Change of editorship. The present volume of Language in Society (vol. 29, 2000) marks a transition in the editorship of the journal; the newly appointed editor is Jane H. Hill.

From the beginning of 2000, then, all manuscripts submitted for publication, all books offered for review, and all new editorial correspondence should be sent to Prof. Jane H. Hill, Editor, Language in Society, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.

Recent approaches to multilingualism, such as translanguaging, emphasize the porous, fluid, and hybrid nature of language use. This article intends to show, through an example of a local language debating competition in Central Java, that culturally emblematic performances tend to create monolanguaging spaces, due to their monolingual focusing on certain language varieties that are iconic to local ethnolinguistic identity. Monolanguaging spaces are language ideological spaces in which speakers project an idealized performance of their ethnolinguistic identity. Ethnographic observation shows that the performance of monolanguaging spaces involves the erasure of speakers’ multilingual repertoires and translanguaging practices, in accordance to the language ideology surrounding the hegemonic prestigious language variety and in accordance to the local norms of status or power-based social interaction. Attending to monolanguaging spaces reveal it as a performance accomplished through discursive work and power relations, involving the misrecognition of its connection and dissonance to multilingual repertoires and practices. (Language ideology, erasure, translanguaging, monolanguaging space, performance, ethnolinguistic identity, Javanese)*

In this book, MacSwan accounts for code-switching constraints between Spanish and Nahuatl, a Uto-Aztecan language of central Mexico, while testing two main hypotheses: (1) Nothing constrains code-switching apart from the requirements of the mixed grammars; and (2) code-switchers have the same grammatical competence as monolinguals for the languages they use (p. 22).

Miriam A. Locher, Power and politeness in action: Disagreements in oral communication. Language, Power and Social Process, 12. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004. Pp. xvi, 365. Pb.

This is a study of the interface between power and politeness as manifested in verbal disagreements. It begins with a number of chapters devoted to a discussion of the key concepts that define the author's theoretical conceptualization of social interaction. These concepts are power, communication, relational work, and politeness. The author then applies the model to four (transcribed) interactions. The first, and most extensively analyzed, is a dinner conversation among friends and acquaintances. The second is an organizational meeting in a physics laboratory. The final two come from official transcripts of a radio interview of President Clinton and Supreme Court proceedings relating to the vote count in the U.S presidential elections of 2000. Common to them all, in the author's view, are instances of disagreement.

This article examines the intersections between migrant experiences, multilingual practices, and the creation of space. It does so by focusing on Italians who migrated to Tasmania, a group that has long been isolated from the rest of the Italian diaspora. Using an ethnographic approach within a constructivist framework, this research shows that when experiences of movement are recounted in interaction they bring about spaces of speech that are possible thanks to the articulation of local and transnational ‘centres’, which in turn are intertwined with a rich set of linguistic resources. These resources include code-choice, codeswitching, and intentional exposure of phonological variation, and are variously combined to allow the emergence of spaces for people to move through. Spaces of speech are thus situated interactional spaces where acts of (re)telling are related to centres as spatial resources through which not only social meaning is created but also location and locution are mutually constitutive. (Spaces of speech, centres, cultural presence, Italian, Tasmania)*

The sequence that begins a story may be a rather small segment, but how one performs the segment may affect whether one achieves the goal of telling the story. The participants in this study are native speakers of Australian English and Japanese, and the stories were collected in both languages. In recipient-initiated stories, Australian speakers begin a story in concert with the recipient's topic presentation, but Japanese speakers build momentum through the building of rapport and trust. In speaker-initiated stories, Australian speakers use a conventional story preface to claim the conversational floor, but Japanese speakers insinuate a story in subtle ways. Such differences may be related to differences between Australian and Japanese social and cultural structures. The final section discusses implications for conversation analysis in addition to cross-cultural issues.I am pleased to acknowledge the assistance of Felicita Carr and Pascale Jacq for their help with transcripts, and Gavin Fryer, Malcolm Mearns, Johanna Rendle-Short, and the editor and anonymous referees of Language in Society for their comments, input, and encouragement.

Shi-Xu, A cultural approach to discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Pp. x, 233. Hb $69.95.

