from diverse and complex language
practices—in this case, constructing ELF as an en-
tity that can be studied, taught, and learned. The
author argues that “we need comprehensive, reli-
able descriptions of the ways in which proficient
ELF users speak among themselves, as the basis for
codification” (p. 238). However, in validating ELF
through corpora construction, one must wonder
whether this invention of ELF as a set of describ-
able and therefore legitimating and empowering
practices amenable to linguistic analysis and ped-
agogical applications might not also fall into the
same model of legitimization and authentication
associated with the invention of the NS standard
that this book so persuasively questions. Perhaps
it is deemed necessary to appropriate the tools of
linguistic description to fight the inequalities gen-
erated by the refusal to admit NNS practices and
identities as legitimate. However, one must also
ask whether the construction of ELF might not
(re)produce its own inequalities as researchers
decide what constitutes the corpora. For example,
what place will be given to the bilingual or, most
often, multilingual practices (e.g., codeswitching,
mixing) that characterize much of the lives of ELF
speakers?
The concerns expressed above do not detract
from the contributions this book makes to ques-
tioning NS authority in postcolonial contexts. The
author is to be commended for her engagement
in developing a useful, thoughtful, and informed
perspective on one of the most contested issues
in language teaching and linguistic research, the
(non)native speaker. This book deserves to be
read by language professionals engaged in the
study and teaching of English and by those work-
ing with other postcolonial world languages, such
as Spanish and French, for which the construc-
tion of NS and NNS language and identity contin-
ues to have tangible consequences in the lives of
speakers.
ROBERT TRAIN
Sonoma State University
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
KIRKPATRICK, ANDY. World Englishes: Implica-
tions for International Communication and English
Language Teaching . New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2007. Pp. x, 257. $36.00, paper. ISBN
978–0–521–61687–4.
What are World Englishes? How can the term be
defined? How do we describe and classify the va-
rieties of English? What is the developmental pro-
cess a variety of English has to go through? Is the
wide spread of English due to linguistic imperi-
alism or to a desire of people to learn English?
What is the difference between an emerging va-
riety of English and learner English? How does
the local context determine usage? Which model
of English should be used in classrooms in outer-
circle and expanding-circle countries? These are
challenging questions debated and remaining to
be answered. Kirkpatrick summarizes current re-
search findings, describes in detail the linguis-
tic features of selected varieties of English, and
explores the criteria and options for choosing a
model of English to teach in classrooms.
The book comprises three parts, totaling 13
chapters. Part 1 (“The Framework”), covering
three chapters, discusses a number of key lin-
guistic and sociolinguistic concepts that under-
pin the description of the varieties of English,
and it presents a history of the development of
World Englishes. Chapter 1 (“Key Sociolinguis-
tics Concepts”) focuses on such terms as native
varieties, nativised varieties, lingua franca, native
speaker , nonnative speaker , and so on. Chapter 2
(“Key Linguistic Terms”) explains some basic lin-
guistic concepts. Chapter 3 (“Models of World En-
glishes”) provides an overview of various models
used to describe World Englishes and summarizes
the developmental stages a new variety may go
through.
Part 2 (“Variation and Varieties”), consisting of
eight chapters, examines the linguistic features of
selected varieties of World Englishes. Chapter 4
(“Variation and Impurity in British English”) sum-
marizes the historical development of British En-
glish and examines its variation and impurity.
Chapter 5 (“The Powerful Variety: American En-
glish”) describes the development of American
English and its variation. Chapter 6 (“A Younger
‘Cousin’ and Indigenous Identity”) explains Aus-
tralian varieties of Standard English. Chapter 7
(“Englishes of the Subcontinent”) presents some
of the many different varieties of English spo-
ken in South Asia. Chapter 8 (“Voices from
Africa”) focuses on the Englishes of Africa. Chap-
ter 9 (“Englishes of South-East Asia—Colonial
Reviews
Descendants?”) describes Englishes of Malaysia,
Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines. Chap-
ter 10 (“Emerging Englishes: Hong Kong and
China”) considers English in Hong Kong and
China. Chapter 11 (“English as a Lingua Franca”)
discusses the role of English as an international
lingua franca, and describes specifically the lin-
guistic features and communicative strategies of
English when used as a lingua franca by speakers
from countries that comprise the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations.
Part 3 (“Implications”), consisting of two chap-
ters, considers some controversial issues associ-
ated with the emergence of new varieties of En-
glish and their existence alongside more estab-
lished varieties. Chapter 12 (“Summary of Key
Themes”) presents the major linguistic and so-
ciolinguistic themes identified and discussed in
the book. Chapter 13 (“Implications for English
Language Teaching”) explores the implications
for language teaching of the variation that exists
within and across Englishes.
One of the impressive features of this book is its
concise and illusive summary of current research
findings on World Englishes. Key concepts are
clearly defined, presented, and described. Also
unique is the author’s thought-provoking argu-
ment that context and learner needs should de-
termine the variety to be taught, as well as his
attempt to validate the important roles played by
multilingual and multicultural English language
teachers. A third strength of the book is its de-
tailed presentation of selected varieties of English
and its accompanying CD with authentic exam-
ples and transcripts.
Apart from these merits, some minor weak-
nesses can also be noted. First, discussion ques-
tions and further readings are not included in
every chapter, even though the author intended
to make it a textbook or a supplementary text-
book. Another drawback of this book is its lack of
an innovative and coherent identification proce-
dure or framework for an emerging variety, which
would be helpful for describing and explaining
different stages of an emerging variety. The third
possible improvement lies in the editing. Some
Chinese pinyin are marked with tones, whereas
others are not. The separation of some words due
to the line wrapping does not always appear at syl-
lable boundaries. Several blank pages in the book
should have been avoided.
Despite its minor flaws, this book makes a sig-
nificant contribution to the literature on World
Englishes. As a handy reference, this book is
not only an excellent textbook for English lan-
guage teaching professionals and trainee teach-
ers but also a valuable resource for anyone who
655
intends to conduct serious research on World
Englishes.
YONG LANG
The University of Texas–Pan American
FRENCH
ADAMSON, ROBIN. The Defence of French: A Lan-
guage in Crisis? Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Mat-
ters, 2007. Pp. xx, 199. $59.96, paper. ISBN 978–
1–85359–949–1.
This book is another in a series of books and ar-
ticles, by Anglophones and Francophones alike,
about political efforts to promote or regulate
the French language in France. Other recent
book-length contributions in this area include
Anne Judge’s Linguistic Policies and the Sur-
vival of Regional Languages in France and Britain
(2007), Michel Chansou’s L’aménagement lexical
en France pendant la période contemporaine (1950–
1994): Étude de sociolexicologie (2003), as well as
many polemical treatises following in the wake of
Étiemble’s Parlez-vous franglais? (1964).
The work under review here studies both pri-
vate and public agencies that influence, or seek
to influence, both the use of French (status plan-
ning) and French usage (corpus planning) in a
variety of domains. Chapter 1 describes briefly in-
stitutional influences on the creation and imposi-
tion of standard French, from the Ordonnances
de Villers-Cotterêts (1539) through the founding
of the Académie Française (1635), the French
Revolution (1789), and the establishment of a
national educational system in the 19th century.
Until 1900, the primary perceived enemies of the
French language were the regional languages and
dialects. After 1900, the English language is in-
creasingly a source for anxiety for the French, as
indicated by the establishment of a number of pri-
vate associations and public agencies. Chapter 2
takes a closer look at both types of language
defenders and at statutory attempts to regulate
the use of French—for example, Loi Bas Lauriol
(1975), the constitutional amendment declaring
French the official language of the Fifth Republic
(1992), and the Loi Toubon (1994). Chapter 2
also considers French policy vis-à-vis regional lan-
guages, as well as European Union and Council
of Europe policies regarding linguistic minorities.
Chapter 3 outlines the activities of four govern-
mental or semigovernmental institutions related
to the defense of French: the Académie Française,
the Alliance Française, the Délégation générale
656
à la langue française et aux langues de France,
and the Organisation internationale de la Fran-
cophonie. Chapter 4 sketches the politics of lan-
guage in three historical periods: (a) the monar-
chy and language in the 16th and 17th centuries,
(b) the Republic and language during the French
Revolution, and (c) colonial and postcolonial lan-
guage policy. Chapter 5 compares French policy
with that of other European countries, notably
Germany, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
Chapter 6 revisits the efforts to defend the French
language in the context of a battle between tra-
dition and modernity, democratic ideals and eli-
tist language policies, and the notion of identity
and language. The conclusions of chapter 7 come
down, reasonably enough, on the side of optimism
for the future of French.
This book has valuable lists and characteriza-
tions of the numerous actors, private and pub-
lic, involved in the protection of the French lan-
guage. Tables of nongovernmental organizations
devoted to this goal (p. 18), of francophone as-
sociations within specific professions (p. 21), and
of official reports on the French language (pp.
