This article examines how a group of Tanzanian journalists employ various tactics of intersubjectivity to achieve mutual understanding during a conversation at work. The analysis focuses on one particularly challenging episode of talk wherein political figures and clothing styles from the early days of African independence are referenced, and an ensuing joke about body image is made using the phrase kumaintain figure ‘to maintain figure’ in reference to a male journalist. The joke arguably (re)appropriates the original meaning of the phrase and challenges the relevance of Western body aesthetics for Africans. All participants laugh at the joke, but the basis for their laughter is ambiguous. The participants' interpretations of the joke are examined through ethnographic methods within the framework of (re)entextualization (Silverstein & Urban 1996). The analysis shows that the participants have produced somewhat different indexical orders (Silverstein 2003) for the phrase and, therefore, have different reasons for finding it humorous.

This article analyzes the reasons for and the effects of the language shift in Zimbabwe represented by the increasing use of pan-ethnic lingua francas, or urban vernaculars, of local origin. It is suggested that essentialist/primordialist assumptions about “indigenous” languages that feature prominently in current accounts of language endangerment should be made more complex by understanding their historical and social origins. In Zimbabwe, this means understanding the origins of Shona and Ndebele during the colonial period as the product of a two-stage process: codification of dialects by missionaries, and creation of a unified standard by the colonial regime. In the postcolonial context, these languages and the ethnic identities they created/reified are giving way to language use that indexes not ethnic affiliation but urbanization. The article adduces data showing that as Zimbabweans move with relative ease across language boundaries, urban vernaculars express their shared social experience of living in postcolonial urban environments.The authors would like to thank Xingren Xu for his technical support during the writing and revision of this article.

Using a large, computerized corpus, this study aims to provide lexico-grammatical evidence of stereotypical constructions of age and aging. It focuses on elderly, a word that is pivotal to the domain in question and whose associative meaning is contested. The collocational profile drawn up on the basis of corpus evidence shows that elderly is primarily associated with discourses of care, disability, and vulnerability, emerging less as a marker of chronological age than of perceived social consequences. In addition to making a contribution to discourse-oriented aging research, the article also demonstrates the use of corpus linguistic methods within a sociolinguistic framework.I am grateful to several colleagues for their comments on a draft version, including most notably Susan Hunston, Virpi Ylänne-McEwen, Kieran O'Halloran, Angie Williams, and two anonymous reviewers. Veronika Koller contributed to the initial corpus searches and also provided useful feedback on the first draft. Eva Kerbler's support during the revision phase was invaluable and much appreciated. I am indebted to Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien and the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) for financial support while spending a sabbatical at the Centre for Language and Communication Research of Cardiff University. Material from the Bank of English® reproduced with the kind permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

This article characterizes a spoken genre, bargaining, found in retail encounters in traditional markets in southern China. Analysis of substantive acts in 38 tape-recorded interactions shows that verbal and nonverbal actions within the event carry a small set of illocutionary forces germane to negotiating price and quantity. Analysis of ritual acts that mark boundaries of the event shows that participants behave primarily as outgroup persons seeking to transact business. Bargaining hence constitutes a primary genre (Bakhtin 1986), a textual form that shows domination of a transaction frame over a consultation and a valet frame, and a communicative purpose that is tightly circumscribed around the exchange of commodities and not relationship. A socially oriented form of genre analysis is apt for elucidating the speakers' strategic use of generic resources, as well as investigating development in retail marketing in the PRC, marked by growing popularity of new retail outlets and changing consumer attitudes.

Michel Paradis, A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 293. Hb $138.00, Pb $39.95.

Researchers and students of applied linguistics and anyone interested in bilingualism and second language learning will find this nontechnical and accessible state-of-the-art survey useful. Regardless of which neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism ends up holding sway, it is in the central nervous system that the core mental operations that underlie language use are materially computed. So, as we do our work, it is good to keep an eye on what's going on here.

Paul Wald & François Leimdorfer (eds.), Parler en ville, parler de la ville: Essais sur les registres urbains. Paris: Editions UNESCO and Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2004. Pp. 276. Hb 27,00 €.

As indicated in the title – which can be translated as Speaking in the city, speaking of the city: Essays on urban registers – this multi-authored French-language collection of essays deals with the interaction of speech and the urban environment. It is the third volume in a recently created French series that aims at understanding the city through the analysis of urban discourse in its historical and sociocultural context. This particular book, co-edited by Paul Wald and François Leimdorfer, highlights the back-and-forth process between the city and speech: on the one hand, the urban environment is constitutive of certain “ways of speaking,” and on the other hand, language plays a role in constructing an image of the city. Both facets of the process are well illustrated in the essays assembled here, which are informed by various disciplines: linguistics, history, anthropology, and sociology.

