MLJ ReviewsEdited by JUDITH E. LISKIN–GASPARRO

University of Iowa

MLJ Review Policy

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

THEORY AND PRACTICE

DALTON–PUFFER, CHRISTIANE. Discourse inContent and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)Classrooms. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2007. Pp. xii,330. $54.00, paper. ISBN 9–02721–981–8.

Research in the sociology of education has longrecognized the discourse spaces created by teach-ers and students engaged in instructional activi-ties, and the relation between forms of classroominteraction and processes of second language(L2) acquisition has received a great deal of in-terest over the last three decades. This work hasilluminated the participatory frames that typifyL2 classrooms and has drawn attention to theresulting opportunities to support learning. Thecriticized Initiation–Response–Evaluation patternas well as the proposed instructional conversa-tion have not only emerged as common parlanceamong L2 researchers but also have made theirway into language teaching methodology texts.Dalton-Puffer contributes to this substantial re-search literature by investigating the largely un-

explored context of content and language inte-grated learning (CLIL) classrooms.

In CLIL classrooms, an L2 (English in Dalton-Puffer’s contexts) is employed as the mediumof instruction. Although similar to certain mod-els of language immersion and bilingual educa-tion, CLIL programs originated in Europe in the1990s in response to the growing demand formultilingual citizens and workers. Largely a grass-roots movement initiated by teachers and schooladministrators, CLIL programs resonate stronglywith various proposals and mandates from institu-tions within the European Union and the Coun-cil of Europe and have been enthusiastically sup-ported at local levels by businesses, parents, andschool officials. As Dalton-Puffer explains, CLILclassrooms differ from other English as a foreignlanguage programs in Europe in that English istreated not as a stand-alone content area but as thevehicle for learning other subjects (history, geog-raphy, business, etc.). CLIL proponents maintainthat because the object of instruction is not thelanguage, but academic content, there is an in-herent authenticity to classroom activities. Specif-ically, the study of content is purported to createan environment in which the target language isacquired naturally with little or no focus on form.The aim of Dalton-Puffer’s research is to docu-ment CLIL classroom interactions to understandthe ways in which the L2 is used and the opportu-nities for language learning that emerge.

The book reports an in-depth study of 14 CLILclassrooms across seven schools in Austria. Datawere gathered from a database of transcriptionsof audio recordings of 40 lessons taught by 10teachers, with learners ranging in age from 11to 19. Relying on conversation analysis, the au-thor examines patterns of turn-taking and feed-back mechanisms as well as how errors, com-munication breakdowns, and other problems areaddressed by the teachers. Speech act theoryis used to foreground certain prescribed roleswithin the classroom community and the kindsof acts that these roles make available to partici-pants. The specific language forms and functionsthat characterize teachers’ and students’ speechare described within a Hallidayan framework. Anumber of findings important for understanding

Reviews 639

CLIL classrooms as language learning environ-ments are discussed. For instance, the preferredinteractional pattern in CLIL classrooms is, byfar, whole-class discussion during which teachersquestion individual students and rephrase andsummarize their responses; pair and group workare much less common, and teacher lectures tendnot to be present. Language production opportu-nities for learners are limited to speaking (the pro-duction of written texts was not observed at all),and these oral utterances are syntactically simple,consisting often of only a few words. In terms oferror correction, lexical errors are nearly alwaysattended to, whereas phonological errors are lessfrequently addressed and grammatical mistakesare almost completely ignored.

The analysis of classroom interaction is supple-mented by teacher interviews aimed at uncover-ing the teachers’ language learning backgroundsas well as their personal theories or assumptionsand beliefs about language learning. This sectionraises the issue of the relationship among theory,research, and practice. The interviews make clearthat CLIL teacher practice is guided by an empiri-cal, everyday understanding of language learningand a commitment to avoid explicit discussion oflanguage to maintain an exclusive focus on aca-demic subjects. The belief running through manyof the teachers’ statements is that exposure to thetarget language is the necessary and sufficient con-dition for learners to gain proficiency, and as theauthor points out, CLIL teachers often do nothave the theoretical basis to talk about languagedevelopment concretely.

In chapter 9, Dalton-Puffer attempts to bridgethe gap between theory and practice by relat-ing teacher comments to Krashen’s proposals ofcomprehensible input and the affective filter. Al-though it may be legitimate to draw these ideasinto an interpretation of the teacher interviews,the author’s attitude toward their usefulness forunderstanding L2 development is unclear. Twogroups of second language acquisition theoriesare introduced, which she describes as input–output and participation-based perspectives. Bothare briefly reviewed, but without discussion oftheir ontological and epistemological underpin-nings. Although Dalton-Puffer admits a prefer-ence for the latter, she appears, like many of herparticipants, to look to theory for a set of con-ceptual hooks upon which practices (or researchfindings, in the author’s case) may be hung. The-ory is thus mapped onto practice, but the foragingitself is not problematized. Nonetheless, Dalton-Puffer’s efforts point to the need for a theoreti-cal basis for CLIL programs, and this, of course,

could lead to practice that is theory driven or, per-haps more interesting, an integration of theoryand practice.

MATTHEW E. POEHNERThe Pennsylvania State University

GRIFFITHS, CAROL. (Ed.). Lessons from GoodLanguage Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2008. Pp. 19, 306. $31.00, paper.ISBN 0–521–71814–7.

Lessons from Good Language Learners is based onthe landmark article by Joan Rubin (1975), inwhich she investigated strategies used by suc-cessful language learners. Rubin asserted that byknowing more about what good language learnersdo, teachers can “lessen the difference betweenthe good language learner and the poorer one”(p. 50). In this edited collection of 23 chapters,Griffiths (author of three chapters and co-authorof one) and other authors broaden the perspec-tive on the topic of good language learners by(a) juxtaposing the strategies against current re-search and thought; (b) including not only someof the constructs that Rubin identified as areasfor further research but also other areas excludedby Rubin, such as gender, personality, and au-tonomy; (c) considering the implications for lan-guage learning and teaching; and (d) examiningsome remaining questions. The work is dividedinto two parts (“Learner Variables” and “Learn-ing Variables”) that include both research-basedand state-of-the-art chapters. For continuity, eachchapter contains a definition of the construct ofinterest, a literature review, discussions of relatedissues, and implications for teaching and learningas well as questions for further research.

Rubin (1975, p. 42) remarked that “good lan-guage learning is said to depend on at least threevariables,” and chapter 1 addresses the first one:motivation. The author, Ema Ushioda, providesa rich research background and discusses inter-nal, external, and social contexts of motivation be-fore identifying areas for research and stating thatwhen motivation is externally regulated and con-trolled by teachers, learners cannot be expectedto develop skills to regulate their motivation, onwhich good learning depends. In chapter 2, Grif-fiths discusses language learning and age and of-fers evidence from her own research suggestingthat “overall, younger is better” (p. 47). Next,the constructs of learning style, personality, and

640 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

gender are well addressed in chapters 3 through5. In chapter 6, Griffiths focuses on strategies,providing a definition of language learning strat-egy before discussing a classroom-based study. Im-plications from her research suggest that teach-ers should consider the use of games, studentdiaries, dictionaries in the classroom, and thekinds of support their students require. Chap-ters 7 through 10 discuss the topics of metacog-nition, autonomy, learners’ beliefs, and culture,respectively. In the final chapter of the section onlearner variables, chapter 11, the second of Ru-bin’s essential variables—aptitude—is presented.Arguing against the notion that aptitude can beequated to scores on the Modern Language Apti-tude Test, Leila Ranta states that aptitude reflectsstrengths and weaknesses in a range of cognitiveabilities that act in concert with other factors,such as motivation and opportunity. In additionto the common elements found in each chapter,here, again, readers find an impressive, in-depthreference section from which to mine furtherknowledge.

In part 2, the authors examine learning vari-ables. Chapter 12 discusses vocabulary and goodlanguage learners, a topic not well developedby Rubin’s article. Co-authors Paul Nation andJo Moir present a research project, concludingthat good language learners need autonomy andmetacognition. Chapters 13 through 15 discuss re-spectively the topics of grammar, functional com-petence, and pronunciation. Chapters 16 through19 address the four skills: listening, speaking,reading, and writing. In Chapter 16 readers finda careful synthesis by Goodith White of listeningstrategies found in the literature, whereas in chap-ter 17 Yasushi Kawai presents speaking strategiesaccording to three levels, advocating that moreattention be paid to Level 3 strategies. Discussingreading and the language learner in chapter 18,Karen Schramm highlights the importance of goalorientation, specifically readers’ development ofgoals for reading and relating textual informa-tion to their goals. In chapter 19 Louise Gordonaddresses writing by presenting a theoretical re-view, followed by the findings of a study citingeight writing strategies of good language learn-ers. In chapter 20, Griffiths gives an overview of avariety of teaching and learning methods. After-ward, she outlines a research study and cites re-sults that indicate that “higher-level learners tendto be eclectic in their preferences regarding learn-ing method” (p. 261). Chapters 21 and 22 addressstrategy instruction and error correction. In thefinal chapter, Rubin and co-author Patricia Mc-Coy discuss task analysis and how it corresponds

to metacognitive structure. The authors cite re-sults from a quasi-experimental study suggestingthat learners who receive intensive instruction canimprove their ability to do task analysis. The textconcludes with a discussion of the presented vari-ables, a list of four implications for the teachingand learning situation, and some final questionsfor further research.

Overall, I recommend this book to collegestudents, preservice and in-service teachers, andthose in charge of teacher preparation programs.Chapters read easily, ranging from 10 to16 pages,and are composed by leading experts in the field.However, researchers might have questions re-garding the cited studies due to a variety of issuessuch as sample sizes and lack of methodologicalclarity. Nevertheless, the text is of value to thoseinterested in improving language learning for allstudents.

PETER B. SWANSONGeorgia State University

JOHNSON, KEITH. An Introduction to ForeignLanguage Learning and Teaching . 2nd ed. London:Pearson Longman, 2008. Pp. xiii, 378. $29.99,paper. ISBN 1–4058–3617–2.

This publication deals with the two major is-sues of learning and teaching a language. Thebook’s structure reflects these areas by dedicat-ing most of the volume to “Learning” (chapters4–8) and “Teaching” (chapters 9–15). Part 1 ad-dresses background issues like individual learn-ing differences, sociolinguistic aspects, and strate-gies of language learning, among others. Part 2focuses on language learning theories that havebeen prominent in recent times, as well as someof the factors associated with success in languagelearning. Part 3 presents a brief history of teachingapproaches, as well as skill formation and teachingtechniques.

The book’s title characterizes its intention asan introduction—that is, a “brisk walk throughlanguage teaching’s recent times” (p. 161). Thebook is aimed at readers at the beginning of theircareers as language teachers or researchers, butit will also be appreciated by experienced profes-sionals for its concise overview of the key issues inthe field. In his writing, Johnson follows his ownrecommendation that the “point you are convey-ing to your learners needs to be clear “(p. 245)and memorable. In a simple and unintimidatingway, Johnson opens up the complicated world of

Reviews 641

language learning and teaching and walks readersthrough its many cornerstone issues that, at times,may seem complicated and controversial, like be-haviorism versus cognitive learning, or structuralversus communicative approaches to teaching.

The author does not offer solutions; rather, heencourages further reading and thinking. Ques-tions and prompts, such as “Can you think of anexample/situation of your own?” (pp. 33 and 34),“Can you identify any other . . . ?” (p. 38), and“Consider your own [foreign language] experi-ence” (p. 68), serve several purposes. First, theyhelp readers internalize key concepts and termi-nology. Second, it is a good practice to draw fromstudents’ experience, and Johnson does so con-sistently by asking readers to recall episodes fromtheir language learning experiences and to assessthem in the light of the theories and methodolo-gies presented. The lists of readings and a briefsummary of selected publications will be helpfulto readers, as well.

The comparisons among the grammars of En-glish, German, Russian, French, and other lan-guages are a benefit of the book. This approachbroadens readers’ perspectives and lays a founda-tion for understanding and appreciating compar-ative linguistics.

Johnson uses boxes to highlight important con-cepts such as “points to think about, or activitiesto do” (p. 3). He starts the first chapter with a boxentitled “Boxes, boxes, boxes” (p. 3) to describethe organization of the book. Personally, I findonly some of the shoe boxes appealing. However,I agree with Johnson that there is no single effec-tive method or technique in language learningand teaching. If a technique is reasonable, followsthe rules of logic, and is in a good taste, then itmay be offered as an option.

Throughout the book, the author makes nu-merous comparisons with Russian, so I will allowmyself to do the same. The language of the bookis clear and transparent. It certainly cannot be de-scribed by the Russian term naukoobraznyy, mean-ing “appearing scholarly,” when fancy words andmultiple terms are used mainly to camouflage theweaknesses or the lack of the content. The pre-sentation of ideas and the writing style are clearand straightforward.

One cannot agree more with a remark that “ap-proaches to language teaching . . . need to be mod-ified if they are to operate in a global context” (p.207). It is impossible to separate language learn-ing and teaching from culture studies. On occa-sion, the author alludes to this idea (pp. 34 and37); however, the idea does not receive proper at-tention in the book. The author should consider

adding a chapter on relations between languageand culture studies in a subsequent edition.

Many of us in language studies would agree withsadness that “in applied linguistics . . . division andcompartmentalization exist where there shouldbe unity and oneness” and that “there are, in fact,two worlds rather than one. The world of teach-ing . . . exists alongside with the world of learning”(p. 156). This book is a noble attempt to bringthese two worlds together by providing a reason-able viewpoint on strengths and weaknesses of var-ious teachings and theories.

MARA SUKHOLUTSKAYAEast Central University

LAMB, TERRY, & HAYO REINDERS. (Eds.).Learner and Teacher Autonomy: Concepts, Realities,and Responses. AILA Applied Linguistics Series1. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2008. Pp. vi, 286.$134.00, cloth. ISBN 90–227–05175.

This volume examines autonomy of languagelearning, self-directed learning, awareness, andresponsibility. The book has five parts. Part1 comprises the introduction and foreword.Part 2, “Concepts,” contains four contributions.First, Phil Benson reviews the literature on auton-omy, which appears to have been centered on theteacher’s role. He analyzes themes from a concep-tual and philosophical angle, indicating a need tomove toward independence in all aspects of life.Turid Trebbi addresses the concept of freedomand identifies constraints that hinder the develop-ment of teachers and learners. He concludes thatself-awareness of the process of language learn-ing must be fostered by teachers so that pupils donot become victims of constraints. Ernesto Mac-aro works on developing the language of younglearners by using a model that encourages auton-omy. He emphasizes the importance of languagecompetence and learner choice that will fosterlearners who can express their own meanings. Inhis contribution, William La Ganza examines theinterrelation between learner and teacher auton-omy and the features of dynamic interrelationalspace (DIS). According to his study, climates ina classroom are continually changing, and DISoffers a model of four possible climates that thelearner has to overcome to continue learning in-dependently.