78–79) are useful, although they could be more
complete.
Although these efforts are a start, there is plenty
of work left to be done. The author has relied
heavily, and generally uncritically, on Web sites
presented by the organizations and agencies. The
sources for her history of the Académie Française
are the Académie’s Web site, supplemented by
works by members of the Académie, such as
Marc Fumaroli. More nuanced observations of the
founding and early years of the Académie, such as
Hélène Merlin-Kajman’s L’excentricité académique
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001) and of the effects
of intervention, as exemplified by the works of
Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Philippe Caron, point
the way to future research. Now that all of the edi-
tions of the dictionary have been digitized, along
with many other major French dictionaries and lit-
erary works (e.g., FRANTEXT), the lexicographic
choices of the compagnie can be examined in more
detail, to great scientific benefit.
Similar reliance on Web sites for information
about private organizations defending the French
language leaves other sources that future crit-
ical analysis of their role can explore. An in-
depth study of the leadership and membership
of these organizations, along with their ties to
and even participation in government, would give
us a fuller understanding of their function in
French society. Défence de la langue française has
its headquarters in the shadow of the Académie;
its president, Jean Dutourd, is a member of the
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
Académie. A prosopographical study of these or-
ganizations would be instructive in helping us un-
derstand the mechanisms of linguistic dirigisme,
and it might help to answer why its support-
ers are successful in promoting their program in
the face of negative public attitudes toward their
cause.
The author repeatedly laments the fact that
language policies have been decided for politi-
cal rather than linguistic reasons; for example,
“any fight for the future of French in the 21st
century . . . will not be confined to linguistic objec-
tives” (p. 46). A policy is necessarily political. More
importantly, the notion that there is a natural way
for languages to evolve and an unnatural way (in-
fluenced by institutions or politics) is scientifically
unjustifiable. A broader approach to intervention
on language, less influenced by Anglo-Saxon in-
dividualism, would be more scientific.
This work presents useful sketches of the actors
in French interventionism. There is, however, a
danger in relying almost exclusively on Web sites
for such information, both for the content of what
is included and for the absence of information on
the Web. Subsequent studies promise to examine
critically why people intervene and, in more de-
tail, how and to what effect.
DOUGLAS A. KIBBEE
University of Illinois
CONRICK, MAEVE, & VERA REGAN. French in
Canada: Language Issues. Modern French Identi-
ties Series Volume 28. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang,
2007. Pp. 1, 186. ISBN 978–3–03–910142–9.
French in Canada: Language Issues is a remarkable
book in a number of different ways. In spite of its
modest length, it deals with a number of impor-
tant topics in a compelling manner. As we move
into the 21st century, issues of bilingualism and
multilingualism at both the personal and social
levels will become increasingly important to un-
derstand and address. The case of Canada, which
has been pursuing a policy of official bilingualism
since the passage of the Official Languages Act
(1969), is a powerful example of one approach to
such issues, and Conrick and Regan have provided
us with an interesting analysis of the nature and dy-
namics of this policy. French in Canada, although
focused on the Canadian case, and on French in
particular, is thus a book that should be of in-
terest and concern not only to those interested
in Canada and language, or even in francophonie,
Reviews
but to anyone interested in language matters in
the contemporary, globalizing world.
The book begins with a broad historical
overview of the linguistic history of Canada. The
historical background is useful in terms of the re-
mainder of the work, but it is also limited. Its focus,
perhaps understandably, is on the history of the re-
lations between Francophones and Anglophones.
In spite of recent developments in Canada with
respect to the recognition of First Nations peo-
ples, the indigenous languages and cultures of
Canada are not discussed in this chapter; nor, in
spite of their contemporary significance, are the
later non-Francophone immigrant groups or their
languages. These oversights are by no means fatal
in a work of this sort, but the inclusion of these
groups, if for nothing other than comparative pur-
poses, would have been useful.
The second and third chapters deal with mod-
ern language policy and language planning in
Canada. Chapter 2 does so at the federal level,
whereas chapter 3 explores these issues at the
provincial level in Quebec. These two chapters
are interesting, although they are also somewhat
parochial. The areas of language planning and
language policy studies are well researched at the
international level, and there is a huge body of rel-
evant literature that might have been utilized in
these chapters to provide clearer analytic frame-
works and to offer comparative insights. Unfor-
tunately, there is not a single reference to the
standard body of work in language policy and lan-
guage planning in these chapters, which is disap-
pointing and also raises questions about some of
the analysis provided.
Chapter 4, entitled “The Changing Linguistic
Landscape of Canada,” is concerned with analyz-
ing and discussing the results of the 2001 census.
The census data are examined first for Canada as
a whole, and then for Quebec. The results of the
census demonstrate that although Canada is con-
stitutionally a bilingual state, it is demographically
a multilingual one. Native speakers of English con-
stitute just over 59% of the Canadian population
overall, native speakers of French constitute just
under 23%, and another 18% are native speakers
of some other language (more than 100 languages
other than English and French were reported).
However, demonstrating the assimilatory power
of the official languages, 90% of the respondents
indicated that, regardless of their native language,
they now speak either English or French at home.
The situation in Quebec is unique, however. As
Conrick and Regan note:
Language data from the census for Quebec differ sig-
nificantly from those of other provinces, given the
unique position of Quebec as the only province in
657
which francophones are in the majority . . . This is re-
flected in the presentation of census data by Statis-
tics Canada, as figures are usually provided for each
province and territory, with the addition of a global
figurer for Canada less Quebec. (p. 95)
Since 1991, there has been a steady decrease in
the percentage of Anglophones in Quebec (from
9.2% to 8.3%), a slight decrease in the percent-
age of Francophones (from 82% to 81.4%), and a
significant increase in the number of native speak-
ers of other languages (from 8.8% to 10.3%). In
other words, there are now more native speakers
of nonofficial languages in the province of Que-
bec than there are native speakers of English.
The fifth chapter deals with education, specifi-
cally with French language immersion education
in Canada. The authors argue that:
Perhaps what is most striking about French immersion
programs is that in the light of the fragile position of
French in Canada, immersion education seems to of-
fer a clear hope and possibilities for the future of
French, certainly in relation to Canada outside Que-
bec. (p. 130)
This chapter makes a compelling case for the
value of immersion education, although again
there is a great deal of excellent Canadian edu-
cational literature that might have been cited in
support of the arguments presented.
The final chapter focuses on issues of language
contact, language variation, and language change
in French in the Canadian context. In many ways,
it is the book’s richest and most interesting chap-
ter, although it is not tied closely to the earlier
chapters. It is, on its own, a valuable summary of
interesting linguistic research.
Taken as a whole, French in Canada: Language
Issues is a timely and topical addition to the litera-
ture, and it will be of interest to a broad audience,
including students and scholars concerned not
only with French in Canada but also with applied
linguistics issues generally.
TIMOTHY REAGAN
Central Connecticut State University
CONDITTO, KERRI. Cinéphile: French Language
and Culture through Film. Newburyport, MA: Focus
Publishing, 2007. Pp. xxi, 432. $59.95, cloth. ISBN
978–1–58510–258–7.
Designed for a second-year intermediate French
course, Cinéphile is both a film-based workbook
and a comprehensive textbook geared toward
658
language acquisition. Through “a linguistic ap-
proach” (p. iii), the subtitle indicates its multi-
ple ambitions: “The goal of the method is to use
the presented vocabulary and grammar structures
to study and discuss films and their cultural con-
tent and to build linguistic proficiency in a mean-
ingful context” (p. xiv). Cinéphile provides all of
the tools to offer a comprehensive learning en-
vironment adapted to the needs of intermediate
students with the usual goal of developing the
four language skills: basic and relevant vocabu-
lary, charts of verb conjugations, grammar con-
cepts, and explanations, exercises from simple to
complex, and plenty of material for reading and
discussion. In addition, Cinéphile seeks to develop
cultural awareness in an authentic and practical
context. From this standpoint, the material is rich.
Its great variety of documents include press and
magazine articles, poems and short stories, sur-
veys and various synthetic cultural and historical
notes, film reviews, art reproductions, and maps.
There are also plenty of color photographs on
French daily life, monuments, landmarks, actors,
and filmmakers, as well as numerous film pho-
tograms. Cinéphile also reaches its third objective,
which is to introduce French cinema by present-
ing a varied and engaging selection of films that
represent the diversity of contemporary produc-
tion in content, genre, and style.