Michelle M. Lazar (ed.), Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, power and ideology in discourse. Houndmills, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Pp. xi, 260. Hb $75.00.

As the title suggests, this is a collection of feminist work carried out within the paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which Michelle Lazar glosses in her editor's introduction as “a critical perspective on unequal social relations sustained through language use” (p. 1). It does not seem to be a goal of the book to develop a distinctively feminist variant of CDA, or to engage in dialogue with its leading theorists (most of whom are men, and tend to be politically pro-feminist but not deeply influenced by feminism in a theoretical sense). Rather, contributors use established CDA methods to address questions about gender as one case of “unequal social relations sustained through language use.” That in itself is not a new endeavor – gender features as one topic in most books and edited collections of CDA, and it is also the theme of numerous journal articles – but this, perhaps surprisingly, is the first book-length volume specifically dedicated to the subject.

Adam Kendon, Gesture: Visible action as utterance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. 410. Hb $90.00.

Written by one of the foremost authorities on the subject, this book gives a definitive account of gesture and its study. It is an excellent and thought-provoking work for all readers interested in everyday interactions across various disciplines. The book can be divided into two parts: The first six chapters present a detailed history of gesture studies dating back to Roman antiquity and continuing to the twentieth century, especially in the Western tradition. The latter half of the book provides micro-analyses of gesture practices occurring in everyday interactions in various settings.

David W. Samuels, Putting a song on top of it: Expression and identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004. Pp. x, 324. Hb. $39.95.

David W. Samuels's Putting a song on top of it is at once an explication of current Western Apache practices and a study of how Western Apaches imagine and evoke “history” through music. Samuels's purpose is to describe and at times explain the multifaceted ways Western Apaches index continuity through music and talk about music. Samuels is interested in the “ambiguities” and “creative” uses of indexicality (p. 10). Crucial to his project is understanding the “feelingful iconicity” of discourses of and about expressive forms (11). This “feelingful iconicity” is based on the “emotional attachment to aesthetic forms” (11).

Nanette Gottlieb, Language and society in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 169. Hb $70, Pb $27.99.

If Japanese sociolinguistics can be likened in range and complexity to a forest, this book by the sociolinguist and Japan specialist Nanette Gottlieb would best be described as a Kyoto rock garden. It is cool and calm. It lies within a circumscribed landscape and gives pause for thought.

Elise Kärkkäinen, Epistemic stance in English conversation: A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 115). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. ix, 207. Hb $102.00.

In this innovative study of epistemic stance marking in English conversation, Elise Kärkkäinen attempts to cross-fertilize discourse-functional linguistics with conversation analysis, and her effort bears fruit. She moves deftly between quantitative and qualitative methods, juxtaposing frequency tables with conversational transcripts, and comes out with a bold thesis in hand: “Showing commitment to the status of the information that one is providing, i.e. marking epistemic stance … [is] an essentially interactive activity” (p. 183).

Anna De Fina, Identity in narrative: A study of immigrant discourse. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. xiv, 251. Hb $102.00.

Narrative has now won its spurs within the social sciences, as evidenced by the number of publications, by the diversity of disciplinary approaches (e.g., linguistic, sociological, and psychological), and by the wide range of theoretical frameworks applied to its study. Similar remarks apply to studies of identity issues focused on the individual or a group, as shown by the range of foci such as social, ethnic, gender, national, racial, and institutional identity. Anna De Fina's Identity in narrative appears to be a useful resource for students of these topics and, more specifically, for anyone interested in the study of immigration.

Joel Walters, Bilingualism: The sociopragmatic-psycholinguistic interface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xi, 323. Pb. $37.50.

In the Preface to this volume, Joel Walters explains why we need “yet another model of bilingual processing” (p. viii): The field of bilingualism is divided between researchers focused on the social situating and functions of bilingualism and those concerned with mental structures of bilingualism. Yet bilingual speakers function linguistically at the intersection of these two realms; Walters is concerned to construct a map of cognitive processes at that intersection. In other words, Walters takes on an enormous task: to construct a psycholinguistic model of bilingual processing that includes the wealth of social and pragmatic information that plays a role in bilingual speech and interaction.

Catherine E. Travis, Discourse markers in Colombian Spanish: A study in polysemy. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. Pp. x, 327. Hb US$128.00.