Part 3, “Realities,” has four contributions.Richard Smith and Sultan Erdogan focus onstudent teachers whose autonomy relates to

642 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

professional development. The authors exam-ine the practices on student teachers using arepertory grid and interviews to encourage self-reflection. By analyzing two case studies of studentteachers’ reflections on learner autonomy andtheir experiences as language learners, HeleneMartinez examines theories of learner auton-omy and how learner perspectives may informteacher training programs. This approach makessubjective theories explicit, and the participantsacknowledge their surprise when they put intowords something that had not been expressedin writing. Sara Coterall and David Crabbe’s re-search, which takes place in New Zealand, ex-amines the problems of students by looking atdialogues between learners and advisors. Theirstudy suggests the usefulness of such interactionsin the creation of a database of problems thatwill contribute to teacher development. Chris-tine Siqueira Nicolaides probes the empower-ment of students to become responsible for theirown learning and their willingness to find op-portunities to communicate outside of class. Stu-dents in Nicolaides’s case wanted the teacher tobe in charge of the classroom because “teacherknows the best way to learn” (p. 141), and heor she should determine the content, duration,and configuration of the class. Outside the class-room, however, individuals would be in chargeof their own learning. Penny Hacker and GaryBarkhuizen focus on teacher autonomy and thecapacity to self-direct professional development.Helping teachers formulate their own theoriesbrings awareness to the teachers’ potential andbuilds confidence that will be necessary for under-standing autonomy. This study probes how teach-ers interpret their experiences while engagingin the course, thus increasing their confidence.More confident teachers will be more likely to en-courage independent learning.

Part 4, “Responses,” consists of four chapters,which focus on practical interventions to developautonomy in learning. Jonathan Shaw observes agroup of teachers who develop learning opportu-nities without setting a timetable. The programwas modified according to students’ needs, thusemphasizing the importance of teacher flexibil-ity and independence, which should take prece-dence over students’ autonomy. Hayo Reindersand Marilyn Lewis explore the notion of choiceby enabling their university’s self-access centerstaff to examine materials for learning. The re-sults are twofold: They are able to gauge the suit-ability of the materials, and this knowledge makesthem better able to assist students. Flavia Vieira,Isabel Barbosa, Madalena Paiva, and Isabel San-

dra Fernandes present cases of teacher develop-ment in Portugal. The participants became awareof their potential to develop autonomy throughconversations with a supervisor, class observations,and reflective journals. In the final chapter ofthis section, Barbara Sinclair develops the ideaof a master’s-level program in learner autonomyaimed at English teachers overseas. This researchlooks at issues of professional development, con-trol, collaboration, and reflection, among others,to create autonomy for language learners andeducators.

In part 5, “Epilogue,” Lamb synthesizes thecontents of the book and examines the relation-ship between learner and teacher autonomy. Hepoints out items, such as control and distributionof power, that interact differently in autonomousand traditional learning settings.

The restrictions in space impede a detailed con-sideration of the book, which investigates auton-omy in learning and teaching and also sheds lighton the roles of responsibility and self-reflectionthat advance the professional development of theteacher. Also explored is the notion that auton-omy in learning does not imply that studentswill assume the roles that teachers occupy in tra-ditional learning settings. Instead, it shows theteachers’ new roles in facilitating and fosteringautonomy as well as learning. Although some ar-guments are weakened by a lack of systematic re-search (e.g., Benson claims to be observing fromthe learner’s point of view using his own attemptsto learn Cantonese), the content can inform peo-ple who want to explore the subject and guidethose who want to pursue the issue in their ownresearch. The sources of the studies, which werecommissioned, are diverse and reflect the na-ture of the International Association for AppliedLinguistics.

CARMEN SCHLIGGeorgia State University

MOLLICA, ANTHONY. (Ed.). Teaching andLearning Languages: Selected Readings from Mosaic.3rd ed. Welland, Ontario: Editions Soleil, 2008.Pp. xii, 609. $59.95, paper. ISBN 1–894935–34–9.

The third, revised and expanded edition of Teach-ing and Learning Languages includes 51 articlesoriginally published in the first nine volumes ofMosaic: The Journal for Language Educators. In-tended for “beginning and seasoned teachers”(p. x), this anthology consists of theoretical and

Reviews 643

practical contributions that address a broad rangeof topics in second language teaching and learn-ing. The contents of Teaching and Learning Lan-guages are not organized or divided into specifictopics. Although this organization would be help-ful to readers, its absence does not diminish theimportance of a book designed specifically for lan-guage educators with different levels of expertisein diverse institutional settings.

Approximately two thirds of the collection isdevoted to practical articles that present specifictasks and recommendations for teaching gram-mar, reading, writing, vocabulary, and culture.Additional chapters offer valuable guidelines forlesson planning, classroom management, and theeffective use of audiovisual resources. Contribu-tions report on the findings of original studiesof second language writing and also explore thepedagogical implications of research on learningstrategies and conceptual fluency. The remainingchapters serve as state-of-the-art summaries of re-cent studies in bilingualism, foreign language anx-iety, authentic assessment, and individual differ-ences. Since space limitations prevent a detailedreview of each of the contributions in this uniquecollection, only several of the many noteworthychapters are discussed.

Taken together, the chapters that provide sug-gestions for everyday aspects of language teach-ing constitute one of the most significant con-tributions of Teaching and Learning Languagesto the profession and are particularly impor-tant for novice educators. Evans-Harvey recom-mends strategies that teachers may implementto create and promote a positive classroom en-vironment. The succinct and insightful chaptersdealing with lesson planning (Chastain), multi-level classes (Bell), and classroom management(Richards) are valuable contributions to this work.These chapters will be especially effective whenintroduced with supplementary examples andmodels in teaching methods courses for futureteachers as well as for novice graduate teachingassistants.

In general, the pedagogically oriented chap-ters focus on tasks in English, French, Italian,and Spanish. Several chapters discuss examplesin German, Japanese, and Portuguese, and all ofthe activities could definitely be modified for usewith other languages. Mollica’s chapter presentscreative activities that integrate photographs as abasis for promoting oral and written communica-tion for different levels of instruction. Given theincreasing availability and use of images and videoonline, this chapter is especially appropriate andalso serves as an important reminder of the advan-

tages and limitations of visual media for languagelearning. Nuessel and Cicogna present construc-tive recommendations for integrating writing andprovide examples of writing tasks for beginning-and intermediate-level courses. The review chap-ter by Mollica and Nuessel that examines charac-teristics of good language learners and teachersis an excellent resource that could be an indis-pensable reading assignment in second languageteacher education courses. In sum, experiencedteachers, faculty who teach methods classes, andlanguage program directors involved in the train-ing of graduate teaching assistants would findmany of this book’s practical chapters easily adapt-able to their own institutional contexts.

Overall, this anthology includes a relatively lim-ited selection of empirical or action researchstudies grounded in theoretical approaches thatdiscuss implications for language learning andteaching. In their chapter, Danesi and Mollicapoint out that “students have had little or no op-portunity to access the metaphorically structuredconceptual domains inherent in the second lan-guage” (p. 241). They propose several activitiesbased on conceptual fluency theory to addressthis gap. Heffernan synthesizes recent research onlanguage learning strategies and provides a num-ber of useful techniques for promoting learn-ers’ strategic competence. Besnard, Elkabas, andRosienski-Pellerin describe an email exchangeproject that improved students’ grammatical, syn-tactical, and lexical skills in French. Antonek,Tucker, and Donato report on the use of interac-tive homework in an elementary school languageprogram that sought to strengthen connectionsbetween school and home by involving parentsin learning Japanese. This chapter presents excel-lent suggestions and guidelines for implement-ing these assignments. Given that dual-languageand other early language learning programs arebecoming prevalent in the United States, noviceand experienced educators will find this chapteruseful.

Teaching and Learning Languages offers funda-mental techniques and strategies that beginningteachers could immediately put into practice. Fora future edition, several contributions could be re-vised or replaced with chapters examining topicsthat increasingly play an essential role in languageteaching practices. In particular, chapters coulddemonstrate the use of the American Council onthe Teaching of Foreign Languages’s (ACTFL)Proficiency Guidelines and the Standards forForeign Language Learning as well as otherassessment models (e.g., Common EuropeanFramework of Reference for Languages, ACTFL

644 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

Integrated Performance Assessment) for in-struction, assessment, and curriculum designin elementary and secondary school programs.Additional empirical investigations and actionresearch studies could bridge the divide amongthe insightful practical chapters, relevant theo-retical chapters, and the chapters that summa-rize recent research. Chapters also could focus onthe integration of new technologies in languageteaching and learning.

Despite these limitations, Teaching and LearningLanguages is an informative and vital resource thatprimarily would be of interest to language teachereducators and novice teachers, regardless of theirlevel or language of instruction, and it is highlyrecommended.

LEE B. ABRAHAMVillanova University

PHILP, JENEFER, RHONDA OLIVER, & ALI-SON MACKEY. (Eds.). Second Language Acquisi-tion and the Younger Learner: Childs Play? Philadel-phia: Benjamins, 2008. Pp. 331. $54.00, paper.ISBN 90–272–1985–0.

Second Language Acquisition and the YoungerLearner: Childs Play? seeks to raise awareness ofwhat the editors see as a gap in our current sec-ond language acquisition (SLA) knowledge: thatalthough many SLA theories have been built ondata stemming from research on children’s firstlanguage (L1) acquisition, child SLA has not beensufficiently studied in its own right. With thisbook, the editors hope to narrow this gap andto “provide a kaleidoscopic view of child SLA”(p. 15) by showcasing studies involving children(from 3 to 14 years of age) that draw attentionto the characteristics of young learners and howthey may affect language learning and acquisition.The work is ambitious: Twelve chapters analyzeinteractional data to cover a number of theoret-ical and methodological approaches in a varietyof contexts, countries, languages, and learners’backgrounds, and it will attract a broad public in-terest in interactional research. It also attemptsto link results to pedagogical practices, althoughthese are not spelled out primarily for the averageclassroom teacher.

The introduction sets the tone for the rest ofthe book. Philp, Mackey, and Oliver make a com-pelling case for the distinctiveness of child SLA.The first task is defining child SLA. At what agedoes it start? At what age do features of adult SLA

emerge? Do we need to make a distinction be-tween very young children and older children?Referring to evidence from applied linguisticsand educational psychology, the editors reviewanswers to questions raised in child SLA aboutultimate attainment, acquisition processes, devel-opment of metalinguistic awareness, and types ofinteractions. They suggest that one salient featurethat sets child SLA apart is the types of interactionsamong children that do not take place amongadults. Thus, they recommend that researchersstudy how specific characteristics of interactionsinvolving children, such as vying for attention,“copying,” and language play, “might contributeto differences in the process of SLA for child learn-ers” (p. 8). Furthermore, the editors argue that re-search needs to include interaction data from lon-gitudinal case studies in a variety of educationaland natural contexts.

The book is divided into four sections: “Char-acteristics of Child SLA,” “Instructed LanguageLearning in the Early Years of Education,” “In-structed Language Learning in the Later Yearsof Education,” and “Child SLA at Home and inthe Community,” which, unfortunately, due tospace constraints, cannot be treated equally inthis review. The two chapters presented in section1 (“Characteristics of Child SLA”) are theoreti-cal in nature. Howard Nicholas and Patsy Light-bown present an in-depth exploration of the def-inition of child SLA, suggesting an age constructthat starts before age 3 and continues to approxi-mately age 7, the cutoff point when adult SLA fea-tures become recognizable. Using examples frominteractions by young children in classrooms aswell as other contexts, the authors explore themany grammatical and pragmatic features of veryyoung children, and they indicate that pedagogi-cal methods should take these into account. Thischapter is the most comprehensive of the collec-tion, providing valuable information for experi-enced researchers as well as others invested in thetopic (e.g., teachers and administrators).

Christine Dimroth expands the discussion onthe definition of child SLA to include the effectof age on ultimate attainment, rate, and process.This chapter presents longitudinal data from twoRussian sisters, 8 and 14 years of age, who areacquiring German in an untutored context. Dim-roth analyzes interactional data that describe thesisters’ acquisition of word order and inflectionalmorphology. She concludes that although bothlearners were successful, the younger attainedmore target-like forms.

The four chapters in the second section presentevidence of the importance of looking at peer

Reviews 645

interaction in constructing a model for child SLAfrom a number of perspectives such as friend-ship development (Philp and Susan Duchesne),multiparty participation in the classroom (AstaCekaite), teacher guidance in task-based inter-actions (Oliver, Philp, and Mackey), and nego-tiation of meaning and reading comprehension(Kris Van den Branden). Particularly elucidatingis Philp and Duchesne’s chapter on the strategiesused by a first grader, such as copying, to becomea full language partner in peer–peer interactionsfrom the very beginning of her SLA development.Philp and Duchesne review studies on friendshipformation coming out of SLA and psychology lit-erature, and they discuss how this concept caninform child SLA.

Section 3, “Instructed SLA in the Later Yearsof Education,” showcases two large studies car-ried out in instructed second and foreign lan-guage settings (Spain and Canada) that take aclose look at focus on form and SLA in adoles-cents. Eva Alcon Soler and Marıa del Pilar GarcıaMayo carried out a study of 12 Spanish-speakingadolescents learning English in Spain as they in-teracted in teacher-led conversations. They foundthat “uptake is more likely to occur if children per-ceive problems than when the teacher anticipatespotential problems” (preemptive focus on form)(p. 185). Joanna White reports on results fromthree studies done in intact classrooms that lookat whether different types of explicit exposure tometalinguistic information would affect the rateof acquisition and use of possessive determiners(his and her). She concludes that preadolescentsand adolescents involved in the studies benefitedfrom explicit form-focused instruction, but age(sixth vs. eighth graders) and program type (in-tensive language programs vs. regular programs)need to be taken into account.

Section 4 examines child SLA in the context ofthe home and the community through four chap-ters that present data showing the importanceof studying child SLA beyond classroom con-texts. Junko Iwasaki, who followed a child learn-ing Japanese as a second language, found that nei-ther age nor instruction seemed to have an impacton the order of acquisition (p. 244). RosamondMitchell and Chong Nim Lee look at how dif-ferent at-home literacy-enhancing activities andsociodramatic role-play (e.g., playing school) bythree Korean-born girls aided the developmentof their (second language) English and enhancedtheir school readiness. Lyn Wright Fogle studiedhow Russian-speaking adoptees raised by English-speaking parents gained exposure to “discoursegenres associated with school practices” (p. 297)

through interactions in the home. Eun-YoungKwon and ZhaoHong Han analyze transfer in asequential bilingual living between Korea and theUnited States in light of the “sliding-window hy-pothesis” (p. 303) proposed by Foster-Cohen. Sev-eral of the studies presented in this section are themost accessible in the book for nonspecialists.

