LEARNING LANGUAGES, LEARNING LIFE-SKILLS: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REFLEXIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING AND...

doi:10+10170S0272263108080625

LEARNING LANGUAGES, LEARNING LIFE-SKILLS: AUTOBIOGRAPHICALREFLEXIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING AND LEARNING A FOREIGN LAN-GUAGE. Riita Jaatinen+ New York: Springer, 2007+ Pp+ v � 227+ $89+95 cloth+

This volume presents the results of a study conducted at a Finnish university, in whichJaatinen evaluated her performance as a teacher of English for social services+ Asexplained in chapter 1, the study is grounded on an undoubtedly provocative principle:Teaching and learning a foreign language is based on the holistic conception of man inline with the phenomenological meaning paradigm+ In essence, Jaatinen argues that teach-ing and learning take place through autobiographical reflection acts that take intoaccount “the historicity of the human being and ‘being-in-the-world’ changing oneselfand the world in which the language has a key position” ~p+ 5!+ This inquiry facilitatesthe description and study of the changes in the researcher’s ~the instructor! and thesubjects’ ~the learners! subjective worldviews, creating opportunities to research teach-ership and learnership+

Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to providing the theoretical underpinnings that framethe study and Jaatinen’s notion of the autobiographical reflexive approach+ The authorhighlights the importance of assigning meanings and making sense of the teacher’s andlearners’ subjective ~life! experiences+ According to her, this is the basis for reflection,when a person’s own consciousness and his or her reality can be seen+ She also empha-sizes that this reflection is bound to cultural and social factors that mold the experi-ences on which the creation of knowledge depends+ Understanding a human being as awhole is another key aspect of this approach: The life-world of each individual is acollection of all the conditions and events—including language—in his or her past,present, and future existence+ Tapping into this network of bodily, conscious, and situ-ational relationships is what allows us to trigger the sense-making process that charac-terizes our ever-changing nature+ The discussion is thought-provoking and the qualityof the literature review is impressive, but the lack of cohesiveness in the chapters andthe continuous repetition of the author’s goal are two major flaws+

In chapter 4, there is yet another explanation of the study’s objectives, whereaschapter 5 tries to link theory and language teaching and learning+ Jaatinen claims thatlanguage courses should prepare learners to interact with people from other cultureswith respect and to understand their own culture as they make true, authentic con-nections with the content to be learned, with the world, and with each other+ Lan-guage obviously plays a central role in this progression; it is seen as the element ofexpression and interpretation and as the instrument with which we describe—althoughnot exhaustively—our symbolic universe+

In the strongest chapter of the volume, chapter 6, the author presents a descriptionof the methodology behind the autobiographical approach+ Through the recollection ofepisodes, we are able to be part of what was happening in the classroom and to wit-ness the implementation of what up to this point seems somewhat idealistic and abstract+The writing is engaging, and the explanations showcase Jaatinen’s ability to get learn-ers involved in explaining concepts and inferring meanings, interpreting pictures, solv-ing problems, dramatizing, and encountering the other as well as her ability to handleunplanned teaching moments+ As part of her own evaluation of the study, the chapterconcludes with her assessment of the true meaning of the environment, learning, teach-ing, knowledge, and knowing in a foreign language program+ It is in this section that we

406 Book Reviews

can clearly see her commitment to this teaching philosophy and how it transformedher professional practices+

In the last chapter of the volume, three of the learners in Jaatinen’s class candidlyreminisce about their experiences and struggles learning a foreign language+ What fol-lows is the author’s interpretation of these stories, narrative that often seems super-ficial and forced to fit within the theoretical mold she has so insistently described+ Thelast part of the book is an epilogue that serves as a summary of the research+

Jaatinen’s work does an admirable job of inviting us to rethink our conception ofteaching and learning by stressing that the ultimate goal is for learners to develop theirown personal foreign language+ Although the humanistic foundation of her study andmethodology is solid and persuasive, the volume leaves the reader with a very unclearpicture of how it translates into language acquisition and proficiency+

~Received 15 August 2007! Edwin M. LamboyUniversity of Central Florida

doi:10+10170S0272263108080637

THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF IDENTITY. Tope Omoniyi and Goodith White (Eds.)+New York: Continuum, 2006+ Pp+ 239+ $168+92 cloth+

The editors’ introduction and the first chapter by Omoniyi alone provide an engagingtheoretical framework that promises a view of what speakers’ social identities involvethat goes beyond the standard variables in the Labovian variationist framework+ Instead,Omoniyi writes of “identity options” and of speakers who coconstruct identities “in rela-tion to evaluations of the state of affairs in terms of relationships and dispositions”~p+ 20!+ Essentialism, defined as “labelling any number of normative characteristics orpractices as constituting the core of an individual or group” is downplayed ~p+ 16!; thatis, such features as gender or ethnic group memberships assume less importance than“moments of identification” ~p+ 21!+ Block continues these arguments, referring specifi-cally to poststructuralist views of identity+

However, very few of the following chapters realize the promise of a more dynamicperspective on identity+ Ironically, many emphasize the essentialism that the editorswant to leave behind, in that a number of contributors offer group members’ evalua-tions of linguistic varieties as markers of local identity+ For example, Sallabank surveysattitudes on the channel island of Guernsey toward Guernsey French as a marker ofGuernsey identity+ There are also two studies, based in two northeast English cities, onhow residents view their local dialects as differentiating them from speakers in othercities ~Llamas on Middlesborough and Burbano-Elizondo on Sunderland!+

Few of the chapters are directly relevant to SLA research+ I discuss briefly the threechapters of most relevance+ In “English Pronunciation and Second Language SpeakerIdentity,” Jenkins studies nonnative speakers’ ~NNS! attitudes toward English pronunci-ation+ From studying intelligibility among NNSs, she came up with a core category, lin-gua franca core ~LFC!, consisting of features that needed to be pronounced in a wayclose to the native-speaker ~NS! target to make pronunciation intelligible to anotherNNS with a different first language ~L1!+ Attitudes of respondents toward the LFC were a

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