The textbook comprises nine chapters, each
organized around a feature film: Les Triplettes
de Belleville, Le Papillon, Être et avoir, Les Visi-
teurs, L’Auberge espagnole, Sur mes lèvres, Comme
une image, Métisse, and Bon voyage. This selec-
tion includes animated film, documentary, com-
edy, farce, thriller, adventure, and drama. Cul-
tural content is closely linked to each story theme:
sport and Tour de France; family and social issues;
education, student life, and Erasmus; media and
youth; religion; and immigration. Geographic
background is introduced, such as Rhônes-Alpes
and Le Vercors in Le Papillon and l’Auvergne in
Être et avoir . Likewise, historical background is
provided when justified: Middle Ages for Les Vis-
iteurs, the European Union for L’Auberge espag-
nole, and Général de Gaulle and Pétain for Bon
voyage.
The linguistic proficiency goal is attained
through a progressive organization of chapters
that articulate the film selection with step-by-step
grammar and vocabulary development. Given
that each chapter is centered on a film while in-
cluding a grammatical and cultural agenda, the
most obvious risk was to overwhelm the inter-
mediate learner and offer too much information
with confusing goals. However, the chapter or-
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
ganization is well designed, clear, and structured
in a sequential fashion. Each chapter follows the
same three-part format. The previewing section
introduces each film with vocabulary exercises
and cultural themes. The postviewing section cen-
ters on grammar and various activities in context
and follow-up discussions. The last section, “Read-
ing, Culture, Research,” guides students through
activities intended for personal and constructive
responses.
For example, chapter 4 on Les Visiteurs begins
with a concise cultural note on Le Moyen Âge, pro-
vides a Fiche technique with a filmography (pp.
134–135), a short biography of the main actor
Christian Clavier, a one-paragraph film summary,
and a list of major and secondary characters with
actors’ names. The page layout is well done and
each subject matter is separated and specified.
The iconography is also appropriate and attrac-
tive, with a photograph of the Château de Mont-
mirail and a reproduction of a medieval portrait
of King Louis VI le Gros. Two pages of vocabulary
follow that are classified by topics (famille, métiers,
endroits, etc.) on the right, with adjectives, verbs,
and idiomatic expressions on the left (pp. 136–
137). The next page presents a vocabulary exer-
cise on professions facing a picture of la Tapisserie
de Bayeux, another vocabulary exercise whose pur-
pose is to link French expressions from the film
with their English translations, and a sonnet on
the Middle Ages by Richepin.
The postviewing section includes four exercises
that treat general comprehension about the film,
starting with simple questions (right or wrong)
about the story line. These are followed by a short
description of characters to be identified. Inter-
esting links are suggested with other films from
previous chapters. An excerpt from La Chanson
de Roland both in old and modern French can
serve as a short introduction to literature. Other
vocabulary exercises follow that deal with differ-
ent social codes and manners. They aim at ex-
plaining the expression and meaning of BCBG
(bon chic, bon genre) (p. 142). The grammar sec-
tion then begins on the adjectif qualificatif . Each
difficult point is synthesized in charts for agree-
ment and placement. Special points, such as the
difference between il est and c’est, are well ex-
plained in a summary box of a different color (p.
145). A short translation exercise on “My favorite
Character” follows (p. 146). Overall, 12 out of
the 43 pages in this chapter are devoted to gram-
mar. The postviewing section also includes trans-
lation exercises from French into English and vice
versa (p. 156), a film photogram initiates specific
film analysis (p. 157), followed by open-ended
Reviews
activities leading to writing activities and sub-
stantial discussions. A document on the 1789
Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (p.
159) is provided to address the social class issue
from the Middle Ages to the present. The final
part, “Communication” (pp. 160–161), offers top-
ics for further film discussion. The third chapter
section, “Aller plus loin,” focuses on reading skills
by presenting a press review of Les Visiteurs, var-
ious surveys and facts on contemporary France,
and two documents, one on BCBG language and
a short story, Le Paysan médecin, adapted from me-
dieval literature.
Cinéphile offers an ideal balance among cul-
ture, literature, film, and language acquisition in
a sound pedagogical manner. Through its clear
organization, attractive graphic presentation, and
effective page layout, it combines all elements in
a successful and appealing textbook to work with,
for students and teachers alike.
MICHEL SIRVENT
University of North Texas
ITALIAN
ASKI, JANICE M., & DIANE MUSUMECI. Avanti!
Beginning Italian. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.
Pp. xxvii, 490. $86.56, cloth. ISBN 0–07–321206–
7.
ASKI, JANICE M., DIANE MUSUMECI, JUSTIN
R. EHRENBERG, CARLA ONORATO–
WYSOKINSKI, ZOÉ ROBLES, DARYL
RODGERS, & AMY ROWDEN. Workbook/Labo-
ratory Manual to accompany Avanti! Beginning
Italian. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Pp. vi, 383.
$52.84, paper. ISBN 0–07–321207–5.
The first-year Italian textbook Avanti! Beginning
Italian is composed of 16 chapters. Four sec-
tions constitute each chapter: Strategie di comu-
nicazione, which promotes communicative func-
tions; Lessico, which introduces vocabulary; Strut-
ture, which presents grammatical forms; and Cul-
tura, which integrates listening, reading, writing,
and speaking activities.
Avanti! effectively creates a student-centered,
communicative environment, which is promoted
by the current research in second language ac-
quisition and foreign language pedagogy. The
text is innovative in opening each chapter with
a communicative theme. The opening section,
Strategie di comunicazione, is accompanied by video
segments of native speakers performing practi-
659
cal communicative functions. Students move from
comprehension and recognition of language to
the acquisition of specific communicative mod-
els. Expressing likes and dislikes using the verb
piacere is presented in the chapter 1 clip by native
speakers declaring their preferences about cin-
ema. Students are asked to recognize the form in
this early stage. In the chapter 3 clip, students see
and hear native speakers talking about what they
like to do in their free time. At this point, students
are asked to produce meaningful language by ex-
pressing their preferences for their own free time.
Students practice the same communicative topics
seen and heard in the native speaker video, using
the high-frequency fixed expressions modeled in
the clips. The exposure to meaningful language
in real-life contexts enables students to use the tar-
get language from the beginning in meaningful
communication.
Meaningful contexts also inform the presenta-
tion of vocabulary. New words are introduced to
students with the visual aid of photographs and
drawings, thus minimizing if not eliminating the
need for English and word-to-word translation.
Students are therefore able to associate words
in the target language to concepts, linking form
and meaning. The presentation of the vocabulary
shows a progression in complexity, which takes
into consideration the newly developed skills of
the students. Whereas in chapter 2 clever draw-
ings of people, animals, and objects are associated
with adjectives that describe them, chapter 12 in-
troduces Italian cities and towns through an ex-
cellent choice of photographs and a brief reading
to go along with the pictures. Each Lessico section
is completed by a good number of activities meant
to engage students in meaningful communicative
tasks. The same progression that informs the pre-
sentation of the vocabulary is detectable in the
complexity of the exercises. If, in chapter 2, stu-
dents are asked to recognize and match pairs of
opposite adjectives, in chapter 12 they move from
comprehension of new words within a passage to
implementation of those words in sentences that
are connected to a real-life context.
One of the most innovative features of Avanti!,
as well as a stated goal of the authors, is the limited
number of grammatical forms covered through-
out the text. The section Strutture introduces no
more than five grammatical points for each chap-
ter. The criterion used in making the choice of
structures to cover and the depth of coverage
is based on the relevance of such structures in
the production of meaningful communicative lan-
guage. Therefore, the verb forms that students are
expected to acquire and use effectively by the end
660
of the first year of Italian study are given concise
English explanations in Strutture, and their use
is reinforced through the review sections in the
following chapters. The verb forms in question
are indicativo presente, passato prossimo, imperfetto,
and futuro semplice. The present conditional, the
subjunctive mood, and the imperative mood are
included in the structures presented in the text,
but they are limited to a brief introduction and do
not benefit from follow-up activities of review. The
passato remoto is introduced for recognition only.
Presentations of other forms, such as the past con-
ditional, can be found in the section Per saperne
di più at the end of the book. Other notewor-
thy absences from Strutture include double object
pronouns, the pronouns ne and ci (often, unfor-
tunately, paired in most Italian textbooks), the
present perfect of modal verbs, and the relative
pronoun cui. These structures always present a
problem to both instructors and students in the
first year of Italian. Students may certainly learn
such structures but are unlikely to use them appro-
priately while performing communicative func-
tions. Instructors who decide to include them in
the curriculum will find the relevant explanations
in Per saperne di più.
The choice of a limited number of grammati-
cal structures addresses instructors’ and students’
concern with the traditional all-inclusive gram-
matical curriculum. A reduced load of forms of-
fers the opportunity to approach a topic progres-
sively and, moreover, leaves the necessary time
to review and recycle the previously introduced
grammar and to use it in meaningful interaction.
Direct and indirect objects are first introduced
in chapter 7 with the purpose of familiarizing
students with this logical concept, which is of-
ten foreign to them. Object pronouns make their
first appearance in chapter 11 and are recycled
in chapters 12 and 16. This approach serves the
double purpose of promoting acquisition of the
object pronouns in the first year of Italian study
and preparing students for the acquisition of dou-
ble object pronouns at the intermediate level.