One highlight of the work is the review of theliterature presented in each chapter. Great atten-tion has been devoted to the review of key con-cepts relating to child language and SLA theorythat will help a large number of readers who maynot be conversant in the different theoretical andmethodological approaches. This reviewer foundthe overview of Pienneman’s processability theoryand Foster-Cohen’s sliding-window notion partic-ularly helpful.

A theme that runs through many of the chap-ters is the effort made by the researchers to linkresults to pedagogical practices, but it would havebeen useful to present more concrete ideas high-lighting what practices work best for particularages and settings based on the studies’ results,which could be a follow-up book in itself. Al-though several of the studies involve quantita-tive analysis, readers seeking an experimental ap-proach to child SLA will not find it here (with theexception of the chapter by White and the one byAlcon Soler & Garcıa Mayo). I encourage them toread this book because the careful analyses makea compelling case for looking at interactions as anessential locus for child SLA.

Although there is some unevenness acrosschapters, the work as a whole presents a rich por-trait of the distinctiveness of child SLA and whywe should not dismiss it as just child’s play. Thedetailed data make the reader long to know moreabout these children’s journeys into SLA.

MAGGIE BRONERSt. Olaf College

ROBINSON, PETER, & NICK C. ELLIS. (Eds).Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Lan-guage Acquisition. New York: Routledge, 2008.Pp. x, 566. $69.95, paper. ISBN 0–805–85352–9.

The table of contents of Handbook of Cognitive Lin-guistics and Second Language Acquisition reads likea who’s who in linguistics, psychology, and sec-ond language acquisition as, of course, it should.However, this edited work is not simply a col-lection of disjointed chapters from the leadingscholars in the field; it is a cohesive book that

646 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

succeeds in creating interdisciplinary links amongcognitive linguistics (CL), second language acqui-sition (SLA), and pedagogy.

Throughout the 19 chapters, the authors makeclear (admittedly some better than others) theimplications of CL theory for SLA and instruction.The Handbook contains three parts. Part 1 is a briefintroduction to the book by the editors. Part 2,written by linguists and psycholinguists, providesan overview of theory and empirical research fromthe CL perspective, but it also details how workin CL has potential links to SLA and pedagogy.In part 3, scholars from the fields of SLA andpedagogy explore and test ideas presented in theprevious section, thus providing the connection ofCL with SLA and language instruction. The endresult is a comprehensive interdisciplinary bookthat will be a valuable resource for students andresearchers alike.

Given that CL is a relatively new area of in-quiry, readers less familiar with the field will findchapters 2 through 10 in part 2 wide rangingand intriguing. CL describes the properties oflanguage in a radically different way from gen-erativist approaches. Under the CL framework,language consists of constructions, not rules; lan-guage learning is input driven using general cog-nitive mechanisms, not some special innate lin-guistic device. The chapters by Bybee, Lieven, andTomasello and by Goldberg and Casenhiser de-scribe the role of usage-based grammar and howform–function pairs are learned based on typeand token frequencies in the input. The chaptersin this section may prove to be an ideologicallydifficult read for those who are firmly rooted in agenerativist tradition, but for those scholars andteachers who have perhaps been less than satis-fied with the link between generative approachesto language and second language learning, thesechapters will be compelling. In fact, in chapter4, Langacker acknowledges this tension betweenlinguistic theory and teaching. He states that “theadvice of linguists on language pedagogy is likelyto be of no more practical value than the advice oftheoretical physicists on how to teach pole vault-ing” (p. 66). Langacker remains hopeful that CL,and specifically cognitive grammar (CG), will havebetter applications to language instruction.

Indeed, in part 3, chapter 17, by Achardand chapter 18 by Tyler seamlessly mesh withLangacker’s chapter on CG. Achard’s chap-ter introduces cognitive pedagogical grammar(CPG), based on Langacker’s CG, and illustratesthe teaching of construal with French causa-tion/perception verbs, as well as the teaching ofFrench partitives and definite articles using CPG.

In the same vein, Tyler’s chapter illustrates howCL analyses can benefit language teachers, re-gardless of the method they may use. Tyler fo-cuses on the acquisition of modals in English, pre-senting sample materials for teaching modals toadvanced learners and reporting empirical find-ings from studies using CL instruction. In both ofthese chapters, we see the pedagogical implemen-tation of CL. Perhaps Langacker has reason to beoptimistic.

Chapters 11 through 16 in part 3 address lin-guistic and psycholinguistic aspects of SLA andinclude the work of scholars such as Cadierno,Odlin, and MacWhinney, to name a few. Griescontributes a notable chapter describing the in-tersection of CL and corpus linguistics. Gries’stutorial-style chapter describes three corpus lin-guistic methods and demonstrates their useful-ness in studying second language constructions.Finally, in chapter 19, Robinson and Ellis out-line a wealth of detailed research questions atthe crossroads of CL, SLA, and pedagogy. Theygo beyond simply stating what the questions are,and instead they describe previous attempts at ad-dressing those questions and offer specific ideason ways to move the research agenda forward.This chapter will surely guide many scholars in-terested in work at the junction of CL, SLA, andlanguage pedagogy.

What is most exciting about this work, andabout CL, is its interdisciplinary nature. However,it is this same interdisciplinary nature that may in-timidate some readers. Network models of gram-mar, references to Zipf’s law, and mathematicalequations are in the same book as discussion ofgestures, prototypical categories, and language in-struction. It is a dense and thorough descriptionof the many facets of CL, and it may require a bitof effort on the part of the reader. In the end,however, it is an essential book for all scholarsinterested in furthering their understanding ofhuman language.

GRETCHEN SUNDERMANFlorida State University

SPENCER–OATEY, HELEN. (Ed.). CulturallySpeaking: Culture, Communication, and PolitenessTheory. 2nd ed. New York: Continuum, 2008. Pp.xii, 372. $39.95, paper. ISBN 0–8264–9310–6.

In this second edition of a well-known editedwork, the editor and authors investigate rapportmanagement and culture from both theoretical

Reviews 647

and empirical perspectives. The book is composedof five parts, each of which is introduced sep-arately by the editor: (a) “Basic Concepts,” (b)“Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Empirical Studies,”(c) “Processes in Intercultural Interaction,” (d)“Intercultural Pragmatics: Empirical Studies,” and(e) “Methodology.” Each chapter ends with a listof key points, questions for discussion, and sugges-tions for further reading. The book is largely thesame as its first edition; however, author or topicchanges occur in 9 of the 16 chapters. Finally, thebook contains a glossary. I will limit my commen-tary to those chapters that are distinct from thefirst edition.

In this edition, Spencer-Oatey further devel-ops her theory of rapport management. Broaderin scope than Brown and Levinson’s commonlyemployed face management framework, this con-ceptualization of rapport includes attempts tobe both polite and impolite in interpersonal re-lations. Culture as a concept in politeness re-search is problematized and defined; it is thisdefinition that forms the theoretical basis for thechapters that follow. Against this, rapport man-agement is fleshed out in light of recent workin face management, impoliteness, and Spencer-Oatey’s work with sociopragmatic interactionalprinciples, which take into account the manage-ment of face, sociality rights and obligations, andinteractional goals. Rapport can be enhanced,maintained, neglected, and challenged, and it isaffected by both personal and cultural factors. Inconcluding, Spencer-Oatey calls for the synthesisof cross-cultural pragmatic research with funda-mental cultural values research.

Zegarac explores the relationship between “bi-ologically determined aspects of culture” (p. 52)and mainstream conceptions of culture. He ad-dresses the issue of culture and the individual,and he explains that cultural traits can be viewedas distributed across members in the same way thata medical epidemic affects a group: Members dis-play the traits to different degrees and in differentways. He argues that culture can be explained thesame way as other cognitive mechanisms.

Spencer-Oatey, Ng, and Dong explore the waysin which British and Chinese people respond tocompliments, examining specifically the strate-gies used by each group to balance the needfor modesty and agreement with the interlocu-tor. Data include Hong Kong Chinese as well asMainland Chinese, and they reveal that modestyas an assumed cultural value in Chinese cultureis less straightforward than previously thought.Additionally, although previously assumed thatBritish and Chinese would be strikingly different,the data suggest more similarity than anticipated.

Fougere approaches the problem of identity bytaking as a point of departure the metaphors ofphysical space used to describe interpersonal dis-tance. From interview data with four French in-dividuals living in Finland, the author exploresthe degree to which each felt that he had assim-ilated to Finnish culture. Fougere describes thedegree to which the informants “redefined them-selves in relation to the new, other meanings theyencounter[ed]” (p. 198).

In her chapter on data collection in prag-matics research, Kasper problematizes the mostcommonly employed methods used in pragmat-ics projects. Rewritten and updated from the firstedition, this chapter reviews the issues involved ininteractive data, questionnaire writing, interviewdata, diaries, and verbal reports against studiesemploying each method and discusses the prosand cons of each.

Marra’s chapter on recording talk across cul-tures focuses on a specific ethical and method-ological dilemma: how to collect naturally occur-ring data across culture groups. Her work exam-ines spoken Maori data by Maori-speaking individ-uals who were involved in the project not only asinformants but also as participants in the collec-tion of the data for the study. Marra explores themethodological and cultural complexities of thisapproach and provides advice to those working insimilar contexts.

This book is an excellent addition to work in lin-guistic politeness and pragmatics. Broad in scopeand approach, the chapters introduce the readerto the range of work that is done in this field.The further development of the field of rapportmanagement and the inclusion of sociopragmaticinteractional principles as an explanatory frame-work for understanding culture provide an ap-propriate theoretical framework for the rest of thebook. Many different approaches to the disciplineare included, and together they form a whole thateffectively shows the blurring and overlapping ofdisciplinary boundaries necessary for the investi-gation of intercultural communication. Kasper’supdated chapter on methodology provides prac-tical guidance for those new to the field. The bookalso contains a wealth of data from languages thatare not commonly explored. In addition, the for-mat of the text is clear, which makes it conducivefor use as a textbook in a graduate course on lin-guistic politeness.

The work does suffer from some weaknesses.The most serious is the omission of a statementfrom the editor explaining the rationale for thesecond edition or justifying how decisions weremade as to which chapters would remain in theiroriginal form (seven do) and which would be

648 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

discarded completely, reconceptualized, oradded. Also noteworthy is that the editor is alsoauthor or co-author of 6 of the 16 chapters, anumber that seems quite high for a work of thiskind.

LISA DEWAARD DYKSTRAClemson University

VANPATTEN, BILL, & JESSICA WILLIAMS.(Eds.). Theories in Second Language Acquisition: AnIntroduction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006. Pp. 272.$115.00, cloth; $34.95, paper. ISBN 0–8058–5737–0, cloth; 0–8058–5738–9, paper.

As the title of the book suggests, its primary goalis to familiarize students and researchers withthe fundamentals of and the relevant theoreticalquestions pursued by the central theoretical per-spectives in second language acquisition (SLA)studies. The book is an impressive collection ofchapters written by the foremost researchers oftheir respective paradigms. Each chapter is writ-ten at a high level, yet none assumes a greatamount of paradigm-specific knowledge or knowl-edge of acquisition theory broadly defined. Assuch, the book is an accessible read, even foradvanced undergraduate students. It is an idealbook for an introductory graduate course onSLA theory or as a reference book for SLA re-searchers. As one might expect, not every ap-proach to SLA is represented with its own chapter,although the major theories stemming from cog-nitive/psycholinguistic, sociocultural, and peda-gogical approaches are included.

In bringing together chapters that present andcritically review diverse approaches to SLA, thebook provides a welcome contribution to thetraining of graduate students as well as to the con-tinuing education of researchers in need of a con-cise yet accurate sense of competing approachesto the same phenomena. This collection is note-worthy because of its composition. There are sev-eral single- and co-authored books that attemptto provide an even-handed overview of the fieldof SLA. They include, by default, the authors’ in-terpretation of the goals and assumptions of thetheoretical paradigms in which they do not work.All too often, such an approach leaves the readerwith a superficial understanding of many impor-tant subareas of SLA and, at worst, provides whatresearchers in competing paradigms view as inac-curate. This work, however, satisfies the reader’sappetite for a precise overview of SLA theories.

Because each chapter is written by an expert inthe represented subfield, the book embodies notonly a reader-friendly version of the most currenttrends in research, but it also provides the readerwith the perspective of researchers in each the-oretical paradigm. This fact sets this book apartfrom its competition.

In addition to two well-written and thought-provoking introductory/foregrounding chaptersand a concluding chapter, the book has nine chap-ters introducing various approaches to investigat-ing and conceptualizing the process of adult SLA:“Linguistic Theory, Universal Grammar” (LydiaWhite), “One Functional Approach to SecondLanguage Acquisition: The Concept-OrientedApproach” (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig), “TheAssociative-Cognitive CREED” (Nick C. Ellis),“Skill Acquisition Theory” (Robert DeKeyser),“Input Processing in Adult Second Language Ac-quisition” (VanPatten), “Processability Theory”(Manfred Pienemann), “Autonomous InductionTheory” (Susanne E. Carroll), “Input, Interac-tion, and Output in Second Language Acqui-sition” (Susan M. Gass and Alison Mackey),and “Sociocultural Theory and Second Lan-guage Learning” (James P. Lantolf and Steven L.Thorne).

The introductory chapter is successful in con-textualizing the goals of the book as well as justi-fying the handbook approach taken in the com-pilation of the work. In this chapter, VanPattenand Williams offer a well-grounded discussion ofwhat constitutes a theory and how to differentiateamong theories, hypotheses, and models, a pointof no small consequence given the frequency withwhich these labels are inconsistently used in theSLA literature. This chapter also offers 10 theory-neutral observations that all theories of SLA, theyargue, must strive to explain. These 10 observa-tions are addressed, to a greater or lesser degree,in the nine paradigm-specific chapters in an effortto draw parallels among the diverse approachesfor the SLA novice reader and also as a vehiclethrough which the chapter authors provide evi-dence on how their respective theories descrip-tively and explanatorily account for these obser-vations.

Noteworthy chapters include those by White, byGass and Mackey, and by Pienemann. White sum-marizes the core research program of the gen-erative approach to adult nonprimary languageacquisition; Gass and Mackey elucidate the gen-esis and development of the varied research pro-gram that has spawned the interaction hypothesis;and Pienemann maintains in his chapter on pro-cessability theory that the ability to process and

Reviews 649

parse second language input, not first languagetransfer, is both the principal variable influenc-ing adult initial-state hypotheses and what drivesinterlanguage transitions.

