DIALOGUE WITH BAKHTIN ON SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING: NEW PERSPECTIVES.Joan Kelly Hall, Gergana Vitanova, and Ludmila Marchenkova (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 241. $75.00 cloth.

This book is the first to explore the relevance of the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas for the field of SLA research and pedagogy. Each chapter in this edited volume is framed within a Bakhtinian perspective and uses his conceptual apparatus to address some aspect of second and foreign language learning. The authors' collective aim is to challenge traditional, formalist approaches to language and demonstrate how Bakhtin's insights can enrich our understanding of second language learning and teaching.