Book Reviews

I de nt id ad es , Es ta do na ci on al y globalidad: Mxico, siglos XIX y XX Brgida von Mentz (ed.). Mexico City: Centro de Investig aciones y Estudios S up e ri o re s e n A nt r o p o l o gi a So c ia l ( C IE S AS ), 20 00 . P p . 30 3. IS BN 968-496-414-5 (pbk): $12.50. When an oft-opaque postmodern theory infects mu ch schola rsh ip today, the publication of Identidades, Estado nacional y globalidad: Mxico, siglos XIX y XX comes as a breath of fres h air. The collection comprises an instructive introduction and four essays that cover a range of topics: nation- building and national identity in nineteenth-century Mexico; state and national iden tity consolida tion in a post-revolutionary, twentieth-century Mexico as seen through agrarian and industrial development policies (hydraulic systems for irrigation and hydro-electric power, for example); national and labourclass identity in the globalised automobile industry in Mexico; ethnic, national and transnational identity formation through the Mexican public school system; and cult ural sustenance and identity in marginalised ethnic communities. As set forth in the editors introduction and in the books articles generally empirical evidence shows that the different currents (historical, political and social) that informed Mexican na tiona l iden tity remain an essential feature of todays society, notwithstanding the emergence of g lo bal isat io n. Inde ed , t he M ex ica n nation-state is the product of a long and complex historical process, begun in the ninet eenth century and consolidated through the Mexican revolution in the first and second decades of the twentieth. This history includes the continued influence of ethnic identity as it powerfully shapes todays society and, more generally, the way Mexicans create and develop social relations both in Mexico and in the United States, and continues to be the backbone to those economic forces that build highly centralised and verti cally structured Mexican trade unions. The authors of the various articles collected here favour the study of social and historical records to understa nd the origin of nation-state f o rm a t io n an d th e p u sh -p u ll contradictions that arise between the national and global impulses in modern Mexican society. In the opening essay, Brgida von Mentz takes her study back a hundred years to compare the constitution and development of nationalism in European countries and in Mexico, demonstrating that a nation and a national identity (in the modern sense) did not exist in Mexico before the twentieth century. However, as she carefully proves, the basis for such nation-state articulations first appeared in the nineteenth-century struggle for independence from Spain and later against the French invasion; the truly modern expressions of national identity, however, did not appear until the end of t h e M e x i ca n re v o l ut i o n an d t he establishment of modern-state institutions regulated by the new constitution of 1917. As a result of this long struggle, two modern economic classes were formed: wage workers and owners of means of production. The formation and visibility of this two-tiered class system were crucial to the building of a nation and of a national sentiment aimed to galvanise the people. During the nineteenth century, von Mentz writes, La Republica Mexicana estaba c o n fo r m ad a p o r un c o nj un t o de fragmentadas economias regionales y su p o bla cio n t eni a un s en t im ie nt o de pertenencia a esa region y una vision catlica y estamental de la sociedad. Of this new sentiment and worldview, she concludes, la conformacin del estado nacional mexicano fue un proceso que tard ms de un siglo, porque las bases sociales que tena fueron demasiado heterogneas, porque fue muy grande el peso histrico de la sociedad estamental y su ideologa, y porque el gobierno central fue dbil. Picking up where the editor leaves off, Luis Aboites Aguilars essay anchors itself in an early twentieth-century Mexico in w h i ch t h e st a t e s i n t ro d uc t i o n o f agricultural policy the construction of large and extensive hydraulic works and irrigation systems was fundamental to the nation-building process. Significantly,

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Book Reviews
the 1917 constitution stated that hydraulic works would be built only by the state, the reby excluding landowners from possessing what was thereafter considered a public service. This policy not only tipped the scales in favour of the executive power but also solidified the governments central presence as shaper of national identity. According to the author, Muchos de los mejores ingenieros hidraulicos del pas se convirtieron en empleados gubernamentales y, en esa medida, en constructores directos del ideal nacional y en reproductores del optimismo nacional. The transformations that swept Mexico into its present-day place within a global economy can be t ra ce d ba ck , t h en , to e a rl y twentieth-century privatisation policies. Ho wever, Aguilar is careful no t to uncritically celebrate Mexicos place within a global economy, concluding on a sombre note, Ante el debilitamiento de los estados nacionales provocado por la globalizacin, no es remoto que las generaciones subsiguientes de ingenieros hidr ulicos cambien la patria por la empresa y el inters nacional por las ventajas comparativas. The next two essays in the collection locate their studies in a late twentiethcentury epoch. Yolanda Montiels detailed st u dy i nv e s t ig at e s a p o s t -19 60 s transnational automobile industry and its impact on national and working-class identity in Mexico. Since the 1960s, this in d us t ry e x p e r ie n ce d a ra di ca l restructuring in response to the Mexican states withdrawal from the industry and the U.S./Mexico trade policy changes that took p la ce du ring the 1980 NAFTA ac co r d s. M o n t ie l s um m a ri se s t h e consequences of this restructuring: El estado p roporcio na incentivos a la s estrategias de mayor productividad de las empresas y a la inversin extranjera, as como un amplio control del sindicalismo en la rama. As Montiel indicates, however, despite a post-NAFTA economic climate that brought on increased control of certain Mexican trade unions by foreign entities, in the logic of contradictory capitalism these self-same unions worked to preserve their existence as organisations recognised by t he w o r ke r s. P ar ad o x i ca ll y , t he n, pro-foreign trade relations led to the