The presentation of the forms is meaning
based. The explanation of each structure is intro-
duced by an inductive activity in which students
are asked to notice the form in a meaningful con-
text. Students first encounter the present perfect
in chapter 6 while reading about the weekend
activities of two Italian students. Before they get
to the explanation of the structure, students are
asked to figure it out by themselves by analyzing
the form in context.
Although Italian culture is the focus of the Cul-
tura section, cultural content is integral to all of
the sections. In addition to the visual chapter
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
openers, which range from Renaissance paintings
to contemporary ads, the video clips filmed on lo-
cation in Italy, and the real-life contexts that frame
the new vocabulary, Avanti! offers more informa-
tion about Italy, Italians, and Italian Americans
in the In Italia, In italiano, and In America boxes,
which are written in English and are found in each
chapter.
The textbook is accompanied by a Work-
book/Laboratory Manual that provides traditional,
drill-like exercises for additional practice to stu-
dents on every aspect presented in each chap-
ter section. The online version of the workbook
provides automatic correction to students and a
grade-book feature for instructors. More practice
activities with instant feedback are found at the
Online Learning Center Web site. The Web site
for the instructor’s edition of the book provides in-
structors with the useful resource of support mate-
rials to accompany the culture component of the
text. Instructors will find scripts, tips, maps, charts,
and pictures to present different aspects of Ital-
ian culture in class. This feature may prove help-
ful to inexperienced instructors who may need
guidance in delivering instruction in Italian. The
structure of the whole textbook is conducive to
instruction in the target language.
Avanti! is an innovative textbook, meaning
based and communication oriented. Realistic ex-
pectations about the amount of material that stu-
dents can be expected to acquire in the first year
of language study, gradual exposure to context-
based forms and vocabulary, ample opportunities
to review and recycle previously learned mate-
rial, and updated cultural content and graphics
make Avanti! a student- and instructor-friendly
textbook.
MARGHERITA PAMPINELLA–CROPPER
Towson University
BORRA, ANTONELLO, & CRISTINA PAUSINI.
Italian Through Film: The Classics. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2007. Pp. xi, 213. $25.00,
paper. ISBN 978–0–300–10952–8.
A sequel to the authors’ 2004 Italian Through
Film: A Text for Italian Courses, which dealt with
contemporary Italian cinema, The Classics covers
30 years of Italian film (1945–1981) in a chrono-
logical approach. Fifteen chapters are devoted to
icons of Italian postwar cinematography, each rep-
resenting a different director: Roma città aperta
(Roberto Rossellini), Ladri di biciclette (Vitorio De
Sica), Riso amaro (Giuseppe De Santis), I vitelloni
Reviews
(Federico Fellini), I soliti ignoti (Mario Monicelli),
Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Luchino Visconti), La notte
(Michelangelo Antonioni), Divorzio all’italiana
(Pietro Germi), Il posto (Ermanno Olmi), La com-
mare secca (Bernardo Bertolucci), Il sorpasso (Dino
Risi), Il Decameron (Pier Paolo Pasolini), Mimı̀
metallurgico ferito nell’onore (Lina Wertmüller),
Una giornata particolare (Ettore Scola), and Tre
fratelli (Francesco Rosi). Chapters contain a brief
introduction to the film and the director, preview-
ing, viewing, and postviewing exercises, Internet-
based tasks, and a reading section to encourage
further study. Readings and exercises are entirely
in Italian. A preliminary chapter introduces es-
sential film vocabulary as well as useful structures
and expressions geared to facilitate discussion
and the sharing of opinions, and a concluding
chapter offers questions and suggestions focus-
ing on comparative analysis of the films studied
and the issues raised therein. An ample bibliogra-
phy for further investigation or research projects
follows.
Although The Classics may be used as ancillary
material in intermediate-level college courses, the
authors have designed it as a textbook for a fifth-
or sixth-semester film course, based on a 15-week
semester meeting 3 days a week; as such, there
is material to spare, allowing the instructor to se-
lect assignments within each chapter or to omit
some films. The book can also be used over two
semesters, in tangent with other materials.
Offering a wealth of varied and effective ma-
terial in a well-structured format, Italian Through
Film: The Classics will be an appealing choice for
programs fighting for enrollments in tradition-
ally underenrolled upper-level Composition and
Conversation courses; it would not be surpris-
ing, however, to find most undergraduates more
comfortable with cinema-based coursework than
their literature-trained instructors. This text will
be a welcome addition to the desk of the lan-
guage teacher whose use of film may be limited to
generic lab assignments (“watch an Italian movie
and write a review”) or even to occasional classes
dedicated to the discussion and analysis of the
more popular films included in the authors’ ear-
lier volume. Instructors who do not have a back-
ground in film studies or who are not movie buffs
should be aware that although the text supplies
the essentials and a plethora of activities, it does
not supply answers to all of the open-ended ques-
tions or all of the experience necessary to guide
students toward those answers.
Those familiar with Italian cinema may ques-
tion the choice of films, sometimes neither the
most famous nor most representative of a direc-
tor. Indeed, the authors themselves acknowledge
661
the difficulty of balancing pedagogical aims and
personal preferences. All but one (Risi’s Il sor-
passo) are now available in DVD format; instruc-
tors may wish to screen movies to ensure that the
content is appropriate for their students.
One of the concerns raised by a text of this kind
is, of course, how suitable it is to the level of the stu-
dents it addresses. Given that the work covered in
four semesters of college Italian can vary consider-
ably from program to program, with some schools
spreading a first-year text over four semesters and
others remaining loyal to the second-year that
focuses on a review of the grammar, it is clear
that third-year textbooks must allow for a wide
range of abilities. The Classics contains more than
enough material to challenge the best students
(and some of the postviewing analytical questions
will test even native speakers who have seen the
films two or three times), but it does not exclude
the average student from enjoying and profiting
from the learning experience. The previewing ex-
ercises, which focus on general subjects and vocab-
ulary building, are suitable for all. (There is occa-
sionally an unpredictable item, such as “What do
you know about Italy during World War II?”[p. 8],
and instructors may remind students to find the
answer online rather than reply “Nothing.”) The
during-viewing and postviewing exercises can be
distracting if not reviewed carefully before viewing
the film, resulting in numerous rewinds to answer
questions of dubious value to the plot. Weaker stu-
dents will have difficulty with the expansion read-
ings and all will no doubt benefit from English
subtitles when viewing the films, whose characters
frequently speak in dialect rather than in standard
Italian. The postviewing activities range from the
creative to the analytical, allowing for choice in
the degree of difficulty desired.
The Classics is a welcome addition to Italian
studies. Although it can probably be used to best
advantage by students with some background in
cinema or those with strong Italian language skills,
if used judiciously it will benefit and engage stu-
dents and instructors at a variety of levels.
DEBORAH L. CONTRADA
The University of Iowa
MAIDEN, MARTIN, & CECILIA ROBUSTELLI.
A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian. 2nd ed.
London: Hodder Arnold, 2007. Pp. xxxiii, 478.
$29.37, paper. ISBN 978–0–340–91339–0.
The second edition of A Reference Grammar of Mod-
ern Italian appeared a mere 7 years after the first
662
edition, testifying to the popularity of the earlier
work.
In their concise and excellent introduction, the
authors begin by stating that the aim of their book
is “to provide a comprehensive work of reference
for learners of Italian whose native language is
English, or who possess a very good knowledge of
English . . . It [has] a detailed index and list of con-
tents . . . [and] extensive cross-referencing within
the text” (p. 1).
The authors have wisely eschewed illustrating
grammatical points with decontextualized sen-
tences, choosing instead examples from newspa-
pers, magazines, and various well-known authors.
In addition, ample use is made of the Web site
www.alice.it, “a database of contemporary Ital-
ian literature, including interviews with authors”
(p. 1).
Finally, their introduction notes one of the most
valuable and unusual aspects of this comprehen-
sive work: constant attention to the “considerable
differences of register between the kind of Italian
used in formal discourse (such as making a public
address, academic or bureaucratic writing, etc.)
and informal (particularly spoken) usage” (p. 2).
It is useful to the nonnative speaker to learn,
for example, that perché, acciocché, and affinché
are not absolutely synonymous (as most grammar
books would imply), but that perché “is the com-
monest purpose conjunction in spoken Italian,
while affinché is used mainly in writing . . . [and
that] acciocché is rare, and now found only in lit-
erary style” (p. 428). Similar nuances appear in
other examples throughout the book, and they
are neatly summarized and classified in the final
chapter, “Register Differences in Modern Italian
Grammar.”