Pragmatics, the study of language use in context, has largely been positioned as an autonomous branch of linguistics that has little or nothing to do with semantics. However, it seems counterintuitive to me to attempt to understand language use without at the same time trying to understand what it means. Catherine Travis's publication is in this sense an important piece of work; it showcases how language use may be more fruitfully studied through focusing on language meaning. The aim of Travis's book is to identify the “conversational conditions” under which a set of discourse markers is used in Colombian Spanish, and, on the basis of those “conversational conditions,” to “determine and explicate the meanings of these markers” (2). In particular, it attempts to “demonstrate that the pragmatics of use of the discourse markers under consideration is semantically driven: the use of discourse markers is determined by their inherent meanings, which interacts with context-driven features to give rise to different pragmatic functions” (2).

Catherine E. Travis, Discourse markers in Colombian Spanish: A study in polysemy. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. Pp. xiii, 327.

This book sets an excellent example of how a semantic focus may enrich a theme usually identified as belonging to pragmatics. Discourse markers are usually considered to be discourse support resources (fillers). They are known in Spanish as muletillas ‘crutches’, with a negative evaluation. Because they are independent from the syntactic core structure, their presence seems arbitrary and optional. It is also generally believed that they do not contribute to the referential content of the clauses they are used in. Their use, however, is far from random; it is governed by precise conversational conditions and discourse criteria. Furthermore, they play an important pragmatic role in the verbal interaction associated with negotiation between speaker and hearer. This book with its detailed study is an excellent contribution to the field.

Joanna Thornborrow & Jennifer Coates (eds.), The sociolinguistics of narrative. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. vi, 299. Hb $126.00.

What do we mean by “narrative”? How is it used as descriptive term? What are its theoretical limits? What social and contextual variations can determine the production and form of situated stories? What are the core components of narrative as a discursive unit and interactional resource? How are related narrative discourse and social context articulated in the building of cultural identities? These questions – related to theoretical, contextual, and cultural issues – underlie this collection, The sociolinguistics of narrative, co-edited by Joanna Thornborrow and Jennifer Coates. The volume includes the latest achievements in theory and practice in narrative analysis from a sociolinguistic viewpoint, aiming to help us to understand “the ways in which narrative constitutes a fundamental resource in social interaction” (p. 2).

Robbins Burling, The talking ape: How language evolved. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 286. Hb $30.00.

Among those who theorize about the evolution of language, there are several camps, including those who argue that language evolved slowly from primate gesture-calls, and those who surmise that syntax is so complicated that it must have come from a single genetic mutation. Robbins Burling agrees fully with neither and argues that language is a separate system from gesture-calls, but that language did evolve slowly through natural and sexual selection. He invites us to look at the social uses of language and the cultural value of its complicated, embellished nature.

Valerie Pellegrino Aveni, Study abroad and second language use: Constructing the self. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xii, 188. Hb $75, Pb $32.99

Aveni's book is the result of her experiences in Russia as a coordinator and researcher with a cohort of 76 American students in a study abroad program during the 1995–1996 academic year. The volume consists of four chapters and three appendixes. Focusing on the construction of “the self,” Aveni's study examines the social and psychological factors that affect language learners' spontaneous use of a second language (L2) and the ways in which learners exploit and avoid spontaneous speaking opportunities (p. 2).

Walt Wolfram & Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English: Dialects and variation. (Language in Society, 25). 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Pp. xv, 452. Pb $36.95.

American English, an introductory textbook about dialect variation, is a revised version of the textbook that first appeared in 1998 and represents another addition to the array of educational materials about American dialects that the first author has been producing for over three decades. It is a versatile textbook with an intended audience of any student who takes a “course on dialects” (p. x). Its lack of linguistic formalism and statistics makes it accessible to students with no linguistics background, and its continued emphasis on the relevance of dialect awareness to American society will help non-linguists apply the material effectively. Owing to its wide scope, it cannot delve too deeply into any of the theoretical issues; however, its succinct overviews of the debates, annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter, and copious examples from a range of dialects make it a useful reference for experienced linguists.

Susana Mühleisen & Bettina Migge (eds.), Politeness and face in Caribbean creoles. (Varieties of English Around the World, G34.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. vi, 293. Hb.

This collective volume starts with an overview by the editors on “Politeness and face in Caribbean creoles.” Eleven chapters, mostly fieldwork-based, are presented in three sections: I, “Performing rudeness and face maintenance,” II, “Face attention and the public and private self,” and III, “Socialization and face development.”