As with all such collections, some chapters areclearer and stick to the core goals of the overallbook more than others. Nevertheless, each chap-ter does a sufficient job in conveying the tenets ofits research paradigm and attempts to explicatehow its approach accounts for the 10 observationsthat all SLA theories should address. The fact thatsome chapters are more successful than others inthis latter task is directly related, in this reviewer’sopinion, to the approach’s ability to address andthus explicate these issues.

The final chapter of the book, written byLourdes Ortega, brings the nine theoretical ap-proaches together, drawing parallels and high-lighting the strengths of each one and the areasin which some are more successful than others.What is clear from a book like this one is that nopresent theory of SLA is currently able to explaineverything that must be explained and that anytheory of SLA will have to draw on parts frommany current theoretical approaches and be cre-ative in filling the holes that still remain.

JASON ROTHMANUniversity of Iowa

WRAY, ALISON. Formulaic Language: Pushingthe Boundaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press,2008. Pp. xv, 305. $29.95, paper. ISBN 0–19–442245–1.

Formulaic Language: Pushing the Boundaries is Al-ison Wray’s successor to Formulaic Language andthe Lexicon (2002). This second book explores thenature and extent of formulaic language to builda unified model to account for its acquisition, for-mation, processing, and functions.

The book comprises four parts, totaling 22chapters. The first part (“Determining Bound-aries”), covering five chapters, provides the con-textualization to establish the boundaries betweenformulaic language and novel constructions.Chapter 1 (“Introduction”) describes boundaries,introduces five key questions, and outlines thestructure of the book. Chapter 2 (“Conceptual-izing Formulaic Language”) conceptualizes for-mulaic language as morpheme-equivalent unitsand recaps the key proposals presented in Wray’s2002 book with the following three conceptual

claims: (a) The mental lexicon is heteromorphic;(b) the content of the lexicon is determinedthrough needs-only analysis; and (c) morpheme-equivalent units enable the speaker to manipulatethe hearer. Chapter 3 (“Working at the Bound-aries”) discusses conflicts between formulaicityand novelty, and it explains how idioms are pro-cessed. Chapter 4 (“Formulaic Language and theOral Tradition”) and chapter 5 (“Formulaicity inSpeech and Writing”) examine formulaicity inspeech and writing.

The second part (“Locating Boundaries”), con-sisting of four chapters, focuses on key theoreticaland empirical issues in locating boundaries. Chap-ter 6 (“Morpheme-Equivalent Units in the BiggerPicture”) presents the challenge of locating for-mulaic language within a comprehensive model.Chapter 7 (“Evaluating Models at the Interface”)evaluates selected models for their capacity tolocate formulaic language. Chapter 8 (“Identify-ing Formulaic Material in Real Texts”) addressesthe important issue of identification of formulaiclanguage. Chapter 9 (“A Diagnostic Approach toIdentifying Morpheme-Equivalent Units”) offersan alternative approach to identifying formulaiclanguage.

The third part (“Studies at the Boundaries”),consisting of six chapters, reports six case stud-ies as empirical evidence to test the boundariesand to inform the theoretical modeling on the na-ture and extent of formulaic language. Chapter 10(“TESSA: A Case Study in Machine Translation”)describes how formulaic language is used in a ma-chine translation device in the British Post Of-fice. Chapter 11 (“TALK: A Formulaic Approachto Supporting Communication in the Speech-Disabled”) looks at how a software program helpspeople with cerebral palsy hold conversations.Chapter 12 (“Formulaic Language Learning: TheBeginner”) and chapter 13 (“Formulaic LanguageLearning: Advanced”) outline studies of how lan-guage learners respond to the challenge of memo-rizing prefabricated sentences for later use. Chap-ter 14 (“Meanings of the Parts and Meaning of theWhole”) looks at the use of formulaic language ina court dispute. Chapter 15 (“Formulaicity andNaturalness in a French and Saunders Sketch”)examines a television comedy routine.

The fourth part (“Examining the Boundaries”),consisting of seven chapters, discusses the fivekey questions about formulaic language. Chap-ter 16 (“Formulas as the Default”) addresses thefirst question: Do we use formulaic languageby default? Chapter 17 (“Origin and Dynamicsof Formulaic Language”) attends to the second

650 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

question: What determines the level of formu-laicity? Chapter 18 (“Formulaic Language Learn-ing in Adults”) considers the third question: Howcentral is formulaic language to language learn-ing for humans? Chapter 19 (“Teaching Languageto Computers”) concentrates on the fourth ques-tion: How central should it be when modelingfor computers? Chapter 20 (“Formulaicity underPressure”) and chapter 21 (“Formulaic Language,Formulaic Thought”) examine the fifth question:Does formulaic language constrain what we sayand think? Chapter 22 (“Across the Boundaries”)proposes a distributed lexicon model to describeand explain the patterns of aphasic language withreference to formulaicity.

One of the noticeable features of this book isits continued attempt to build a comprehensivemodel of formulaicity with a dual emphasis onboth psychological and social causes of formulaiclanguage, on both holistic and analytic ways inour processing of formulaic language and on boththe universality and the individuality of formulaiclanguage. Also unique in this book are the pro-posal of a diagnostic approach to identifying for-mulaic language and the conceptualization of for-mulaic language as morpheme-equivalent units. Athird impressive feature is its collection of six casestudies that provide valuable findings to test theboundaries and to inform the theoretical model-ing. A fourth remarkable feature is the thoroughexploration of five key questions related to formu-laic language.

Apart from these merits, some minor flawsare also apparent. First, although the author ad-dresses the thorny issue of identification, a clearprocedure for identification is still lacking. A re-lated problem is the overemphasis on the roleof intuition in identifying formulaic language. Al-though intuition may be one of the most powerfultools in our understanding and study of formu-laicity, subjective judgments will likely vary fromperson to person, even when guided by the pre-scribed criteria. The third flaw lies in some care-less typographical errors. Additionally, in the lastreference, Zhanrong should be the first name in-stead of the last name.

Overall, this book is remarkable for its breadthand depth, its organization and presentation, itsperspectives and insights, and its use of the evi-dence marshaled for all the important claims thatare made. Like its predecessor, this book has pre-sented the study of formulaicity as an active fieldof inquiry and has made an important contribu-tion to our understanding of formulaic language.Without any doubt, this book is a master refer-ence for anyone who is interested in the study of

formulaic language whether or not that person isa specialist.

YONG LANGThe University of Texas–Pan American

BILINGUALISM

GROSJEAN, FRANCOIS. Studying Bilinguals. Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. vii, 314.$50.00, paper. ISBN 0–19–928129–7.

Francois Grosjean has compiled the work of over25 years on bilingualism as a source for a spe-cial seminar conducted at Oxford University in2004. Divided into 15 chapters, Studying Bilingualsconsists mostly of reprints of articles by Grosjean,often in collaboration with colleagues and stu-dents, that are organized around four main areas:(a) a holistic perspective on bilinguals based onthe complementarity principle and the concept oflanguage modes; (b) experiments focusing on thepsycholinguistics of bilingualism, such as the pro-cessing of spoken language, the language modecontinuum, the base language effect, and factorsin the perception and production of code switch-ing; (c) biculturalism and the bilingualism of thedeaf; and (d) methodological and conceptual is-sues to be worked out among neuroscientists andlanguage scientists. With the second of these ar-eas being the most developed, it is, to be sure, abook for linguists; nonetheless, second languageteaching practitioners can distill some applicabil-ity in related fields, such as bilingual education,second language acquisition, and the teaching ofheritage language learners.

In the first few chapters after the introduction,Grosjean’s definition of bilingualism as the regu-lar use of two or more languages is energized bythe passion and perspective of one experiencedin living with two languages and who wonders“how the research on bilingualism would haveevolved and what state it would be in today, hadthe scholars in the field all been bilingual or mul-tilingual . . . and the research been conducted insocieties where . . . [bilingualism] is the norm andnot the exception” (p. 10). The still common frac-tional view of bilingualism, which regards a bilin-gual person as the sum of two monolinguals atbest and as an anomaly at worst, is denouncedalong with its damaging consequences. Grosjeanreplaces that view with the notion of bilingualsas linguistically whole and fully competent ina third system, with each individual possessinga specific linguistic configuration as unique as,

Reviews 651

perhaps, a fingerprint. The variables contributingto bilinguals’ idiosyncrasies must be accountedfor and isolated in experimental procedures toreach fairer comparisons between monolingualsand bilinguals. Because the environment shapescommunicative competence, particular attentionneeds to be paid to how bilinguals meet theireveryday communicative needs for different pur-poses in different domains, not merely to theircommand of linguistic forms; Grosjean names thisphenomenon of dual-language use that varies byspecific needs the complementarity principle , and heproposes it as the explanation for domain-specificproficiencies. Additionally, Grosjean’s model ofspeech modes can shed light on bilinguals’ dy-namic use of two languages, which subjects contin-ually readjust along a situational continuum with-out losing communicative competence. In themonolingual mode, bilinguals activate the baselanguage (not equivalent to dominant language,a term of little utility to Grosjean) to be employedwhile shutting down almost, but not entirely, theirother language. The bilingual mode, in contrast,is characterized by codeswitching and borrowing(regarded as errors or interference in the frac-tional viewpoint). Between these two lies a rangeof intermediate alternatives. According to Gros-jean, the base language/speech mode must beestablished before bilingualism’s rules and con-straints can be considered in any experiment.

The rather personalized spirit of advocacy ofthe first few chapters gives way to fitting sci-entific detachment in the eight chapters thatreport on research studies that manipulate var-ious aspects of the perception and produc-tion of language in bilinguals. The experimentspresented are too numerous and painstakinglydescribed to summarize creditably within thisreview. Grosjean covers a wide range of dual-language combinations (French/English, Span-ish/English, Turkish/German, Spanish/French,Dutch/English, to name only a few) in a varietyof (mainly European) geographic settings, usingvarious methodologies—among them, phoneme-triggered lexical decision tasks, gating, nam-ing, and categorical perception tasks—to testhis hypotheses on language mode and thebase-language effect, the effect shown whencodeswitching delays perception/recognition orproduction. These chapters constitute an impres-sive concatenation of rigorous work whose find-ings sometimes echo a layperson’s intuition (e.g.,that bilinguals cannot sustain monolingual modewhen entertaining a weak topic or domain) andoften produce less obvious insights (e.g., that theattitude of the listener toward language mixingis no less a factor than linguistic proficiency in

the activation of the guest language by a bilingualspeaker). For an increasingly bilingual EuropeanUnion, whose policy of plurilingualism, as statedin the Common European Framework, very muchresembles Grosjean’s image of an integrated bilin-gual, these studies can both describe patterns ofbehavior and signal principles for bilingual de-velopment. Some of Grosjean’s conclusions, suchas that of the critical period’s role in early bilin-guals’ sensitivity to gender marking and that of abilingual’s deactivation of the guest language inthe presence of monolinguals, may also suggest toAmerican foreign language educators argumentsin support of early second language instructionor study-abroad programs, for example. Althoughthe author makes no prescriptive claims in hischapters, readers can extract many implications.

At eight pages, the chapter on biculturalism isregrettably short. In it, Grosjean resumes his ini-tial subjective stance to affirm some significantbut unconvincing dissimilarities between bicul-turalism and bilingualism that appear to servemerely as a preamble to the noble advocacy forthe bilingualism and biculturalism of deaf in-dividuals, the subject of the following chapter.Although the complex character of deaf/oralbilingualism and biculturalism are well described,these two chapters lack the substantive researchsupport of the sometimes rather redundant pre-vious ones. Given the importance of the nat-ural cultural underpinnings of bilingualism, adeeper and more balanced exploration of thelinks and disconnections between the two wouldhave been welcome. The closing chapter consistsof a dialogue between Grosjean and P. Li and theneuroscientists Rodrıguez-Fornells and Munte re-garding the latter’s use of magnetic resonanceimaging techniques to study the prevention ofinterference. Although the linguists appreciatethe cross-disciplinary dialogue, they reject theircounterparts’ conclusions for not having prop-erly identified their subjects’ language mode. Thisconcluding debate is a reminder not only of thecomplexities of bilingualism but also of the per-sistent lack of ideological agreement.

ALICIA RAMOSHunter College, City University of New York

MONTRUL, SILVINA A. Incomplete Acquisition inBilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor . Philadel-phia: Benjamins, 2008. Pp. x, 312. $149.00, cloth.ISBN 90–272–4175–9.

This book explores the issue of non-native-like orincomplete achievement in bilingual populations,

652 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

especially heritage learners, whose first language(L1) may be stunted in comparison to their subse-quent (majority) language. An introductory chap-ter provides hypothetical case studies of the bilin-gual populations to be examined later (e.g., anadult or child learner of a second language [L2]—Carlos; an early bilingual—Elena), an overviewof the critical period hypothesis, and the mainthemes of the book. Background chapters on L2acquisition and L1 attrition provide benchmarksof language gain and loss for adult monolinguals.The fourth and fifth chapters consider early bilin-guals (simultaneous and sequential) and middle–late childhood bilinguals, respectively. Chapters 6and 7 build on the work of the earlier chapters toinvestigate the central theme of incomplete gram-mars in bilinguals’ L1 or the similarities of incom-plete grammars in the L1 and L2, as measured byadult competence. The final chapter reflects onimplications of the findings for the rich array oftopics studied throughout the book, particularlythe important roles of onset of age of acquisition(AoA) and input.

Montrul, whose research has evolved from L2grammars and language acquisition in Spanish(L1 and L2) to studies of incomplete grammarsof adults, is well placed to address the topics ofthis book. She seamlessly integrates clear and well-chosen research of other scholars with her ownfindings, and she presents linguistic analyses andtheoretical concepts in a straightforward mannerthat makes the prose accessible to a nonspecialist.Indeed, this book will be of great interest not onlyto specialists of language acquisition and bilin-gualism but also to educators and policymakers.AoA, anecdotally the most important factor in ac-quisition, is turned on its head by the careful ac-cumulation of a range of cases from early and latebilinguals to adoptees who completely lose theirwell-established native tongues. Languages con-sidered include Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Rus-sian, Hungarian, Italian, and Inuktitut, amongothers.