Unfortunately, for all the wealth of useful ma-
terial the book contains, finding the answer to
a specific question can become the proverbial
search for a needle in a haystack. A case in point:
A nonnative speaker needs to know whether to
say continuare a or continuare di, prepositions be-
ing the biggest stumbling block in almost any
language. Looking in the index under contin-
uare (where there is nothing, understandably, be-
cause the term is too specific), then under verbs
(nothing, understandably, because the term is too
broad), and under prepositions (where there are
13 page references, but none for the page on
which the answer will ultimately be found), the
reader finally finds the answer on page 8 of the
11-page table of contents, under “Aspects of Sen-
tence Structure,” itself a rather broad index head-
ing. The approximately 30-page section devoted
to verbs and adjectives followed by a or di (or
no preposition) before an infinitive contains an
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
exhaustive presentation of the subject. However,
it is a long, arduous, and far from intuitive pro-
cess to find the answer to a simple question: a
or di?
Given that one is not expected to read a refer-
ence work straight through as if it were a novel,
this approach is probably the best way to appre-
ciate the breadth and depth of material here.
Although the authors have tried to make their lin-
guistic terms (e.g., protasis, apodosis, clitics, coref-
erent, rheme) accessible to nonspecialist readers
through their “Glossary of Key Terms,” they some-
times lapse into a jargon so arcane that only those
steeped, if not drenched, in linguistics could hope
to understand. For example:
If a direct object is dislocated, what we may term a
“trace”3 of it is normally “left behind” in the form of
a clitic pronoun accompanying the verb from which
the direct object has been removed:
[with explanatory footnote] 3 “Trace” is a transparent
and appropriate term. It is important to stress, how-
ever, that we are not using it here in the technical
sense which it has in generative linguistic theory, of a
phonetically null element supposedly occupying the
place from which a syntactic element has been moved.
(p. 359)
For the most part, A Reference Grammar of Mod-
ern Italian is extremely up to date. Of the 34 works
cited in its bibliography, 24 were published since
1990. The book includes mention of the euro (in
circulation only since 2002), and the current col-
loquial use of cioè (to which might have been
added niente) “as a ‘filler’ . . . rather like ‘I mean’
in English” (p. 418). However, there is at least one
sentence, presumably from the first edition, that
should have been dropped in the second: “Ap-
parently, no name of this kind [e.g., il Novecento]
is available to denote the twenty-first century” (p.
453). How about il Duemila?
Despite its attempt to cover Italian grammar
exhaustively and the plethora of illustrative ex-
amples it offers, this book lacks several explana-
tions that are important to its target audience,
native English speakers. In addition to preposi-
tions, there are probably no more difficult ar-
eas for us than the use of the adverb anche and
the verb piacere. Although both are treated in the
book, the difficulties they pose for the English
speaker (shifting placement of anche and rever-
sal of English subject and object with piacere) are
ignored. Similarly, there is no mention of metà,
whose use could have been contrasted with that of
mezzo.
Notwithstanding these and other short-
comings—the occasional omission or minor
error, inclusion of ultra-rarefied words in the
Reviews
interest of completeness, an attempt to impose
a sometimes nonexistent logic on prepositions,
nonintuitive reference points—this is an ex-
tremely worthwhile book. With this reference
work at hand, no one need ever again utter the
stereotypically nonnative clunker Ciao, professore!
BETTYE CHAMBERS
Georgetown University
JAPANESE
HEISIG, JAMES W. Remembering the Kanji 1: A
Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning
and Writing of Japanese Characters. 5th ed. Hon-
olulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. Pp. v, 460.
$32.00, paper. ISBN 978–0–8248–3165–3.
HEISIG, JAMES W., HELMUT MORSBACH, &
KAZUE KUREBAYASHI. Remembering the Kana:
A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syl-
labaries in 3 Hours Each. 3rd ed. Honolulu: Uni-
versity of Hawai’i Press, 2007. Pp. x, 147. $15.00,
paper. ISBN 978–0–8248–3164–6.
Over the last 30 years, James Heisig, a philosopher
of religion and a long-time resident of Japan, has
come to be known among learners of Japanese for
his three-volume Remembering the Kanji series and
its offshoot project Remembering the Kana, both
with multiple editions and French, German, and
Spanish versions. Reviewed here are the fifth edi-
tion of the first volume of the former (the new
editions of the other two volumes are due to ap-
pear in 2008) and the third edition of the lat-
ter. These books are designed to help nonnative
speakers of Japanese to learn on their own the
tripartite Japanese writing system: kanji or charac-
ters of Chinese origin in the former and hiragana
and katakana, the two sets of written symbols that
represent the basic units of sounds of the Japanese
language, in the latter.
As its subtitle conveys, Remembering the Kanji
1 focuses only on the meanings and the writ-
ing of kanji, not on their pronunciations, whose
exercises are in Remembering the Kanji 2. In this
book the author aims “to provide the student of
Japanese with a simple method for correlating the
writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in
such a way as to make them both easy to remem-
ber” (p. 1) by using a mnemonic-based approach
that takes advantage of “imaginative memory” (p.
3). Heisig’s imaginative memory method is cumu-
lative, building from meaningfully assigned im-
ages to simple kanji characters and elements that
663
can be part of different and more complicated
kanji characters. To create images, the author dis-
cards drawings or pictographs entirely. Instead,
he wants the learner to create images with words.
For instance, the character for day is introduced
as “sun or day” (p. 19) and the kanji element
that looks like the Arabic numeral 1 as “a cane or
walking stick” (p. 27). When the kanji consisting
of these two elements appears, it is explained as
follows:
A walking stick is needed for days of olden times [the
meaning of the kanji in question], since days, too, get
old—at least insofar as we refer to them as the “good
old days.” The main thing here is to think of “good
old days” when you hear the key word olden times.
The rest will take care of itself. (pp. 27–28)
The book introduces a total of 2,042 kanji in
this fashion, a few more than Japan’s Ministry of
Education’s official list of commonly used kanji
(1,945). It is divided into three parts, which may
be taken as three stages of learning the Heisig
method. In part 1, which is titled “Stories,” Heisig
demonstrates his method of remembering the
meanings and shapes of 276 characters, which are
divided into 12 lessons, with each lesson introduc-
ing from 10 to 46 kanji.
Part 2, entitled “Plots,” introduces 232 charac-
ters in seven lessons, where “the weaning process”
(p. 117) begins. In these lessons the stories are
abbreviated into simple plots, which learners are
to fill in with details so that they can better asso-
ciate the stories with the meanings and shapes of
the kanji in question. The last part, entitled “Ele-
ments,” serves as a place where learners train their
imaginative memories by creating their own sto-
ries to help them remember better the characters
that they are trying to learn, using the skeletal in-
formation of the elements provided for the kanji
in question. For instance, the first kanji in this fi-
nal section means “dye.” It is presented with the
meanings of its three elements: water, nine, and
tree (p. 179). The rest of the work (i.e., creating
a story about the character) is left to the learners.
A total of 1,534 characters are introduced in 37
lessons in part 3, grouped according to their com-
mon elements. Indexes are available for all of the
kanji introduced in the book, their elements, and
their meanings.
Like Remembering the Kanji 1, Remembering the
Kana is designed for self-study. It uses the imag-
inative memory method to teach the two sets of
46 kana or syllables: hiragana and katakana. A full
page is devoted to explain one kana, including
its pronunciation, the original Chinese character
from which it is derived, its explanation or story,
664
and example words that include it. For example,
the story of the first kana, pronounced a, is as
follows:
The syllable a begins with a dagger , its “blade” bending
to the right so as to flow into the next stroke. Below
it a no-parking sign. [ . . .] The sound a calls to mind a
playful little otter, swimming on his back in the middle
of a pond whose banks are picketed on all sides by no-
parking signs. On his tummy are a stack of daggers,
which he is tossing one by one at the signs, clapping
his paws with glee each time he hits a bull’s eye. (p. 5)
The first half of the book provides hiragana
practice, which is followed by practice in katakana.
Both parts are structured in the same way. First,
a full-page explanation of each kana is given for
all of the 46 syllables in the order that the stan-
dard kana chart lists them. The six lessons begin
immediately afterward, carefully guiding learners
through the preceding kana pages step by step. In-
stead of having the learners study the kana from
the beginning to the end of the kana chart, they
are led through each set of kana randomly so that
all of the example words on each page can be rec-
ognized. For instance, in the first hiragana lesson,
learners are taken to the 46th hiragana and then
to the 2nd hiragana so that they can read a two-
syllable word listed on the page for the second
hiragana.
Heisig’s imaginative memory method reminds
me of enigmatic kōan practice used to train the
Zen Buddhist student in matching their minds
with the mind of the enlightened one. A kōan, or a
kanji or kana story in this case, may seem to be the
subject here; however, like kōan practice, the story
is to supersede subject–object duality (i.e., to fuse
the story with the properties of the kanji or kana
in question in one’s mind). When that happens,
one may say that learning has taken place.
