THE LANGUAGE OF LANGUAGE: CORE CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS (2nd ed.). Madalena Cruz-Ferreira and Sunita Anne Abraham. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006. Pp. iii + 266. $32.00 paper.

This 12-chapter volume is designed to introduce a student with no previous experience to the field of linguistics. The chapters are arranged to focus on the various facets of language, with each chapter building on the preceding one. Chapter 1, “Language and Linguistics,” and chapter 2, “Language and Languages,” offer an introduction to language as a concept. Chapters 3 and 4 have a word-level focus, whereas chapters 5 and 6 focus on sounds. Chapters 7 and 8 synthesize the previous chapters to discuss language on the sentence level. Chapters 10–12 use the discussion of language structure presented in the previous chapters to direct the reader's attention to the meaning of language as a whole. These last four chapters discuss language meaning, discourse, and the relationship between language and humans.

SELECTED PROCEEDINGS OF THE 7th CONFERENCE ON THE ACQUISITION OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AS FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGES.Carol A. Klee and Timothy L. Face (Eds.). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 2006. Pp. vi + 194. $220.00 cloth.

The papers included in this volume were presented at the 7th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second Languages (hosted jointly with the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium) in October 2004. Although the title would imply a mixture of papers on first language (L1) and second language (L2) topics from both Spanish and Portuguese languages, the overwhelming majority pertain to Spanish SLA. None of the 15 papers focus on Portuguese acquisition, and only one study specifically discusses L1 acquisition of Spanish morphology.

FIGURATIVE THINKING AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING.Jeannette Littlemore and Graham Low. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Pp. xvii + 239. $80.00 cloth.

This volume contributes to SLA research by exploring how language teachers and textbook writers might systematize the acquisition of figurative thinking (i.e., the ability to use and critically reflect on the use of such figures of speech and thought as metaphors, metonymies, similes, and proverbs). The work builds on the momentum gained by research on play and creativity in SLA as well as on the renewed interest in linguistic relativity and insights from cognitive linguistics regarding the relationship of language, mind, and culture. Despite its title, the volume deals exclusively with the teaching of English.

WORKING WITH GERMAN CORPORA.Bill Dodd (Ed.). Birmingham: The University of Birmingham University Press, 2000. Pp. xxvii + 299. $60.00 paper.

Corpus linguistics is a growing field within applied linguistics. Yet, most research has investigated the use of English. Furthermore, different research applications of corpora are usually discussed separately. Dodd's edited volume shows samples of corpus research from different Germanist perspectives. The volume is introduced with a thorough overview and a short description of available corpora. Dodd's first chapter is an introduction to the diverse applications and key terminology.

ENGLISH IN LANGUAGE SHIFT: THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF SOUTH AFRICAN INDIAN ENGLISH.Rajend Mesthrie. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xix + 252. $43.00 paper.

This book was first published in 1992. This digitally printed paperback version came out in 2006, affording scholars a further opportunity to read this interesting account of the evolution of a new variety of English: South African Indian English (SAIE). A detailed historical background of when, who, and why Indian indentured laborers arrived in South Africa is provided.

EDUCATION FOR INTERCULTURAL CITIZENSHIP: CONCEPTS AND COMPARISONS.Geof Alred, Mike Byram, and Mike Fleming (Eds.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2006. Pp. xi + 254. $42.95 paper.

This volume is the latest in the Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education series. The concept of interculturalism that underlies the editors' perspective emerged largely from the foreign language education context, but in this volume, it is applied to the case of citizenship education in a number of cases. The case studies are made especially strong by the inclusion of what can best be termed an ethical or moral perspective; ultimately, as the editors note, “an intercultural perspective on citizenship education also identifies ethical issues more clearly” (p. 3). Included in the volume are both theoretical rationales for intercultural citizenship education (especially Byram's excellent and powerful chapter, “Developing a Concept of Intercultural Education”) and a wide array of case studies, most from Asia and Europe. Interestingly, the major gap in the volume is the complete absence of Africa (and, indeed, of Latin America, save Mexico) from the cases explored—a gap that one hopes will later be filled in the literature inspired by this work.

Publications received.