Many characteristics of adult L2 grammars,such as defective morphology and inaccurateagreement (e.g., of gender) also typify the in-complete grammars of bilinguals whose AoAfalls within the critical period of childhood butwhose input has been in some way shortchanged.In drawing the parallel in chapter 2, Montrul(p. 60) proposes two hypotheses that she devel-ops through the book: (a) If L1 attrition occurs inchildren, it will be more severe than L1 attritionin adults; that is, language loss should be moredramatic in early than in late bilingualism (hy-pothesis 1) and (b) if language attrition occurs

within early (prepuberty) bilingualism, it will bemore severe in simultaneous bilinguals (exposedto the two languages very early) than in sequentialbilinguals (when the L1 was acquired before theL2) (hypothesis 2).

In chapter 3 Montrul documents L1 attritionin adults, concluding that earlier AoA of theL2 means possibly greater loss of the L1. At-trition in adulthood affects the periphery morethan the core grammar. In chapters 4 and 5she documents attrition or incomplete learningfor younger learners, thus supporting both hy-potheses. Chapter 6 corroborates this evidencewith adult endstate grammars of heritage learn-ers whose incompleteness may derive from earlyL1 attrition, incomplete acquisition, or both. Incontrast, language learners with adequate input(for both languages) through child (and, ideally,teen) years are able to establish the language(s)solidly and completely.

Chapter 7 compares the incomplete grammarsof adult L2 learners and incomplete heritagespeakers, noting that they are “not very differ-ent from each other” (p. 211). Montrul pointsout the factors that intersect with age to con-tribute to incompleteness in heritage grammars:input (amount of exposure); socioaffective fac-tors (prestige, dominance, socioeconomic stand-ing, motivation); and literacy. Indeed, continu-ing education in the L1, along with instructionin the majority language, is a major factor in themaintenance of native language skills. In this andthe concluding chapter she presents a wealth ofdata showing similarities and differences amongdifferent populations of L1 and L2 learners butalso indicating the complex set of variables thatintersect to lead to complete or incomplete end-state grammars. Her arguments demonstrate thatalthough AoA is an important factor for both lan-guage acquisition and language attrition, an un-derstanding of the language faculty and its imple-mentation in acquisition must take into accountthe complexities of environmental variables.

These complexities elucidate the interplay ofnature (i.e., maturation of human languagein the brain) and nurture (i.e., sociocultural,educational, and input factors) as language(non)development progresses during the criticalperiod. The book can be read as a series of in-tertwining stories involving the prototypical char-acters introduced in chapter 1. Carlos and hisheritage siblings show AoA effects in their end-state grammars as age interacts with educationand input, whereas Elena has perfect L2 Frenchbut attrited L1 Russian after 24 years of French im-mersion and education. The data certainly invite

Reviews 653

recommendations for further study and for policyimplementations both in education and in child-rearing practices. “During the school-age period,we see a trade-off between L2 acquisition andL1 loss in children: As L2 development advancessteadily and progressively until about 10–11 yearsof age, L1 development may gradually deterio-rate,” (p. 159). The take-home message is to main-tain language input and education in both lan-guages as much as possible.

JULIA HERSCHENSOHNUniversity of Washington

ENGLISH

LEKI, ILONA, ALISTER CUMMING, & TONYSILVA. A Synthesis of Research on Second LanguageWriting in English. New York: Routledge, 2008. Pp.xi, 259. $130.00 cloth; $44.95 paper. ISBN 0–8058–5532–7, cloth; ISBN 0–8058–5533–5, paper.

A Synthesis of Research on Second Language Writ-ing in English provides a synthesis, analysis, andinterpretation of the findings of the most signif-icant research published over the last 20 yearson second language writing in English, focusingon the North American context. The book is in-tended to provide a comprehensive overview ofresearch developments and findings. It is aimedat experienced first language (L1) and secondlanguage (L2) writing researchers and practition-ers, teacher educators, writing centers, and thosenew to the field, including graduate students. Itincludes an extensive bibliography.

Imposing order on this body of research wassurely a massive undertaking, but the authors havesucceeded. Noting in the introductory materialsthat there are other legitimate ways in which theinformation might have been organized, the au-thors divide the book into three major sections:section 1, “Contexts for L2 Writing”; section 2, “In-struction and Assessment”; and section 3, “BasicResearch on Second Language Writing.”

Section 1, “Contexts for L2 Writing,” in-cludes individual chapters with the followingtitles: “Young Writers”; “Writing in SecondarySchool”; “Undergraduate Writing”; “GraduateStudent Writing”; “L2 Adult Newcomer, Reset-tlement, and Community Literacy”; “WorkplaceWriting in L2”; “Scholarly Writing in L2”; and“Ideological, Political, and Identity Issues in L2Writing.” In overviewing the research undertakenin these contexts, section 1 provides readers whohave specialization in one L2 writing context with

information about the research findings in othercontexts, thus filling gaps in knowledge that areinevitable, given the difficulty of keeping up withthe research in this expanding field. For example,those who work with older L2 writers can benefitfrom learning about the research findings regard-ing younger learners, especially findings relatedto learners’ earlier lives and writing experiences.The chapters in section 1 not only offer readersinformation about research themes and findingsin each L2 writing context but also provide thechronology of the development of research ineach context vis-a-vis research in the other con-texts addressed in the chapters in the section.Section 1 is narrative and, for the most part, pro-vides easy reading, except that occasional longlists of citations make some sentences hard to fol-low. However, the format—a narrative style withparenthetical citations—is probably the best forachieving two goals: (a) offering a fairly readableoverview of the respective topics and (b) provid-ing extensive references for those who want topursue follow-up research.

Section 2, “Instruction and Assessment,” con-tains two chapters—one on curriculum and in-struction and the other on assessment. For thoserelatively new to the field, this section providesa good overview of the issues and research find-ings in these areas. For example, chapter 9, “Cur-riculum and Instruction,” provides backgroundinformation about the theories from which ap-proaches to L2 writing instruction have grown.Section 2 would be particularly helpful for newscholars trying to identify a research issue to pur-sue in the field of L2 writing. For those with morebackground in L2 writing, this section fills gapsin knowledge and might offer new perspectives,insights, or interpretations of the research find-ings that are different from their own. For exam-ple, in chapter 10, which focuses on assessment,the authors note the existence of two separatelydeveloping cultures of assessing L2 writing—onefocusing on the formative functions of feedbackand the other focusing on test design—and theynote that these two streams of research do notinform each other as much as might be ideal.

Section 3, “Basic Research on Second Lan-guage Writing,” is divided into four chapters:“Writer Characteristics,” “Composing Processes,”“Written Text: Textual Issues,” and “Written Text:Grammatical Issues.” Each chapter provides sum-maries of the research findings on the chapter’stopic. Each chapter begins with a brief introduc-tion and is followed by a chapter outline indicat-ing the subtopics addressed in the chapter. Twolengthy tables (totaling 19 pages) appear at theend of section 3. The first provides an alphabetical

654 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

listing (by author) of the studies cited in section3, along with the study’s year of publication, num-ber of participants, participants’ L1s, and partic-ipants’ L2s. The second table provides the sameinformation, but with the studies listed chrono-logically rather than alphabetically. Section 3 isintended either to be read straight through or tobe used as a reference for further reading andresearch. It makes for informative but somewhatdry reading, but the section’s transparent organi-zation along with the two tables at the end make itan ideal reference tool. This section also providesreaders with a sense of the history of the develop-ment and authorship of basic research on L2 writ-ing. Readers will probably be impressed with thebreadth of issues that have been investigated re-garding L2 writers’ characteristics, processes, andtexts. However, the authors comment on the lackof depth of research in this relatively new field,noting that regarding the basic research areas de-scribed in this section, only a “small fraction of theindividual findings reported here were supportedby more than one study” (pp. 117, 138, 163, and180) and that inquiry in these areas has produced“few sustained programs of research” (pp. 117,138, 163, and 180).

This book is an important work in that it con-solidates and analyzes the research on English-language L2 writing. It will thus play an importantrole in informing specialists in this and relatedfields and in providing impetus and direction forfuture research. The work is a must-have for any-one interested in L2 writing, including veteran L2writing researchers who desire to gain a broaderperspective on the field and those new to the fieldwho want to understand how their research in-terests relate to previous work in L2 writing. Itshould also be of interest to teachers, teacher edu-cators, curriculum developers, writing tutors, andtest makers who want to be up to date on L2 writ-ing issues, as well as those in allied fields such asL1 writing and literacy studies.

MELINDA REICHELTUniversity of Toledo

FORTANET–GOMEZ, INMACULADA, & CHRIS-TINE A. RAISANEN. (Eds.). ESP in EuropeanHigher Education Integrating Language and Con-tent . Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2008. Pp. vi, 286.$149.00, cloth. ISBN 979–90–272–0520–5.

One of the decisive aspects concerning the im-plementation of the requirements established bythe Bologna Declaration for the regulation of the

education system in Europe is the treatment oflanguage learning. This is an important require-ment when thinking about the necessity of prepar-ing European students and teachers for a con-text of international mobility, disappearance ofboundaries in the European Union territory, adynamic marketplace, and collaborative researchprojects among universities that do not sharea common native language for communication.Given the European context, English as a linguafranca in a globalized territory is usually seen asthe most realistic alternative. Therefore, Englishfor specific purposes (ESP) is one of the mostchallenging fields of study for universities to facethe demands fixed by European institutions.

This book, which comprises an innovative andclarifying study, cannot be understood withoutconsideration of the previous issues and of thebasic objectives fixed by this European process,about which abundant information is availablein this compilation, accompanied by numerousreferences that will be useful for those readerswho wish to know more about European educa-tional reform. The main aim is to “achieve con-vergence and harmonisation of European higher-education systems” by the year 2010 (p. 1). Theneed to increase “mobility among students, teach-ing staff and researchers” (p. 1) is one of themost noteworthy aspects. ESP is usually seen as acomplex area within the language learning field,and professionals have spent years trying to findalternatives for the successful fulfillment of theEuropean demands, taking into account all ofthe actors involved: students, lecturers, educationprograms and materials, schedules, mobility, andso forth. This book is an inspiring work for all ofthe professionals who are immersed in this phaseof change and for those who would like to knowmore about the way in which universities acrossthe European territory are facing this moment ofcohesion.

The book’s 13 chapters are divided into fourparts. The first part, written by the editors, shedslight on the current state of ESP in the WesternEuropean sector and, in a very clear and consis-tent way, helps readers learn more about and bet-ter understand the context of action, the Euro-pean reform and process of convergence, and theimportance of the “Specialised Englishes” (p. 3).Some of the general inconsistencies of the reformare also pointed out as a means to motivate thesearch for innovative solutions. The authors alsomention some of the criticisms of the Bolognaprocess, such as the “marketisation of universi-ties” (p. 17) and “the lack of concrete informa-tion about the actual implementation of policies”(p. 23), as well as a number of other discrepancies

Reviews 655

when dealing with the credit systems. The main fo-cus of the compilation is also shown: the need toknow about the implications and consequencesfor both teaching staff and students, by analyzingsome of the national alternatives according to thespecific demands and the questions and answersthat appear in relation to the introduction of ESPas a medium of instruction.

The second part of this book is a theoreticaland ideological approach to some of the specificaspects that are part of the global process. It is adescription of proposals, ideas, and projects devel-oped by particular universities or countries. Thestudy of specific content in a foreign languageis a complex matter, and it requires a consider-able amount of thinking and consideration tofind ways to facilitate the activation of students’specific knowledge (business, economics, healthsciences, etc.) along with the practice of a sec-ond language. The approach to the developmentof language skills is broad. Some studies are fo-cused, for instance, on finding “means for devel-oping written discoursal competence” (p. 75) as auseful measure within the harmonization project.Other authors concentrate on the design and im-plementation of innovative proposals, issues re-lating to course development, the introduction ofvirtual spaces for learning, the existence of newrelationships between students and teachers, andother proposals to more easily make the changesin curricula brought about by the implementationof master’s degrees. There are authors who thinkthat the Bologna process can be seen as a bene-ficial project for the components that surroundESP and English for academic purposes but alsoconsider the necessity of paying more attention tocommunication skills, which are the basis for “em-ployability and mobility inherent to the Bolognaagreement expectation” (p. 118).

The national divergences in the adaptation pro-cess for the integration of content and languageand the different states of implementation amongcountries are the key issues in the third part. Thereader can have access to specific experiences andresults of the introduction of the innovations andideas to prepare students for a better professionallife. The real examples and cases are a helpfulsource of information in a field in which contactwith balanced courses and with real professionalcontexts and also the recommendation of puttinginto practice “learning to learn skills” (p. 214)are vital factors in education. The last part of thebook is focused on teacher training as another as-pect of the process for the improvement of qual-ity education and preparation for work contexts.These chapters provide evidence for pedagogi-

cal decisions and report on aspects that surroundthe integration of new learning environments andstrategies.

The book makes clear that one of the princi-pal requirements fixed by the Bologna processis teaching and learning in a lingua franca andthe need for reflection and adaptation to changesin education. The compilation may seem redun-dant because of the continuous presentation ofcases that share aims and offer similar proposalsand solutions. Even so, this book sheds light onthe field and expands the range of possibilitiesand contributions for those who work in simi-lar contexts. The presentation of different con-texts and national realities provides a completeand illustrative review of the general Europeansituation. It also highlights the necessary rethink-ing of some of the current methodologies usedby lecturers and provides ideas and guidelinesfor all those who are interested in the improve-ment of the education system or are immersed inthe process of modernization of education acrossEurope.

ANTONIO MARTINEZ–SAEZUniversidad Politecnica de Valencia

TOMLINSON, BRIAN. (Ed.). English LanguageLearning Materials: A Critical Review. London:Continuum, 2008. Pp. x, 333. $150.00, cloth. ISBN0–8264–9350–5.

What do materials for teaching English languagelearners around the world look like? What is rightabout them and what needs improving? Answer-ing these questions is what Tomlinson’s editedbook ambitiously sets out to do.

Tomlinson introduces the work with a contro-versial claim: English language learning textbooksand materials supposedly aimed at helping lan-guage learners acquire English often fail to ad-dress the real needs of learners and instead focuson their teachers’ needs. Drawing extensively onhis 42 years of experience in the field, Tomlin-son presents his ideas on what facilitates learningand how current materials fare. He suggests thatalthough some English language teaching mate-rials help learners become independent users ofthe language, most instead inhibit language de-velopment.

In addition to Tomlinson, who wrote or co-authored 4 of the 18 chapters, 26 other writerscontributed. The book is divided into two major

656 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

parts: the first focusing on varieties of materialsavailable and the other describing and critiquingwhat English language teaching (ELT) materialsare like in particular regions of the world.