The method is rather unconventional and it is
in particular against the current trends of kanji
instruction that emphasize the teaching of kanji
in context or as part of vocabulary acquisition.
Whether this method leads to the learning of
Japanese orthography is, I believe, a matter of
the learner’s personal preference. One must be
a believer in the method to go through over 400
pages of Remembering the Kanji and to follow the
instructions of Remembering the Kana that are, in
my view, unnecessarily complex.
Finally, one serious problem with Remembering
the Kana is the presentation of kana pronunci-
ation, for which English words containing their
approximate sounds are used. For instance, the
syllable for a is introduced as equivalent to o of
the English on and a of father ; such confusing in-
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
stances are numerous throughout the book. An
audio supplement may replace the written pro-
nunciation guides in future editions.
SUFUMI SO
George Mason University
YAMAGUCHI, TOSHIKO. Japanese Linguistics:
An Introduction. New York: Continuum, 2007. Pp.
xviii, 220. $49.95, paper. ISBN 0–8264–8790–4.
—–. Japanese Language in Use: An Introduction.
New York: Continuum, 2007. Pp. xviii, 231. $49.95,
paper. ISBN 978–0–8264–9352–1.
These two textbooks are published as companion
volumes. As the titles indicate, Japanese Linguis-
tics (JL) complements Japanese Language in Use
(JLU ) in topic coverage. The first book deals with
the more traditional areas of linguistics and the
second focuses on language use and includes dis-
cussion of pragmatics, discourse, language and
culture, and radio talk. Yamaguchi dedicates one
chapter to each of these topics. In a typical chap-
ter, she presents basic information about a topic
in nontechnical prose, and this section is followed
by various activities for students that relate to the
presentation. After an activity, the author almost
always provides what she calls a “Commentary,”
where she gives a suggested solution or an ap-
proach to arriving at the correct solution. Many
of the examples are taken from authentic texts
(e.g., frames from a variety of comic books and
strips) rather than the common practice of using
artificial examples to illustrate a point, although
some short examples were apparently created by
the author. At the end of both books, there is a
comprehensive list of books and articles referred
to or used by the author, an English subject index,
and a Japanese subject and name index. Japanese
language examples throughout the books are pro-
vided in the Japanese script, with most of the kanji
characters with their pronunciations in the pho-
netic script hiragana. The rōmaji convention cho-
sen for presentation is the modified Hepburnian
system with the vowel length indicated with a
macron.
JL and JLU were written after the culmination
of Yamaguchi’s 5 years of teaching linguistics to
university students, and they represent a consider-
able commitment of the author’s time and energy.
Additionally, these books are two of only a small
number of introductory textbooks on the linguis-
tic aspects of the Japanese language available in
Reviews
English and are among a few that aim to teach
Japanese linguistics (application of linguistics to
the analysis of the language). The possibility of
having an option of adopting them as textbooks
is attractive to those who teach advanced students
of Japanese in the English-speaking world.
JL and JLU were not entirely successful in
this debut. Unfortunately, the books, especially
JL, contain a fair number of errors. These er-
rors, which may reach a half dozen or more on
one page, are most noticeable in the phonet-
ics and phonology sections. For example, the
author states, in speaking about speech sounds
in general, that they are “produced when air is
pushed out of the lungs and passes through the
vocal cords and vocal tract” (JL, p. 1), which
makes us wonder about nonpulmonic sounds
such as ejectives and clicks. The sound [g] is
given as the only allophone for the Japanese
/g/, leaving out the well-known nasal allophone
[N] that is used in many parts of Japan (JL,
p. 18, Table 2.3). Elsewhere, the nostril is included
as an articulator (Figure 1.2, JL, p. 3). Other artic-
ulators in the mouth are identified, but, without
arrows, it is not clear to the reader to what part of
the mouth the numbers refer (JL, p. 3) because
the illustration is small. Other anomalies include
cases in which phoneme sequence /hi/ is given
the surface form transcription of [i] (should be
[çi]) (JL, p. 13), phonetic and phonemic sym-
bols are inconsistently used (e.g., /f/ on p. 21,
which should have been /h/), and regressive and
progressive assimilations are confused (JL, pp. 20,
30), among others. These errors will keep both
the instructor and students looking for the er-
rata sheet. Although the phonetics and phonol-
ogy sections are two of the most disappointing
for their large number of errors, other chapters
(much fewer in the second book) are also sprin-
kled with outright, albeit some minor and typo-
graphical but at the same time annoying, errors
and overgeneralizations (e.g., “2LDK” is trans-
lated as “2 living dining kitchen” and the WHO is
rendered as sekai hoken kikan, not the correct sekai
hoken kikō). Along these lines, in a section dealing
with verb forms, the –te form of Japanese verbs,
which is normally treated as part of the conjuga-
tion, is presented as a free connective morpheme
(JL, p. 74) without discussion or justification. We
also learn that all kanji characters are ideograms
(JL, p. 99) and “synonyms . . . refer to two words
whose meaning is very similar but not exactly the
same” (JL, p. 138). Did the author mean to say
that some kanji are ideograms and true synonyms
are very difficult, if impossible, to find? Explaining
the use of the change-of-state (become) verbs, the
665
author offers an example like Akichi ni apāto ga
tatta ‘an apartment was built in the vacant lot’ and
states that the “example shows that the Japanese
speakers perceive the situation in such a way that
the absence of an apartment changes into a pres-
ence of an apartment” (JL, p. 163). Many would
take issue with this sort of statement, which bor-
ders on a proposal for an intrinsic connection
between language and cognition, where a lexical
feature is straightaway connected to the speaker’s
perception.
The author claims that these books, unlike
other similar publications, make profuse use of
authentic language examples. Indeed, it is re-
freshing to read examples from real life, as many
of us have seen worn-out and insipid sentences
in linguistics textbooks. Using authentic exam-
ples, however, is not always successful because do-
ing so may obfuscate the point being illustrated
and because the vocabulary, grammar, and prag-
matics/sociolinguistics in the examples may not
be immediately comprehensible to the audience.
Anyone who has tried to appreciate cartoons in
a foreign language would agree that understand-
ing authentic language examples is challenging
without appropriate linguistic and cultural back-
ground. Text 2.14 (JLU , p. 56), an excerpt from a
play script, contains a sentence that reads Omae mo
rakutarō da ne. Here the reader is invited to find
the meaning of omae in this context. Although
the purpose of the exercise may be meaningful,
rakutarō ‘happy-go-lucky person,’ which is a neol-
ogism and is untranslated in this context, makes
this exercise harder than it should be. The use of
authentic text is an issue in the second book, in
which the examples tend to be long and complex.
Although authentic language data are useful, a
careful weighing of advantages and disadvantages
was needed.
Although I do not always agree with Yam-
aguchi’s analysis, the real strength of the two-
book set is found in JLU , where the author seems
to be in her element. The coverage and discus-
sion of topics in this section is quite good and
includes discussion on aspectual and modal mark-
ers, deixis, implicature, discourse cohesion, gen-
der and age variation in language use, politeness,
and conversational moves. The concluding sec-
tion on radio talk that illustrates these conversa-
tional moves is particularly interesting.
The attractiveness of adopting these books for
classroom use may diminish due to a general ab-
sence of exercises that are aimed at teaching stu-
dents how to conduct linguistic analysis. This is
a drawback, especially for JL, as it is a fact book
about the language. The author states at the outset
666
that she avoided using technical vocabulary and
analytical methods of various linguistic theories,
which can be seen in the presentation (especially
in JL), but this avoidance may have been ill ad-
vised because one can do only so much without
these tools. The author’s presentation in JL does
not take the reader through the process of identi-
fying a linguistic problem, analyzing data, and ar-
riving at a conclusion. In this connection, the au-
thor should not have been so timid in saying that
the commentaries in the books are mere projec-
tions of the author’s thinking. This position does
not stir confidence in the reader. Although some
conclusions in linguistics are debatable, some an-
alytical processes and linguistic facts are straight-
forward and indisputable.
In summary, of these two titles, JLU contains
much interesting information and is worth adopt-
ing. As for JL, I am less sanguine, as instructors
would have to be vigilant about errors and provide
many exercises of their own. Finally, the reader
should be aware that these books do not deal with
the historical development of the language, ge-
netic affiliation, or regional language variation,
which are subjects in which many of my students
have shown much interest.
HIROSHI NARA
University of Pittsburgh
PORTUGUESE
TESCHNER, RICHARD V., & ANTÔNIO R.
M. SIMÕES. Pronouncing Brazilian Portuguese.
Newark, DE: Linguatext Limited, 2007. Pp. 332.
$29.95, paper. ISBN 978–0–942566–93–2.
