stitution for missionary linguists who have
The matrix is drawn here as a
translated the Bible into and written gram-
mars for hundreds of the world’s lesser-
known languages. Pike himself has done
field work on aboriginal languages of Mex-
ico, Peru, Ecuador, New Guinea, Irian Jaya
and the Philippines.
Pike views language, and languages,
within a cultural matrix. Tagmemes are the
units of language, form-meaning compo-
sites, perceived systematically by the trained
observer. Since the earliest proposal of the
theory in the early 1950s, there has been an
evolution in Pike’s conception of the tag-
meme. For Pike, language consists of four-
part units, called slot, class, role and cohe-
sion, the first being the place in a sequential
sequence, the second tied to the situation
foundation for the first; role refers to utter-
ance appropriateness as adjudged by the
native speakers, while cohesion refers to
factors such as implication and presupposi-
tion, relevant factors beyond apparent con-
text.
All language units fit into a hierarchical
system of substitution classes, of which
there are three: referential, grammatical
and phonological. The tagmemes in the
hierarchies combine to make explicit the
&dquo;things&dquo; we call language and behavior.
Following the author’s five-page introduc-
tion, in which he notes that American lin-
guists have tardily turned their attention to
discourse, that linguistics can shed light on
literary works, as well as technical writing,
that underlying assumptions of tagmemic
theory must be stated, he turns to the search
for units at each stage of analysis, showing
contrast, variation and appropriate distri-
bution.
Chapter 1, &dquo;Linguistic complexity in a
two-page instruction sheet,&dquo; is a demon-
stration of how analysis can apply to verbal
as well as diagrammatic instructions for con-
structing a &dquo;hamburger barbeque grill.&dquo;
Thus, we seeactual application of the con-
cepts of unit, hierarchy, context and per-
spective. Chapter 2, &dquo;Levels of observer
relationship in verbal art,&dquo; illustrates the
application of tagmemics to the analysis of
folk tales, non-narratives, descriptions and
scientific material in general and poems in
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particular.
box, with four sections: (1) referring to
placement of a unit in a larger structure
(slot); (2) specifying the what or who of the
unit in the slot (class); (3) the function of
the unit in-relationship to the other parts of
the sequence in which it occurs (role); and
(4) the unit’s frame of reference (cohesion).
Chapter 3; &dquo;Grammar versus reference in
the analysis of discourse,&dquo; is a careful
demonstration of the difference between
linear and hierarchical orders, showing how
the telling of an event differs from the ac-
tual event; thus grammatical form can vary
while reference may remain constant. Pike
emphasizes that concepts such as ’natural’
and ’logical’ rely on the observer’s view-
point. Thus, &dquo;tagmemics provides a useful
set of techniques that enable observers to
discover the relations between grammar
and reference in any given language&dquo; (p.
64).
Since language consists of units always
occurring in contexts, with smaller units
contained in larger units, tagmemics draws
no sharp boundary between morphology
and syntax, examining the hierarchical rela-
tions for words, sentences and discourse, all
of which have parallel structures. With
form and meaning tied together, then, a
description of a language is likewise an ex-
planation. (Lawrence Johnson, SEAMEO
Regional Language Centre, Republic of
Singapore.)
Teaching reading skills in a foreign
language. (Practical language
teaching series 9.) By Christine
Nuttall. London: Heinemann
Educational Books, 1982. Pp.
233.
As stated in the introductory paragraphs
of Chapter 1, this book is chiefly concerned
with reading English as a foreign or second
language. It deals mainly with the place of
reading in a teaching programme as the
book is intended for teachers, concentratr
ing on ways of developing the reading skills
of students at an intermediate level.
119
 The book contains twelve chapters, most
of which are devoted to the exploitation of
the text, that is, making use of it to develop
the students’ competence as readers in Eng-
lish as a foreign/second language. Chapter
1 discusses the reading process with the
view in mind that it is the teacher’s under-
standing of the reading process that is more
important than anything else. The conclu-
sions reached provide the basis for the other
chapters. Chapter 2 concentrates mainly on
the authentic purposes of reading in a for-
eign/second language. Chapter 3 covers the
process of text selection, concentrating on
three basic factors: readability, suitability
of content, and exploitability. Chapter ’4
gives suggestions on how to increase and
vary the reading speed of EFL/ESL readers.
Chapter 5 focuses on utilizing non-text in-
formation, emphasizing that in authentic
reading tasks the reader is frequently helped
by information that is not obtained from
the text itself. Chapter 6 concentrates on
how the reader can tackle words that block
comprehension. Chapters 7 and 8 cover the
skills a reader needs in order to understand
a text as discourse where meanings are
organized to convey a message. In chapter
9, Nuttall contends that reading compre-
hension questions found in most texts are
usually designed to find out whether the
readers have understood, rather than to
produce understanding. She emphasizes
that in a reading class the most important
thing to look into is the process by which
the reader arrived at the answers to the
questions rather than the answers them-
selves. Chapter 10 exhorts teachers to aban-
don the idea that all reading lessons should
follow the same pattern so as to give way to
all sorts of interesting possibilities by which
a text can be exploited. Chapter I1 discusses
the objectives of an intensive reading pro-
gramme and the role of the students and the
teachers for their realisation. While chapters
2-11 have dealt mainly with the sort of help
the teacher can give to reluctant readers,
chapter 12 moves into the private world of
reading, away from the classroom. Here the
main concern is what the student can do for
himself, with the teacher’s role being limited
to making sure that books are available.
120
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The final section of the book, titled
&dquo;Conclusion: The Teacher as Reader,&dquo; dis-
cusses how the teacher can be a good reader,
an important prerequisite before he can
make his students good readers as &dquo;Readers
are made by readers.&dquo;
Appendix A contains the sample texts
referred to in the book; Appendix B, ex-
tracts from Reading Courses, mostly read-
ing exercises from various sources; Appendix
C, British publishers of graded readers for
students of English as a Second or Foreign
Language; and Appendix D, a chart show-
ing the vocabulary levels of some major
series of British EFL readers.
While this book incorporates some of
the insights from psycholinguistics and dis-
course analysis, it is done in a non-esoteric
manner. Any reading teacher, with or with-
out linguistics background, will find this
book worth reading. (Melchor A. Tatlong-
hari, SEAMEO Regional Language Centre,
Republic of Singapore.)
Evaluating bilingual education: a
Canadian case study. By Merrill
Swain and Sharon Lapkin. Ex-
eter : Short Run Press, 1981. Pp.
117.
This book indicates that there is nothing
inherently impossible, or negative, in pro-
viding initial education through the medium
of a second or foreign language. A glance at
the chapter headings is enough to determine
that it contains most of what one might ex-
pect in such a book: Chapter 1 ’Introduc-
tion’ ; 2, ’French Immersion Programs in
Ontario’; 3, ’Major Issues in Research and
Evaluation’; 4, ’Linguistic Effects’; 5,
’Academic Outcomes of Immersion Educa-
tion’ ; 6, ’Social and Psychological Aspects
of Immersion Education’; and 7, ’Sum-
mary and Conclusion’. The bulk of the
book, including the last chapter, is devoted
to immersion programs and the evaluation
of bilingual education.
The purpose of the book is to provide a
non-technical synthesis of a decade of re-
search concerning immersion education. In
this book, three alternative approaches to