The seven chapters in “Different Types of Ma-terials” include materials for teaching generalEnglish, young learners, science and technology,English for academic purposes, multimedia, self-access materials, and extensive reading. The re-views describe and analyze exemplary materialsin their particular area, evaluate a subsample,and suggest changes. Several chapters are note-worthy. Writing on young learners, Wendy Arnoldand Shelagh Rixon do well in providing a well-organized and succinct overview including his-torical background, current thinking on teachingthis audience, a survey of teachers, and a frame-work for materials evaluation, and they suggest is-sues in need of improvement. Alan Maley’s chap-ter, in addition to making a plea for extensivereading, provides a careful review of the litera-ture and a useful list of Web sites and references.Jayakaran Mukundan, writing on multimedia ma-terials, warns of the dangers of relying on multi-media to drive the pedagogical curriculum pre-scriptively. He cites Malaysia as an example wherea lack of caution resulted in an artificial and sterilecurriculum that has sacrificed teacher and learnerautonomy and has led to more testing than teach-ing. Mukundan provides a caveat against blindadoption of the new without careful analysisof language acquisition theory and pedagogicalintent.

This section of the book also provides valuable,concrete tools for examining ELT materials. Forinstance, in chapter 2, “Materials for General En-glish,” Hitomi Masuhara and Tomlinson includea simple chart for accessing materials using cri-teria that could easily be adapted by teachers.Lucy Cooker provides another useful example inher chapter on self-access materials, as do severalother authors.

The other major segment of the book, “Materi-als in Use Around the World,” contains nine chap-ters that focus on materials used in the UnitedKingdom, the United States, Western Europe,Central and Eastern Europe, the former SovietUnion, Africa, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Mid-dle East, and Argentina and other nations in theSouthern Cone. Each of these chapters includesa review of ELT materials in a targeted countryor region. The authors provide readers with anoverview of what the materials look like and howteachers typically use them in classrooms. As inthe first segment of the book, contributors evalu-ate sample materials and suggest improvements.

These chapters provide a rare glimpse into En-glish teaching in regions that might otherwise beunknown to most ELT professionals.

In the final chapter, Tomlinson concludesthe argument he began in chapter 1, nowfortifying his position with evidence presentedthroughout the book: that ELT materials tendto underestimate learners; foster old-fashionedteacher-centered approaches in which the normis presentation, practice, and production; encour-age testing rather than teaching; and fail to of-fer sufficient opportunities for learners to recycletheir learning or take advantage of opportunitiesto learn outside the classroom.

Readers seeking substantial or in-depth re-search on ELT materials may be disappointed.Although the authors provide details about sam-ples of materials and often use questionnaires togain feedback from teachers and others who useparticular materials, the methods used to drawconclusions are, for the most part, subjective. Itis also important to note that although the ti-tle suggests an inclusive global examination, thebook is weighted toward a British perspective, withmore attention to materials in countries where theUnited Kingdom and its publishers have strongties. Not surprisingly, some areas of the world aredescribed in less detail than others; for example,the whole continent of Africa is represented by ap-proximately the same number of pages as Japan.Likewise, some major parts of the ELT world getlittle attention; for example, there is no men-tion of the Spanish-speaking world except for Ar-gentina and, rather surprisingly, ELT in China ismissing.

Nevertheless, given the global venture of ELT,the book contributes in examining materials frommultiple perspectives on a worldwide scale andsubstantiating the case that ELT materials sharecertain fundamental flaws that materials develop-ers need to address. This audience will find thisbook valuable and even inspiring in its bold callfor materials that move learners to the forefrontof teaching, engaging them affectively and cog-nitively, providing less form-focused and control-centered materials with a stronger connection tothe world outside the classroom. Teachers, whoTomlinson and other writers in the book encour-age to take a more active role in ELT developmentregionally and in their classrooms, will also findchapters relevant to their specific situations, aswill supervisors and others involved in materialsdevelopment or selection.

ROBERTA VANNIowa State University

Reviews 657

FRENCH

AYOUN, DALILA. (Ed.). Studies in French Ap-plied Linguistics. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2008.Pp. xiii, 400. $158.00, cloth. ISBN 90–272–1982–6.

Studies in French Applied Linguistics is a continu-ation of French Applied Linguistics (2007) and, assuch, is designed to continue the discussion ofthe history of the French language and the funda-mentals of second language acquisition by focus-ing on less commonly studied issues. The book isdivided into two sections. The first five chaptersare devoted to language acquisition issues withina variety of contexts, including immersion, selec-tive language impairment, and computer-assistedlanguage learning (CALL). The chapters in thesecond part take a sociolinguistic perspective andcover such areas as the history and status of Frenchin the Maghreb, creolization in Guadeloupe, andlanguage policy in Quebec.

Given that the primary goal of Studies in FrenchApplied Linguistics is to feature French in a vari-ety of less commonly studied contexts, it is per-haps fitting that Roy Lyster’s lead chapter beginswith an examination of the effectiveness of Cana-dian French immersion programs. After review-ing recent research on immersion, Lyster notesthat students using French in the classroom sit-uation seem to see it as a communicative toolthat nevertheless lacks cultural significance. More-over, although students in immersion programswere generally effective communicators, their ac-quisition of grammatical structures, most notablyverbs, was weaker than that of native speakers.These findings lead Lyster to question the ef-ficacy of the incidental focus on form that isthe hallmark of the immersion classroom. Heproposes instead counterbalanced instruction, amore targeted form-focused approach designedto offset the predominant communicative orien-tation of the typical immersion classroom. Coun-terbalanced instruction seeks to enhance noticingand cognitive processing and thereby to encour-age interlinguistic restructuring. Lyster’s chapterthus presents a thought-provoking perspective onimmersion and proposes a way to integrate betterlanguage and content.

The subsequent chapters in the first part of thebook are loosely conjoined in terms of their focuson issues of cognitive processing within languageacquisition contexts. Marina Laganaro’s chapterfocuses, for example, on language impairment re-sulting from damage to the Broca and Wernicke

areas of the brain. Her work is significant bothfor the insights provided into aphasia caused bystroke and other damaging incidents and for theinsights that the study of impaired language pro-cessing has to offer for issues of language acquisi-tion in healthy individuals. Celia Jakubowicz andLaurice Tuller’s chapter takes the discussion oflanguage impairment in a different direction byexamining some of the features of language pro-duced by children affected by a form of specificlanguage impairment. Their work suggests thatcertain aspects of French are inherently difficultto acquire due to intrinsic structural complexity.Although the primary goal of the authors’ workis to increase the understanding of how languageis acquired in impaired children in order to bet-ter identify and to help these individuals, theirresearch promises to shed light on how “the mindis organized for language” (p. 98) and, conse-quently, on the acquisition of French in general.

The second part of the book is devoted primar-ily to the study of French within sociolinguisticcontexts in specific geographic areas, includingthe Maghreb, Guadeloupe, Quebec, and Frenchurban settings. The first chapter of part 2, “TheRole and Status of the French Language in NorthAfrica” by Farid Aitsiselmi and Dawn Marley, doesa thorough job of tracing the history and poli-tics behind the divergent and often paradoxicalattitudes toward French in Algeria, Morocco, andTunisia. In Morocco, for example, bilingualism isseen as an advantage, and a high value is placedon speaking French with as little accent as possi-ble. Consequently, French instruction in schoolsemphasizes oral production. However, the test-ing of French competency is done through writ-ten exams. There exists, therefore, a significantgap between pedagogical approaches and assess-ment. The situation in Algeria is far more com-plex, where a pro-Arabization and anti-Frenchpolicy begun in 1992 has been undermined bythe recognition that French is necessary for inter-action with the West. The authors point out thatPresident Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ignored lawsbanning the use of French to address nationaland international audiences. Although the focusof this chapter is on the role of French in theMaghreb, the historical overview has much to of-fer to fields other than applied linguistics that fo-cus on this region, such as history, global studies,and francophone literature.

The other chapters in this section are equallyas dense as the chapter by Aitsiselmi and Marley.Tom Pooley’s chapter explores, for example, thelinguistic formation of various vernaculars usedby urban youth primarily in the banlieues of ma-jor French cities, a well as the themes commonly

658 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

dealt with. He is particularly attentive to the so-ciological implications of urban youth vernacu-lars, emphasizing their role as identity markers formarginalized groups but also their significance asindicators of educational failure.

The chapters in Studies in French Applied Lin-guistics are all of high quality. My primary crit-icism has more to do with the organization ofthe book than with any one chapter. Particularlyproblematic is the positioning of the two chaptersdevoted to technology, which would have beenbetter placed together to help the reader ori-ent to this important area in applied linguistics.Richard Kern’s chapter on literacy and technol-ogy, which is positioned in the second sectionunder the vague subtitle “French in Applied Lin-guistics,” could have been placed next to Marie-Josee Hamel’s chapter on CALL in the first sec-tion, which is devoted to first and second languageacquisition. Similarly, Douglas Kibbee’s chapteron forensic linguistics, an emerging field in ap-plied linguistics, might have been better placedeither as the first chapter in the second part to setthe tone for the subsequent chapters or as the lastchapter as a kind of capstone for the precedingchapters. Be that as it may, Studies in French Ap-plied Linguistics provides the reader with an arrayof thought-provoking chapters on less commonlystudied issues that contribute to our understand-ing of language acquisition, sociolinguistics, andlanguage policy.

JEAN MARIE SCHULTZUniversity of California, Santa Barbara

FLUMIAN, CATHERINE, JOSIANE LABAS-COULE, CHRISTIAN LAUSE, & CORINNEROYER. Rond-Point: Une perspective actionnelle .Edition nord-americaine adapted by HedwigeMeyer. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson PrenticeHall, 2007. Pp. iv, 364. $90.67, paper. ISBN: 0–13–238651–8.Workbook/Lab Manual . $57.50, paper. ISBN-10:0-13-238652-6.Textbook video on DVD, Video Manual, audioCDs for the textbook, audio CDs for the Work-book/Lab Manual, an access card to the onlineMyFrenchLab, a site for portfolio building, com-panion Web site and Instructor’s Resource Man-ual and Testing Program are also available.

This textbook is described by the authors as ahighly communicative task-based approach, meet-ing the requirements of the Cadre europeen com-

mun de reference pour les langues. The 18 chap-ters are divided into the following sections: An-crage , En Contexte , Tache ciblee , and Regards croises.The Memento grammatical section at the end ofthe book explains all of the grammar in detail,in English. Following are a Lexique par unite ,a Glossaire , and verb charts. The method is ac-tionnelle because students are considered mem-bers of a society and need to function in saidsociety. The textbook thus provides the situa-tions and the linguistic tools with which stu-dents can learn to participate in a francophoneenvironment.

In lieu of a chapitre preliminaire , the textbookbegins with a page of useful words and terms thata student would hear or use in class, followed byan explanation of how the chapters are organized.There is a note to instructors concerning the ap-proach and the communication goals of the text-book. This North American edition of Rond-Pointclaims to be “the first method for teaching Frenchbased on teaching via tasks” (p. v) and, finally, ac-cording to Meyer and her colleagues, the NorthAmerican market is ready for this type of approachto the teaching and learning of French. There isno English in the textbook except for the intro-ductory information and sections at the end ofthe book.

The scope and sequence of the textbook ex-plains the functional objectives, grammar, vocab-ulary, and Regards croises for each chapter. Thetextbook has the feel of a European textbook,not having the standard American setup and per-spective. The themes are what one would expectto find in an elementary textbook; however, theRegards croises section of each chapter offers stu-dents a more in-depth, European-focused view ofFrance. For example, the chapter 2 theme re-volves around families and relationships. Thereis the usual family tree, but in addition, there arenames and descriptions of individuals without thestereotypical French family names, showing dif-ferent French family roots; an invitation to a wed-ding and a discussion of the wedding meal; andin the extended theme, a list of eight new types offamilies based on a more modern view of Frenchlife. The list begins with the famille nucleaire butextends to the famille pacsee and the famille ho-moparentale . This approach provides the learnerwith a means of practicing French within a con-text of real life, a modern society that is Francetoday.

There are no vocabulary lists at the end of eachchapter. Instead, the section Lexique par unite is atthe end of the book. In addition to the vocabularylists glossed in English, this section helps students

Reviews 659

by offering comprehension exercises, for exampleby asking them to again listen to dialogues or tofind adjectives in the lists of words, and also dividesthe lists among chapters, and then more deeplyamong the 12 parts of each chapter. The six audio(nonlab) CDs provide audio for each textbookchapter as well as for the Lexique par unite section.The sound is clear and authentic.

The Workbook/Lab Manual is the standard tear-out-the-pages version in black and white. Thebeginning of each chapter provides a list of vo-cabulary items divided according to grammar cat-egories, as well as some content categories. Forexample, in chapter 2, the categories are Num-bers 13–60, Professions, Nouns, Adjectives of Na-tionality, Adjectives, Verbs, and Some Words andExpressions. The exercises are those expectedin a workbook, and the authors have integratedimages and information from the textbook intothe workbook. The two lab CDs are used for thePhonetique section of the workbook chapter. It isunfortunate that there are only four limited listen-ing activities for chapter 2; the instructor wouldhave to be sure to see what types of activities areoffered in the lab exercises for each chapter—purely phonetic distinction or conversation or acombination. (This reviewer could not find thelistening item named 3–B at the beginning of thechapter 2 lab exercises.) All CDs accompanyingRond-Point are labeled for Windows and Macin-tosh platforms.

The Rond-Point DVD contains 18 chapters cor-responding to the textbook chapters. The au-thors note that the DVD “gives students a realisticlook into the lives of people within the differentregions of France and the francophone world”(back of the DVD jacket). Sadly, sometimes themusic track overshadows the French. It is under-standable to offer some background noise to helpthe students practice listening in real-world situ-ations, but the music does not add to the con-tent. For example, in the chapter 2 segment, a 92-year-old woman is introduced and there is noiseboth from the background television and from theDVD’s music track. In addition, the spoken audiois sometimes very low; the levels do not seem tohave been controlled well during the recording.This situation would be especially difficult for be-ginning students because there is new vocabularypresented in the DVD—for example, chickens,milking cows, and working in agriculture. In ad-dition, the visual for the chapter 9 segment, forexample, is fuzzy compared to the visual clarity ofchapter 2. On a separate note, given the richnessand content of the textbook chapter’s theme, it

seems odd that a farm would be chosen to repre-sent chapter 2.

That being said, each chapter of Rond-Pointis extensive. The new instructor to this textbookwould need to become accustomed to the authors’approach, given the enormous amount of infor-mation on each page, in color, in different scripts,with hand-drawn and photo images, charts, andmaps. It would be vital to be familiar with thematerials and to know how to present them. TheInstructor’s Resource Manual (806 pages), writ-ten mostly in French, explains in depth how onemight present not only each chapter but also eachof the 12 sections of each chapter. Also includedare transcriptions of the textbook and lab audioprograms, tests (Controles) and exams (e.g., forchapters 1 through 5) with answer keys, and avideo guide with transcriptions.