Pronouncing Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth
PBP ) is a pronunciation textbook of the Cari-
oca (Rio de Janeiro) variety of Portuguese. It
can be used in addition to a standard language
textbook in first-year college Brazilian Portuguese
language classes. PBP can also be used as the
main textbook for a Brazilian Portuguese Pho-
netics course comparable to the textbooks used
in Spanish Phonetics courses in the United States
and Canada (e.g., Schwegler & Kempff’s Fonética
y fonologı́a españolas, 3rd ed., Wiley, 2007).
PBP takes advantage of the fact that in North
American colleges many students in Brazilian Por-
tuguese classes, in addition to English, know ei-
ther French or, more commonly, Spanish, by com-
paring the sounds of Portuguese with the other
languages just mentioned throughout the text.
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
However, as the authors state in the introduc-
tion to the book, “[the textbook’s] sole intent
is to teach the sounds of [Brazilian Portuguese].
By presenting English, French or Spanish equiva-
lents [they] merely seek to support that goal” (p.
3). Users of PBP do not have to know French or
Spanish to use this book. As the title indicates,
this book is written in English. Yet, it is accessible
to readers with a less than fully native knowledge
of English. Although the authors somewhat arbi-
trarily chose to present the Carioca dialect, which
they claim to be the prestigious one, something
many Paulistas (residents of São Paulo) would
dispute, PBP can be used easily by instructors
speaking other varieties of Brazilian Portuguese
(Paulista, Gaucho, Mineiro, etc.). The notational
system employed by the authors is user friendly
for instructors speaking all varieties of Brazilian
Portuguese. Moreover, and very important, PBP
can be used by Portuguese instructors who are
not specialists in Portuguese linguistics or phonet-
ics because the authors use linguistic terminology
sparingly. Linguistic terms, such as phoneme, allo-
phone, grapheme, and the like, are rarely used. In
addition, PBP contains a helpful glossary with the
linguistic (mostly phonetic) definitions of terms
used throughout the book, such as nasal vowel,
stop, and fricative.
In colleges throughout the United States, many
students learning Brazilian Portuguese language
are Spanish speakers. These students usually learn
the grammar and vocabulary of Portuguese eas-
ily. However, their portuñol phonology emerges
within a few days of the beginning of their Brazil-
ian Portuguese language studies. Spanish speak-
ers learning Brazilian Portuguese will learn to
pronounce the language correctly only if they
are taught it explicitly (and, of course, if they
practice it and are tested on it often). Further,
in the United States, many other students study-
ing Brazilian Portuguese are native speakers of
English. These students are already familiar with
most, if not all, of the sounds that characterize
the Carioca dialect of Brazilian Portuguese (e.g.,
[z], [š], [ž], [tš], [dž]). PBP does a good job in
highlighting similarities at the segmental level not
only between English and Brazilian Portuguese
but also between the latter and Spanish, as well as
French. For these reasons alone, the authors and
publishers of PBP are to be commended for pro-
ducing this textbook for teaching Brazilian Por-
tuguese phonetics and phonology in a classroom
environment.
As the authors state in the introduction, “[i]n
no sense does PBP seek to be a complete phono-
logical grammar of the Portuguese language.
Reviews
Instead PBP teaches only what’s needed to help
[Brazilian Portuguese] students pronounce the
language accurately” (p. 5). Thus, in my view, the
value of PBP as a reference book for Brazilian Por-
tuguese, in general, and for the Carioca dialect,
in particular, is greatly diminished. This is a pity.
Linguists studying and researching the phonetics
and phonology of Portuguese and the Romance
languages are likely to be disappointed by this
book. However, perhaps this criticism is unjusti-
fied, given that this book is not intended for an au-
dience of linguists studying phonetic and phono-
logical Brazilian Portuguese structures, but of stu-
dents learning to pronounce the language. In this
sense, PBP is a good resource for Portuguese lan-
guage instructors. I recommend this book to all
instructors teaching Brazilian Portuguese in lan-
guage or phonetics courses.
EDUARDO D. FAINGOLD
The University of Tulsa
SPANISH
GILL, MARY M., BRENDA WEGMAN, &
THERESA MÉNDEZ–FAITH. En contacto:
Gramática en acción. 8th ed. Boston: Thomson
Heinle, 2007. Pp. xxi, 388. $80.95, paper. ISBN
978–1–4130–1377–1. Audio CD, packaged with
text.
—–. En contacto: Lecturas intermedias. Pp. xix, 292.
$58.95, paper. ISBN 978–1–4130–1373–3.
The challenge of writing an intermediate-level
language textbook is formidable, given the var-
ied abilities of students both within and between
university language programs. This eighth edition
of En Contacto: Gramática en acción hits the mark
in some ways and misses it in others. The text con-
tains 12 chapters that are organized around such
universal themes as Gustos y preferencias, Presencia
latina, and Amor y amistad. Chapters are divided
into five sections, beginning with Presentación del
tema, which includes an author-written thematic
reading, vocabulary and comprehension, and dis-
cussion activities. Gramática y vocabulario follows,
with thematic vocabulary, grammar explanations,
and exercises to reinforce and apply the grammar
presented. Next, En otras palabras presents lists
of expressions commonly used in Spanish to ful-
fill certain communicative functions related to
the chapter’s theme. Then, En contacto includes
synthesizing pair and group activities and top-
ics for writing assignments. Finally, Videocultura
667
presents advance organizers and postviewing ac-
tivities to accompany thematically related video
clips included on a DVD.
In the preface to this edition the authors point
out the communicative focus of the En contacto
program, but the textbook activities lend them-
selves to a communicative approach with varying
degrees of success: Whereas some activities are
open ended and allow for students to interact in
Spanish in authentic and meaningful ways, oth-
ers are little more than pattern drills in which
responses to prompts are likely to be decontextu-
alized and formulaic. There is a good variety of
activities, however, which would make it easy for
instructors to select activities that are well suited
to their methodology and syllabus.
Chapter themes are broad and allow for easy
adaptation to the interests and abilities of indi-
vidual classes. Thematic vocabulary is current and
includes an impressive range of dialect-specific ex-
pressions and slang that university students will
find relevant and useful. Although the treatment
of topics in some readings, audio and video mate-
rials, and textbook activities may be somewhat su-
perficial for some university students, quotations,
photos, and other realia included in the text’s
layout provide potential points of departure for
group or class discussion to delve more deeply
into chapter themes. The color photography and
realia lend visual appeal to the text. In addition,
the annotated instructor’s edition includes sug-
gestions for expanding on textbook activities and
generating class discussion on chapter themes.
Presentation of grammar follows a traditional
tack, with at times verbose English explanations
and lists of uses of structures accompanied by verb
paradigms and Spanish examples presented with
their English translations. This format is advan-
tageous to ensure student comprehension of ex-
planations, particularly if a course is set up for
grammar to be studied and practiced at home
so that class time may be devoted to communica-
tive activities. However, a possible disadvantage is
that students are encouraged to access Spanish
through English.
The audio CD that is packaged with the
textbook includes recordings of native speak-
ers reading the introductory paragraphs of each
chapter. In addition, there are brief recorded
conversations that relate to chapter themes that
may be used along with associated listening
exercises that are included in the Presentación
del tema section of each chapter. It is clear that
the recordings were produced with the ears of
nonnative students of Spanish in mind because
the speech is by and large deliberate, clear, and
668
undistorted by ambient noise. An unfortunate
downside of this sensitivity to students’ develop-
ing listening skills is that the conversations are a
bit stilted, which may detract from students’ inter-
est and motivation to use them as a resource to
challenge and therefore develop listening skills.
The DVD program includes a series of video
clips of between 4 and 6 minutes in length that
tie in with chapter themes. The clips vary in topic,
from Spanish flamenco to ecotourism in Ecuador.
In contrast with the audio CD, the DVD provides
authentic speech samples and the opportunity for
students to hear dialects of Spanish spoken in
Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain.
The Cuaderno de ejercicios and Manual de lab-
oratorio supplements contain additional gram-
mar exercises and listening comprehension ac-
tivities. The exercises that comprise the Cuaderno
de ejercicios are highly structured but range from
vocabulary-matching activities to transformation
exercises to guided writing of paragraphs. Again,
this structured nature would likely lend itself to
courses that are set up for grammar to be studied
and practiced outside of class. The appropriate-
ness of the level of some of the exercises might be
called into question, however. For example, items
in reading and listening comprehension exercises
included in the supplement frequently repeat the
wording of the passage, making for shallow com-
prehension activities. Furthermore, some of the
exercises seem more appropriate for younger ado-
lescents (e.g., an assignment to write your teacher
a postcard from a Spanish-speaking country) than
for university students, but the variety is such that
instructors may select from the exercises included
in the text and ancillary materials.