This book presents Shi-xu's theoretical and methodological framework for discourse analysis, which he terms the Cultural Approach to Discourse (CAD), and critiques what he sees as the predominantly “Western” canon of social science research so far. Shi-xu argues, often convincingly and engagingly, that culture has a far more important role to play than it has hitherto enjoyed in Western approaches to discourse. He positions himself as a researcher operating from “in-between” cultures. After critiquing Western theories and methodologies of discourse research such as representationalism, universalism, and foundationalism, Shi-xu sets out the theoretical and methodological framework for CAD, and then proceeds to give practical examples of how the approach can be applied to research. Unfortunately, there are a few incongruities between the claims the author makes about his book and more generally about his approach, and what the book actually contains and what CAD is shown to have achieved. I will highlight these in the course of describing the different sections of the book. As a whole, however, A cultural approach to discourse contains much that will interest “Western” social scientists; it could serve as a guide to those who have previously ignored “culture” in their research (at least, in the author's estimation of the term), and will perhaps lead to interesting debates with those who have already incorporated some conception (perhaps an opposing one) of “culture” in their theoretical frameworks.

Zarina Estrada Fernández et al., Diccionario yaqui-español y textos: Obra de preservación lingüística. Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico: Universidad de Sonora; Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2004. Pp. 405.

The Yaqui or Yoeme live historically in the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico, and in recent times also in Arizona. They are well known ethnographically and ethnohistorically through the works of Edward Spicer (e.g., 1980, 1984), and ethnopoetically through the work of Evers & Molina 1987. Their Uto-Aztecan language is closely related to that of the Mayo, in Sinaloa, and the two varieties are known collectively as Cáhita. Descriptive studies of Yaqui, including partial lexicons, have been published by writers including Johnson 1962, Lindenfeld 1973, Lionnet 1977, and recently by Molina et al. 1999; but no detailed reference grammar exists. The work by Molina et al. was, surprisingly, repudiated by one of its coauthors (Shaul 1999); yet, in spite of its shortcomings, it has been a useful reference for Yaqui lexicon. Now we also have the volume under review, by Zarina Estrada and coworkers, which contains no grammatical sketch but provides a substantial two-way dictionary plus a collection of texts.

R. M. W. Dixon, Australian Languages: Their nature and development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xlii, 734. Hb $95.00.

Australian languages is a typological approach to the description and historical study of the Aboriginal languages of Australia. Together with its planned companion volume, Australian languages: A complete catalogue, a collection of sketches of some 250 languages, it is intended to present non-Australianist scholars with comprehensive information about Aboriginal languages and to offer specialists a summary and an agenda for future research. There are 14 chapters: “The language situation in Australia,” “Modelling the language situation,” “Overview,” “Vocabulary,” “Case and other nominal suffixes,” “Verbs,” “Pronouns,” “Bound pronouns,” “Prefixing and fusion,” “Generic nouns, classifiers, genders and noun classes,” “Ergative/accusative morphological and syntactic profiles,” “Phonology,” “Genetic subgroups and small linguistic areas,” and “Summary and conclusion.”

As eighth-grade students of English in a “periphery” community school in India, we were assigned to discuss and to appreciate a piece of prose, from our textbook, called “On not answering the telephone”; it was a satirical piece demonizing telephones because their existence and use flouted all tenets of British English linguistic etiquette. None of us in that class had a phone in our homes, and none of us had any desire to learn the alien etiquette. We were interested only in learning the language to the extent that it could help us realize our immediate and, perhaps, future goals. This was our tacit response, and resistance, to English linguistic imperialism: awareness of the pragmatic rewards of English-language acquisition and use, but negation and denial of the cultural hegemony of English. This dynamic of ideological imposition and resistance (and appropriation) forms the core of Canagarajah's book, Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching.

When I have a dinner party, it's a matter of great importance to me that all the places are set with the same tableware. It's the same at a restaurant – a group of people sitting down for dinner should be served on the same dishes. It's neurotic, I know. But aside from some primitive sense of symmetrical comfort, the plates tell you much about the meal that is to follow: Fine porcelain sets expectations of grace and elegance; brightly colored stoneware establishes a casual ambience; and simple plates communicate a utilitarian attitude to the ensuing meal. The form serves as a gatekeeper, announcing at the outset the intended clientele. If a family with small children in search of cheeseburgers and fries wanders by chance into an establishment that places Royal Doulton in front them, they will know instantly that the content will not meet their expectations. Form matters, and content is partly conveyed by the form.