Overall, these materials would challenge a vari-ety of students, and the themes and supplementalmaterials would not be underwhelming for theadult learner. The instructor support is extensiveand would be welcomed by the first-time user. Thestudent support, if students are instructed on howto use it properly, would be invaluable.

Unfortunately, it was disappointing to find ty-pos in English and in French on the Web site forthis textbook—for example, on the table of con-tents page. At this writing, there were items listedon the Web site not available for purchase.

BONNIE L. YOUNGSCarnegie Mellon University

MEGHARBI, NORA, STEPHANIE PELLET,CARL BLYTH, & SHARON FOERSTER. PauseCafe: French in Review, Moving Toward Fluency. NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp. xxi, 272, A–20, V–30,I–3. $98.44, paper. ISBN: 0–07–240784–0. OnlineCahier d’activites (powered by QuiaTM), $38.13. In-structor Edition of Online Learning Center includesaudio script, Instructor’s Manual, and Testing Pro-gram, free to adopters.

Pause Cafe: French in Review, Moving Toward Flu-ency is a new function-based, intermediate text-book that departs from the conventional formatof a linear, in-depth review of first-year French.For teachers long frustrated with second-year textsthat by their very organization seem to restrict us-age of certain structures until they are covered,Pause Cafe will provide a much-welcomed changeof pace. The book consists of seven chapters

660 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

(including a Chapitre preliminaire), followed by awell-organized, color-coded section of grammarexplanations. Seven key communicative functionsare covered: describing, comparing, narrating inthe past, recommending and expressing opinions,asking questions, talking about the future, andhypothesizing (p. ix). Each function is identifiedthroughout the text with a distinctive colored iconand correlates to a group of key grammatical struc-tures (les points cles) explained in the last chapterof the text (also color-coded). For example, De-scribing includes a review of adjective form andplacement, noun gender, negation, relative pro-nouns, and the C’est/il est distinction. Althoughone set of points cles is thoroughly addressed ineach chapter, all functions and structures arefair game from the outset; there is no artificialavoidance of past tenses, subjunctive, condi-tional, or other structures imposed by the textsequencing.

The authors’ primary goals are to expand stu-dents’ vocabulary, increase grammatical accuracy,and help them develop tools to communicatein paragraph-length discourse. A base lexicon isassumed, and each chapter boasts an expansivelist of interesting, thematically organized vocabu-lary and useful current expressions that are thenrecycled in later chapters. To facilitate vocabu-lary learning, students are encouraged to iden-tify morphological relationships and to createtheir own fiches de vocabulaire with words theywill find useful for discussion topics proposedin each chapter. Clear and concise grammar ex-planations are presented in English, followed byshort self-correcting exercises that help studentsverify their understanding. Most important, gram-mar points are always presented as tools for achiev-ing the seven communicative functions; bothwritten and oral exercises encourage students toapply structures to express their reactions to issuesin the text and to talk about their own lives andopinions. The extensive online workbook (Cahierd’activites) provides further opportunities for stu-dents to practice grammatical structures—mostlyin writing, but also via some challenging listen-ing exercises. Moreover, interesting and engag-ing reading selections from authors Labro, Hugo,Theriault, Eluard, Sow Fall, and Beyla challengestudents to understand the usage of the variouspoints cles in context while introducing them tonew perspectives of francophone culture. Finally,students will develop fluency through participa-tion in the many interesting discussion activitiespresented throughout the book, as well as via in-depth writing topics presented at the end of eachchapter.

Intermediate textbooks tend to be so full of ma-terial that teachers are forced to pick and choose,and they must often skip one or more major partsof any given chapter. If used over the course ofone semester, the six-chapter Pause Cafe presentsa similar dilemma. In a typical 3-day-a-week class,(15-week semester), it would be difficult to coverthe entire book without leaving out somethingimportant. However, if used over the course oftwo semesters, Pause Cafe may seem a bit sparse.Spending 10 days per chapter still leaves 20 daysopen. This is not necessarily a negative, however,for teachers who like to supplement a course oc-casionally with their own materials or who wantstudents to expand on certain topics presented inthe textbook. The structure of Pause Cafe wouldbe particularly appealing for a course that uses thelast month of the semester to read a short novel,for example, or for a teacher who likes to breakthings up by including a film or two during thesemester. The descriptions of the francophoneworld (in the Coins Culturels) are fairly limited(when describing the European Union, the textfails to identify which countries belong to the EU,which do/do not use the Euro, etc.). However,these descriptions are ripe for further develop-ment by students in projects they could researchand present in class. The online workbook pro-vides some listening exercises, and the text’s Website provides a downloadable Pause Cafe i-mix offive to six culturally relevant musical selections foreach chapter. There are no listening materials ac-companying the text, however, which in the eyesof some may be a shortcoming.

The title of the book, Pause Cafe , relates tothe regular meetings of six friends at the Cafedes Arts in Paris. The friends’ discussions overthe course of a year studying in Paris serve as aneffective cohesive organizer for the book. Eachfriend hails from a different part of the franco-phone world (Paris, Bretagne, Provence, Quebec,Senegal, Martinique), which are the areas de-scribed in each chapter’s Coin Culturel and, inseveral chapters, are also the source of the read-ing selections. The storyline in Pause Cafe is notterribly exciting; friends getting together to chatabout their lives may be realistic but perhaps notas engaging as some students might prefer. Thatis okay. This is not a book of bells and whistles.Several attractive pictures adorn each chapter (es-pecially in the Coins Culturels), but the focus is onlanguage and on material and exercises that willhelp students to develop fluency in French. Forstudents who are serious about their French stud-ies, this book will provide them with the tools theyneed to improve their proficiency. Additionally,

Reviews 661

it will provide teachers with a solid yet flexiblesupport for guiding students in their learning.

CHRISTINE E. B. MORITZThe University of Northern Colorado

JAPANESE

COLLIGAN–TAYLOR, KAREN. Living Japanese:Diversity in Language and Lifestyles. New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 326.$40.00, paper. ISBN: 0–300–10958–X.

The cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has notedthat when the American public read the Nixontape transcripts for the first time, everyone wasshocked, not by the numerous profanities the for-mer president used but by the unintelligibility ofthe faithfully transcribed conversations. Althoughwe are untroubled by the untidy informality of thespoken language while we are engaged in conver-sation, we feel a mild amazement when seeing itreproduced in print, even though we have knownall along that most of us do not converse in well-fashioned sentences. Many students of a foreignlanguage have had a variation on that experience:Having been taught, in the classroom, to commu-nicate in that tongue in a formal, but not necessar-ily natural, fashion, they find themselves at a losswhen exposed to the real usage of native speakers.

Living Japanese is designed to enable such stu-dents, specifically those at the intermediate andadvanced levels, to learn the patterns of actual orallanguage use. The work, accompanied by a DVD,is a collection of interviews organized into tran-scripts of various lengths that cover a wide rangeof topics: Japanese dialects, songs, anime, envi-ronmental protection, marriage, organic farming,women in the workforce, childhood memories,martial arts, Zen, and so on. The intervieweesare also diverse, representing a cross-section ofJapanese society: teachers, a sign language user, acraftsman, a Buddhist monk, a survivor of WorldWar II, a prefectural governor, college students, acooking instructor, and farmers.

By and large, these are people who rarely takecenter stage in standard textbooks, in which di-alogues, exercises, and culture notes generally(and blandly) revolve around generic middle-class students, their families, and their friends.Curiously lacking, though, are interviews withbusinessmen, who have come to be viewed, bothpositively and negatively, as symbols and embod-iments of Japan’s postwar prosperity. However,this absence may be a deliberate, rather than

inadvertent, omission, given that there is no short-age of teaching materials describing and explain-ing Japan’s corporate culture. Among the nar-ratives, there are two stories—one by a womanwho lived through the war as a teenager produc-ing aircraft parts and another by an artisan whomakes round wooden containers by bending nar-row strips of cypress—that are of special interestas oral history, because their tellers represent pop-ulations dwindling due to death or to a growingaversion to occupations requiring a long appren-ticeship and a patient cultivation of skills.

Colligan-Taylor’s introduction is a clear andhelpful guide to getting the most out of thelessons; particularly valuable is a four-page sec-tion explaining important conversational fea-tures, such as elliptical expressions, contractions,and filler words. Each lesson begins with anoverview of the topic, followed by the transcriptsof one or more interviews dealing with that topic.The interviews are of varying lengths; the longerones are divided into short segments to facilitatethe listening task. Vocabulary and grammar notesare keyed to their respective interviews and seg-ments by a simple numbering system. An applica-tion exercise at the end of each lesson includesquestions and supplementary words. The useful-ness of the lexicons is diminished by placing themat the end of the lessons, not immediately afterthe segment in which they occur, given that somelessons contain a half dozen or more segments.Another, although minor, weakness is that thelexical selection includes more than a few words,such as itimai ‘one piece (of cloth),’ kyoositu ‘class-room,’ niwa ‘yard,’ and iro ‘color,’ which are so el-ementary as to be out of place in an intermediateor advanced vocabulary list.

Anyone who watches the footage on the com-panion DVD will be struck by its authenticity.There are no prepared scripts; the speakers, al-though likely conscious of the camera’s presence,do not behave as if they are being monitoredor evaluated; there are frequent interruptions byfiller sounds; many sentences are strung togetherone after another in a manner that is seldomfound in writing or formal speech; and speakersoften start out talking about something and then,in midsentence, change the topic or entirely re-formulate their thoughts.

I have one quibble, however, about a techni-cal feature of the DVD. Navigating between theinterview segments is not user-friendly becausealthough the time code for each segment pro-vided in the transcripts shows how much time haselapsed from the beginning of the interview ofwhich it is a part, it is very cumbersome to move

662 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

the cursor to an exact time when one wishes tojump from one segment to another. It would bemuch easier if each segment were stored as a dis-crete track on the DVD.

Living Japanese opens a window onto aspects ofJapanese life and language seldom touched uponin the classroom. If diligent students were to makethe effort to become thoroughly familiar with thecontents of the book and the DVD, that familiar-ity would make their adjustment far less dauntingwhen they go to Japan by increasing their compre-hension and maximizing their comfort level withwhomever they might meet.

YUKI TAKATORIGeorgia State University

SPANISH

KING, LARRY D., & MARGARITA SUNER.Gramatica espanola. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp. 277. $83.44, paper. ISBN 978–0–07–351313–3.IGUINA, ZULMA, & ELEANOR DOZIER. Man-ual de gramatica. 4th ed. Boston: Cengage, 2008.Pp. 514. $94.95, paper. ISBN 978–1–4282–0501–7.

To be useful, a grammar manual must provideaccurate, concise, and easily referenced informa-tion. The King and Suner text also aims to focuson language meaning rather than simply form, anintention that will please those who see languageas communication in addition to a linguistic puz-zle to solve. According to the preface, the text wasoriginally designed for students in an advancedcourse in linguistic analysis; the third edition hasbeen adapted to allow it to be used in a third-yeargrammar or advanced grammar course at the uni-versity level. It also aspires to close the gap of lin-guistic competence and performance knowledgefor heritage speakers.

Gramatica espanola has six chapters, each withas many as eight subsections of explanation, for-mal practice exercises, and complex analisis of thegrammar point. Each chapter opens with a shortintroductory paragraph and a diagnostic Para em-pezar to test students’ metalanguage and ability toinfer meaning from form. For example, the chap-ter entitled El verbo y los significados de las formasverbales requires matching verb forms with theirname: habremos terminado = forma compuesta delfuturo. Another activity requires identification ofthe temporal aspect of a verb: Salimos en vaca-

ciones en dos semanas = tiempo verbal presente; refer-encia verbal futuro. The diagnostic is followed by atext explanation on verb morphology. Through-out the chapter there are helpful marginal notesthat summarize the salient points of the text ex-planations. The Practica and Analisis sections in-clude exercises to reinforce the grammar expla-nations and help students learn how to recognizeand explain linguistic phenomena. This order isrepeated in each section, progressing from simpleto complex explanations and exercises. The chap-ter closes with some final activities, such as fill-ins,that require students to understand the contextof the reading to complete them correctly.

The text has many positive features: The expla-nations are succinctly presented yet accurate andcomplete; the marginal notes help the reader scanthrough the text-laden pages to find a point of in-terest.

Because the text is written entirely in Spanish, itis likely to frustrate students who have not reachedan advanced level of Spanish grammar or whoare weak in English grammar or Spanish readingproficiency. Some terms, such as relacion anaforicaand adecuacion, are not explained or given in ex-amples, yet students must identify their use in ex-ercises.

The appendix includes an answer key to manyof the exercises, yet it is extremely difficult to usebecause of the numerous sections and subsectionsand complex numbering scheme. For example,the responses to 3,4 (i) A do not correspond tochapter 3, but to chapter 5. The student must pagethrough to find the correct chapter because theonly header is R (Respuestas) plus a page number.The text would benefit greatly from a coherentnumbering scheme and appendix.

In summary, this text has many positive aspects.The level is appropriate for very advanced under-graduate majors of Spanish as well as graduatestudents of Spanish applied linguistics. Its exclu-sive use of Spanish could be frustrating to weaker,less advanced students.

The Zulma and Dozier text contrasts with theKing and Suner book in terms of its audienceand content. First, the explanations are in En-glish and the sequence is geared toward the non-heritage speaker. The preface indicates that thebook is geared toward intermediate and higherlevel learners, as well as autonomous learners. Be-cause the intermediate learner must be able touse grammar accurately in writing, emphasis isplaced on language usage, not on functions, situ-ations, or tasks. The chapter overview allows for aquick scan of the topics to find a grammar point

Reviews 663

of interest. There are eight chapters with severalsections and subsections, all with clear titles, suchas “Chapter 6 Verbs: Usage.” The sections includethe usual sequence: present, past indicative, com-pound tenses, and so forth. The explanationsare clear and to the point, and they are espe-cially useful for students still mastering Englishgrammar. The text reviews syllabification, stress,and accents, topics that easily elude intermediateand even more advanced students. The numer-ous charts provide a clear visual presentation ofgrammar points.

Zulma and Dozier’s Manual de gramatica is themore comprehensive text of the two because it in-cludes online oral and writing activities, as well astutorials in the Heinle Learning Center. Althoughthe reviewer did not have access to the exercises,she managed to listen to a sample grammar tu-torial for gustar and similar verbs. Curiously, theindirect object pronoun offered for the second-person plural was vos, which is clearly incorrectand would cause confusion.

The text includes an appendix with answers tomost of the activities, which are numbered logi-cally by chapter and activity. There are also listsof literary sources where the learner can presum-ably see some of the grammar points in context.As with Gramatica espanola, there are no authentictexts included in the book itself.