Lecturas intermedias is a reader that is coordi-
nated in themes, vocabulary, and grammar with
the base En contacto: Gramática en acción text and,
according to the preface, is designed for use ei-
ther as a stand-alone text (although there is no
explicit treatment of grammar in the reader) or
in concert with the base grammar text. In the
preface, the authors state that the focus of the
reader is the development of reading skills, lex-
ical knowledge, and cultural awareness, and the
text seems to be adequately equipped to meet
this objective. The theme of each chapter is in-
troduced by means of an image (of a work of art
created by an Hispanic artist) that is accompanied
by activities meant to encourage conversation and
practice related vocabulary. These activities range
from somewhat simple to those more likely to en-
gage intermediate-level university students.
Author-written introductions to the chapter
themes and the readings’ authors are followed
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
by at least two authentic reading selections per
chapter. These readings represent a laudable vari-
ety of writers and genres, from journalistic pieces
to poetry to excerpts from novels, and include
canonical pieces as well as contemporary works.
All selections are glossed, with English or Spanish
equivalents provided. A Spanish–English glossary
is included as an appendix.
Prereading activities serve to practice vo-
cabulary and reinforce reading strategies, and
postreading activities check comprehension, ex-
pand upon themes, and provide topics and steps
for writing activities. In earlier chapters, selections
are divided up by brief sets of comprehension
questions, and in later chapters, all of the com-
prehension questions and other activities appear
at the end of a selection.
Although the objectives stated in the preface
may be met through judicious use of the materi-
als and activities provided, it is unfortunate that
reading and grammatical structure are not truly
integrated, either in the base text or in the reader.
There are many selections that could be used as
effective points of departure for contextualized
treatments of verb aspect, mood, and appropriate
use of register and literary devices, to name just a
few of the possibilities, and instructors might con-
sider tapping this potential should they choose to
adopt the En contacto program.
CATHERINE A. STAFFORD
University of Wisconsin–Madison
GRAVINA, SCOTT, ISABEL JAÉN–PORTILLO,
CLAUDIA MÉNDEZ, & REGINA SCHROEDER.
Épocas y avances: Lengua en su contexto cultural .
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Pp.
xi, 438. $80.00, paper. ISBN 978–0–300–10836–1.
FUNCIA, RAMÓN, JULIANA RAMOS, LISSETTE
REYMUNDI, & JULIEN SIMON. Épocas y avances:
Lengua en su contexto cultural . Cuaderno de trabajo.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Pp.
vii, 275. $30.00, paper. ISBN 978–0–300–10837–8.
Épocas y avances represents a doubly ambitious
undertaking. On the one hand, the authors have
attempted to integrate the literature and cultural
history of Spain and the expanse of Latin Amer-
ica with a serious review of Spanish grammar;
on the other, it makes considerable demands
of intermediate- and advanced-level undergradu-
ates. In the 22 units the authors promise “a broad
spectrum of content-rich material for the study of
the language and culture of the Spanish-speaking
Reviews
world” through “a communicative-humanistic ap-
proach” (p. vi). The authors describe their design
as one reflecting the “episodic” nature of evolu-
tionary psychology and undertaking a “symbolic
approach to teaching and learning,” at the same
time demonstrating adherence “to the current
standards for foreign language teaching” (p. vii).
Students are indeed provided frequent opportu-
nities to demonstrate interpretive, interpersonal,
and presentational modes of discourse.
An advance organizer, or prelectura, effectively
introduces students to the concepts introduced
in each thematic reading. Approximately half of
these passages are available on the audio CD in-
cluded with the text and provide students the
opportunity to hear narrations in both standard
Latin American and Castilian Spanish.
Particularly intriguing are the politically correct
efforts of the authors to encourage students to
reflect on the numerous instances of ethnic, re-
ligious, and political intolerance across the cen-
turies in both peninsular Spain and Latin Amer-
ica and their often tragic consequences. What
stands out in the text, however, is the way in
which themes, grammatical presentations, and
skill-building activities are successfully integrated.
For example, after completing a systematic review
of preterit and imperfect tenses and after reading
about the tradition behind the pilgrimage to San-
tiago and references to other traditions, groups
of students are asked to create their own medieval
legend, while simultaneously incorporating verbs
in the preterit and imperfect (p. 111).
Students are expected to make intelligent com-
parisons between ancient civilizations or more re-
cent historical periods and the present. After be-
ing introduced to two jarchas, for example, pairs
of students are first asked to play the roles of two
Mozarabic sisters who enthusiastically describe
with abundant detail the men with whom they
are in love and then to write a brief jarcha incor-
porating the results of the previous brainstorming
activity. The focus on paintings, photographs, and
other visual representations runs the length of the
volume, and students have frequent opportunities
to infer the intention of artists and to relate their
observations to the thematic context of a unit.
The attention devoted to the varieties of Span-
ish throughout the Hispanic world is notewor-
thy. For example, the authors cite grammatical
preferences that depend on one’s geographical
background, such as the tendency of a Spaniard
to say Esta mañana he desayunado poco, whereas
the equivalent utterance in Mexico might be
Esta mañana desayuné poco, a reality students of
Spanish observe in travel, yet rarely encounter in
669
textbooks. There is a brief, intelligent discussion
of the use of vos in much of Latin America, some-
thing equally rare in most texts; there is also an
exercise in which students are asked to rewrite a
paragraph ostensibly composed by a Spaniard by
changing 10 core lexical items to the equivalents
one would encounter in Mexico.
Although the authors take pride in their exclu-
sive use of the target language in terminology, ex-
planations, and models throughout the text, there
always lurks the danger of ambiguity in some of
the examples presented, such as comparisons of
verbs that possess different meanings depending
on the tense employed. Additionally, one won-
ders if students will understand explanations of
aspect, mood, and the like from explanations and
examples given entirely in Spanish, such as aunque
entienden versus aunque entiendan (p. 415).
Materials on syllable division, written accents,
verb formation, and other grammatical phenom-
ena provided in the appendix will prove useful to
students. However, given that nouns in the glos-
sary (pp. 426–433) appear without definite arti-
cles, one wonders if determining the gender of
such nouns as aporte, caos, élite, hinchazón, ingle,
and régimen will present a problem for students at
this level.
The workbook authors, none of whom is a mem-
ber of the textbook-writing team, have superbly
woven into the vocabulary-building and grammat-
ical exercises, as well as the developmental writing
activities, the historical and cultural focus of each
unit without duplicating what appears in the text-
book. Like the audio CD accompanying the pri-
mary text, the one provided with the Cuaderno
provides examples of Castilian and Latin Ameri-
can speech varieties. Auditory comprehension ex-
ercises ensure that students will listen to each pas-
sage more than once. For example, students must
on occasion first circle words they hear in a pas-
sage, then listen again for content required for
them to respond to factual questions.
The Cuaderno invites students to become en-
gaged in a variety of imaginative open-ended or
guided scenarios, such as one requiring them to
play the role of a 17th-century criollo writing an ar-
ticle critical of the sociopolitical plight of those in
the Americas at the hands of Spain (p. 168) or to
pretend to be a criollo rebel fighting the Spanish
crown and attempt to convince a friend to become
his ally (p. 177).
One excellent target audience for this text
might be highly motivated heritage speakers who
possess the requisite skills to interpret and appre-
ciate a variety of text types and yet would benefit
from both an intensive review of Spanish grammar
670
and a broader understanding of the Hispanic
world beyond the national cultures with which
they are familiar.
Those considering adoption of this attractive
and well-conceived program would be advised to
examine the text, workbook, and accompanying
CDs to be certain that the student audience being
targeted is prepared for the challenges presented
The Modern Language Journal 92 2008
by the thorough grammar construct and rather
demanding activities. Otherwise, the package ap-
pears to offer a viable option for advanced stu-
dents.
CHARLES MAURICE CHERRY
Furman University

Congratulations to 2008 ADFL Award for Distinguished

Service to the Profession Winner
The Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL) is awarding its 2008 Award for Distin-
guished Service to the Profession to Renate A. Schulz, Ph.D. The award honors eminent scholar-teachers
for exceptional contributions to the field of foreign languages and literatures at the postsecondary level.
Dr. Schulz is a professor of German Studies, a faculty member of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in
Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT), and Interim Head, Department of German Studies
at the University of Arizona.
She came to the United States from Germany in 1958 and earned a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education
from The Ohio State University. Before coming to the University of Arizona in 1981, she taught in the
Peace Corps in Nigeria, at Otterbein College (Ohio), at the State University College of New York at
Buffalo, and at the University of Arkansas. She also held visiting appointments at the United States Air
Force Academy, the Universidad de las Américas in Puebla, Mexico, and at the University of Leipzig,
Germany.
Prof. Schulz’s research interests lie in the areas of second language acquisition, language and culture
teaching, assessment, and foreign language teacher development. She has lectured and published
widely on those topics. She is a past president of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers’
Associations (NFMLTA) and of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). She also is a
past editor of Die Unterrichtspraxis: The Teaching of German, and currently serves on the editorial advisory
boards of the The Modern Language Journal and Forum Deutsch.
Congratulations, Prof. Schulz!