In summary, Zulma and Dozier’s Manual degramatica provides clear and concise explanationsand would be a useful reference book for teachersin training and intermediate to advanced studentsof Spanish. King and Suner’s Gramatica espanolais a more advanced text that could be used at thegraduate level as well as the very advanced under-graduate level. Both texts present language fairlydevoid of a larger authentic context, admittedlynot the intent of either text.

SUSAN M. BACONUniversity of Cincinnati

SAMANIEGO, FABIAN, FRANCISCO RODRI-GUEZ, & NELSON ROJAS. ¡De una vez! Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Pp. xx, 512. $95.99, pa-per. ISBN: 0–618–34894–8.Student Activities Manual . $57.49, paper. ISBN 0–618–34895–6. Audio CDs for Activities Manualand test bank with answer keys are also available.

¡De una vez! is a content-based, communica-tively oriented text. The authors state (p. x) that it

is a level 1 program for heritage speakers of Span-ish. Other than the prefaces for instructors andstudents, it is written entirely in Spanish. The con-tent is largely cultural, with six chapters focusedon the culture of various Hispanic groups in theUnited States and six on the culture of specificSpanish-speaking nations. There are segments ineach chapter on the culture, on the arts, and onvarious genres of the literature of the group inquestion. In addition, there is a segment in eachchapter on a career area with pertinent vocabu-lary. Each chapter covers several aspects of gram-mar, accentuation, and spelling, and the grammarbuilds in a traditional sequence. Numerous notesfor native or bilingual students in each grammarsection call attention to features of usage commonto Spanish-speaking communities in the UnitedStates and elsewhere that should not be used out-side that community or in writing. The authorsstate a wish to show respect for linguistic variation(p. x) and do so in a section in each chapter thatprovides insight into linguistic history and usagein various regions.

The annotated instructor’s edition offersmarginal notes, and there is a Web site for in-structors with sample syllabi, suggestions, answerkeys, and audio scripts. A CD of tests and quizzes,two per chapter, is provided, and there is an Ac-tivities Manual that includes a listening program.The text and Web site offer many Internet ac-tivities, and each chapter includes a list of filmsthat instructor or students may wish to accessfor additional depth. The text is printed in twocolors and has a modest number of two-colorillustrations.

The language level of the text is clearly Ad-vanced or higher on the American Council on theTeaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale,and from the first chapter forward, all tenses areincorporated, as is a wide variety of vocabularyitems. Because the focus of each chapter is a cul-tural group, there is no functional–notional fo-cus. The content ranges broadly and, thus, thevocabulary does as well. Further, because the top-ics are pitched at the Advanced and Superiorspeaking proficiency levels, they go far beyond thehome/family/social life range of vocabulary andlanguage use of many heritage speakers. Thus, thequestion one must ask is which heritage speak-ers are the intended audience for this program.The issue of language proficiency level is not ad-dressed, and there are no suggestions about howto diagnose and place students.

The textbook would be appropriate in a level1 program only for students who are already at

664 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

the Advanced level but may have had little for-mal study of or in Spanish. Thus, the many her-itage speakers who are at the ACTFL Intermedi-ate level in proficiency will find ¡De una vez! verydifficult.

That said, the text would work well for higherlevel students, and it could also work well forany groups of students in the second or thirdyear of Spanish study. All of the material wouldbe of interest to students of any background,and even the notes for bilinguals and the sec-tions on our linguistic wealth would provide non-bilingual students with interesting insights aboutthe language used in their daily environment.Further, because many of these notes are basedon contrasts between English and Spanish, withonly some deriving from dialect-based usages, allEnglish-speaking learners of Spanish could bene-fit from them. There are aspects of dialectal usagethat are addressed late in the textbook or not atall, and instructors may wish to address them. Forexample, the use of archaic forms appears on page290, and the instructor may wish to use materialrelating to such a common phenomenon earlierin the course. In general, however, one recognizesthat the language analysis and history provided inthe text is rarely available to students and will beof great value to them.

The text and Activities Manual comprise manycontextualized interpretive, interpersonal, andpresentational activities, and there are accompa-nying preactivities and postactivities. It is unclearwhether the Web site contains rubrics for ratingstudents’ performance on these activities, how-ever, as they are not mentioned. It is also not indi-cated whether the testing CD contains materialsfor oral testing. Finally, the main omission is a glos-sary. Neither at the chapter level nor at the whole-text level is there any compilation of vocabulary.No doubt that is because the vocabulary used is soextensive, and a glossary would have added manypages to the text. Yet for the same reason, stu-dents will need a resource to check unfamiliaritems.

Apart from the caution about the language levelof the text, the book is a strong addition to ourrepertoire as Spanish instructors. Its linguistic andpedagogical bases are sound, and the material willbe interesting and valuable for students. The viewof the cultures is current and broader than whatis usually available to students. Heritage studentsshould have no difficulty finding themselves wellrepresented in the program and will feel proudof and well informed about their linguistic andcultural heritage, as well as even more capable of

participating in it effectively after completing thecourse.

BARBARA GONZALEZ PINOThe University of Texas at San Antonio

IGLESIAS, SANTAMARIA ESTHER, & HELENJONES. En activo: Practical Business Spanish. NewYork: Routledge, 2008. Pp. xxii, 280. $44.95, pa-per. ISBN 0–415–40885–7. Audio CDs. $44.95.ISBN 0–415–40886–5.

Organized into 16 content chapters with re-view lessons centered on debate topics every 5chapters, this business Spanish textbook/audioCD package focuses on developing proficiencythrough oral and written exercises, based on pro-files and conversations with professionals in ar-eas such as protocol, communications, and thestock market, among others. The student recy-cles the audio information through a brief se-ries of application exercises and expands contentthrough a variety of written activities. Althoughan answer key to all content-based questions isincluded, the text has no glossary and only pro-vides occasional grammatical review. Typically, ina text marketed for intermediate-level students inthe United States one would expect a significantnumber of grammar exercises as well as vocabu-lary listings.

Audio tracks include a word-for-word readingof the businessperson’s profile that opens eachlesson in the textbook, as well as a cloze exercisebased on the conversation constructed as an inter-view with the person profiled. Subsequent tracksprovide one or two other listening activities, whichvary according to the career content of the les-son. Speakers come from Spain and a variety ofSpanish American countries so that students areexposed to different pronunciations.

Although the authors indicate that this textis for “intermediate-level students” (p. xi), thelevel of difficulty of many of the exercises andthe assumed degree of language facility requiredto carry out those exercises make it appropri-ate for students at the advanced level in theUnited States. Therefore, the “intermediate-levelstudents” noted above realistically indicates theproficiency level of students as measured by theAmerican Council on the Teaching of ForeignLanguages Proficiency Guidelines rather than thecourse in which they are enrolled. Likewise, theauthors’ recommendations for course usage of

Reviews 665

this text use British/European terminology, suchas “this text will suit a 20–credit module offeringtwo hours per week of tuition and class interac-tion” (pp. xi–xii) and “dividing its use betweenone 10–credit module in year 2 (before the in-tercalary year) and one 10–credit module in thefinal year (after the intercalary year and beforeemployment)” (p. xii), which makes it difficult toassess the text’s applicability to U.S. college anduniversity curricula.

The book is formatted in an extremely densemanner, using a small font and mostly single-spaced lines of text, including the cloze exercises,which leaves little space for students to write theiranswers. Activities are equally dense in terms ofcontent; that is, what appears as a short para-graph in the text requires students to produce10 sentences or a brief article in Spanish basedon minimal information on the printed page. Forexample, using a chart that lists in Euros the totalvalue of imports and exports between Spain andfive Asian locations (p. 164), learners are asked tohelp the featured professional write an article forhis/her company’s monthly bulletin on the topicof commercial relations with Asia. The chart con-tains fewer than 10 statistics to use for reference.

In another case, on page 187, the first activityin this section on using Internet resources for thechapter topic tells students to consult an onlineglossary of economics vocabulary, but it does notask them to do anything with the material oncethey have accessed it. The other Internet-based ac-tivities in this section do require students to eval-uate Web sites or to create something new usingthe information they find online. There is a widerange of performance expected in the textbookexercises, from filling in charts with vocabularytaken from the opening profile to writing exten-sive paragraphs to prepare for a formal debate oncomplicated topics in the review chapters. Withinchapter sections there is an equivalent range, sothat a complex activity like writing a press re-lease is followed by a simple classification activity(p. 184), with no attempt to build from less com-plicated to more complicated tasks in the courseof a lesson.

Although the authors claim that their text “isdesigned to meet the needs of language tutorswho are, in the majority of cases, not expertsin business studies and may therefore be in-timidated by their responsibility and ill-assistedby over-complicated and too-technical textbooks”(p. xii), the resulting text may be too stream-lined for the nonspecialist in business Spanish.The Web site (http://www.enactivo.info/) doesprovide supplementary information for students

and teachers alike, including links to country-specific business information, but some updatingis needed. For example, The World Factbook of theCentral Intelligence Agency is now on a secureserver, but the URL on the En activo site does notreflect that change.

The gold standard for business Spanish text-book packages in the United States is Exito com-ercial: Practicas administrativas y contextos cultur-ales (4th ed.) by Michael Scott Doyle et al. (Cen-gage, 2006). This program contains both audioand video activities, a separate print workbookfor practicing formal written communication, in-cluding business letters and forms, as well as aprogram Web site with additional reference mate-rial and exercises. A separate instructor Web siteincludes sample exams and PowerPoint presen-tations. Exito commercial is more comprehensivethan En activo and provides more information forthe nonbusiness student of Spanish as well as forthe nonbusiness Spanish instructor.

Twenty-five years ago, teachers of business Span-ish had few textbook options. Today, fortunately,many more classroom resources are available.However, considering the range of these currentpossibilities, I find it difficult to recommend Enactivo as the basic text in an intermediate-levelbusiness Spanish course. En activo would be use-ful as a supplement to another textbook packagebecause it provides specialized business referenceinformation via the textbook Web site as well asadditional listening practice. I would suggest thistext as an option in an advanced-level businessSpanish course in a program in which studentshad already completed a previous intermediate-level course in this area or had previous coursesin business administration.

TERESA R. ARRINGTONBlue Mountain College

TESTING

CHAPELLE, CAROL, MARY K. ENRIGHT, &JOAN JAMIESON. (Eds.). Building the Validity Ar-gument for the Test of English as a Foreign Language.New York: Routledge, 2008. Pp. ix, 363. $46.95,paper. ISBN 0–8058–5456–8.

In theory, the validation process begins at test con-ceptualization and is ongoing throughout the lifeof the test with relation to the test’s uses and in-terpretation. In practice however, many tests areused for purposes outside those intended by the

666 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

developer, and validity is often seen as a staticevent that terminates when the test becomes op-erational. In this nine-chapter book, Chapelle,Enright, and Jamieson have described the de-velopment of the Internet-based version of theTest of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL�iBT), focusing on an argument for its validity. Thebook supports the interrelationship of test devel-opment and validation and shows how such pro-cesses can be integrated and applied to one ofthe world’s most-used tests. This review first pro-vides an overview of the book’s contents, includ-ing both chapters and appendixes, points to itsstrengths and challenges, and then suggests howit will contribute to the field of language teaching,learning, and testing.

This edited book provides a detailed and re-flective overview of the process of developing theTOEFL iBT. Contents include a preface, ninechapters, and three appendixes, with chapterswritten by a variety of authors who have con-tributed to this test’s development and validationprocess. All chapters contain figures and tablesthat illustrate and explain the test developmentand validation processes. The first chapter, writ-ten by the editors, situates the development ofthe TOEFL iBT in relation to its score interpreta-tion and use, thus supporting the argument thatvalidity is a function of test use rather than an in-dependent test characteristic. The second chap-ter provides an historical context for the TOEFL’sevolution and growth from its beginning in the1960s through the present day. In the third chap-ter, a number of well-known linguists and testingspecialists wrestle with the concept of a test de-velopment framework. Chapters 4 through 6 ad-dress issues surrounding prototyping from tasksto domain-specific measures of the new test. Inchapter 7, Perlman discusses the process of final-izing the test blueprint, and chapter 8 providesa final analysis. Chapelle summarizes the valid-ity (evidence and) argument in chapter 9. Threeappendixes also appear at the end of the book,and all make important contributions, includinga timeline of the TOEFL that allows the reader toreflect on the changes to the TOEFL in particularand test validation in general.

This book has many strengths, including depthand breadth, transparency, and use of tables, fig-ures, and graphs to support both the book’s con-tent and the reader’s experience. The book’sbreadth or depth alone is remarkable; the com-bination is outstanding. The reviewer counted nofewer than 16 total pages of references across theeight chapters. However, it is not only the number

of references but also the diversity of the refer-ences that alerts the reader that the TOEFL revi-sion included a thorough review of the literaturein the field, from both TOEFL-specific and indi-rectly related resources. For example, the use ofBiber and Reppen’s corpus, as well as the relatedresearch, analysis, and conclusions, highlights theamount of research conducted and shows a freshapproach to defining the construct of the TOEFLfrom its origins in the mid-20th-century.

A second strength is the use of figures and ta-bles to support the text. Like any description of atest development process, the book includes com-plicated explanations of ideas, analyses, and deci-sions. The many figures and tables support thereader by not only explaining statistical resultsbut also by summarizing points clearly and suc-cinctly. For example, in chapter 1, the authorslead the reader through the test design and scoreinterpretation process with a series of figures thatbuild upon each other to explain how the test in-terpretation argument is formulated. Similarly, inchapter 8 (“A Final Analysis”), the text is necessar-ily table heavy to show results, but it also includesa few figures to illustrate points from the factorialmodel to speaking competency descriptors. Theargumentation used in the book is complex, andthe tables and figures provide helpful support tothe reader.

However, the book’s greatest strength is thetransparency and honesty of its writing. It servesas a model for both small- and large-scale test de-velopment processes. Essentially a detailed storyof a test revision, it includes descriptions of suc-cesses and challenges, highlights, and setbacks.Most important, it is accessible to measurementprofessionals and applied linguists; both measure-ment and language points are explained in suffi-cient detail without weighing down the book inminutiae. At the same time, the book highlightsthe problems and ongoing challenges of the op-erational TOEFL iBT.

This book provides both an important resourceand an example to the field of language test-ing. By carefully delineating how the test de-velopment and validation processes were devel-oped side by side, the authors show that suchan approach is workable for any test, regard-less of size, use, or impact. Through its trans-parency, the book encourages dialogue about im-proving the TOEFL in particular and tests ingeneral.

MARGARET MALONECenter for Applied Linguistics