317 important defense, Montiel writes, de los derec hos de los trabajadores, en su identidad como tales y en la regulacin de sus condiciones de trabajo. Mara Berteley Busquetss essay both amplifies Montiels analysis (she too remarks on la intervencin sindical y la respuesta explcita e implcita de los trabajadores automotrices, arraigada en sus estilos culturales de vida y trabajo, contienen las polticas neoliberales, la flexibilidad y la apertura totales) and takes the resea rch into new territories: the Mexican governments indigenous-targeted education policies and the creation of a national sentiment that attempted to galvanise traditionally separated social and ethnic groups. For Berteley Busquets, the Mexican national identity was forged largely through the public school systems education policies implemented since 1921. She supports her argument by studying the transformations of ethnic group identity, comparing new and old generations born in the town Yalalag in the state of Oaxaca. (She also looks at the city of Oax aca, Mexic o City, and even Los Angeles.) Here the public school system proves instrumental in fortifying the relations between the younger and the older generations and in preserving their cultural and ethnic identities. The author insightfully concludes: Se trata de gente o riginaria de p ueblo s lings tica y culturalmente distintiv os para la cual transit ar por las escuelas pblicas y nacionales garantiza no slo su acceso a uno de los derec hos constitucionales fundamentales, el derecho a recibir una educacin laica, gratuita y formal, sino su posibilidad de participar en la sociedad envolvente actualizando, a partir de sus p a rt i cu la re s p ro ye ct o s t ni co s, s u distincin. Overall, this book offers a thoroughly researched and methodologically sound collection of essays that bring together intellectual, social, economic and historical perspectives to present a vibrant and crystal-clear picture of the intersection of histo ry and public institution in the formation of Mexican national identity. Luis Aldama Z.
Galisteo, New Mexico (aldamaluis@hotmail.com)

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relationship and there is a significant relationship between language use and degree of acceptance of modern (i.e., nontraditional) identity factors in Kiche communities (pp. 4950). In the remainder of the chapter, he highlights the projects design and methodology. The criteria for c ho o s in g s ev e n m u ni ci p i o s ( ab o ut one-quarter of the Kiche population) for study are introduced, as is the rich panoply of vitality factors to be investigated. In six of these communities, local investigators resided for about two years, learning the p articular lang uage variety and not beginning research for six months. They tapped the subjective and objective vitalities of their municipios and examined Kiche, Spanish and mixed-code choices in nearly 5000 interactions with over 11,000 participants. By the end of Chapter 3, readers may be champing at the bit to get to the finding s, given the impressive sample size and the multiple and painstaking methods. Chapters 4 and 5 examine tow n and city comm unities (one municipio at a time) in term s of an impressive arr ay of vitality facto rs; after wading through 68 pages, we have arguably the most exhaustive vitality analysis ever encountered. Unfortu nately, this lacks help ful summaries between or even after the vitality descriptions. At this juncture, it is most difficult to retrieve all the data and organise the communities in terms of relative vitalities overall, let alone according to sub-factors. Then, in the next 80-page chapter, we are thrown into the language-choice data, again through separate descriptions of the m uni cipios (alb eit thi s ti me w ith helpful, but very brie f, summaries ). Language choices are analysed by race, age, gender and domain and presented i n a wel te r of t ables an d graphs. Curiously, data relating to the i n t r i g ui n g l a ng u a g e m a i n t e n a n c e index , which was introduced at the start of the chapter, are not presente d (together with a more global index) until the next. I t is no t un t il p ag e 217 t ha t w e e nc o u n t e r t h e m uc h - aw a i t e d a n d integrative analysis of the relationships between the ethnolinguistic vitalities of the municipios and language use within

Kiche: A Study in the Sociology of Language M. Paul Lewis. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 2001. Pp. xiv + 261. ISBN 1-55671-120-4 (pbk): $29.00. T hi s res earc h monog raph, on th e language choices and ethnolingu istic vitalities of seven Kiche communities in Guatemala, is the accumulation of an extraordinary research effort involving 45 people and lasting for 13 years! With over 200 linguistically-diverse ethnic entities, Mayan peoples are the majority in the country and the Kiche are the largest of these. They reside in cities, towns and villages (municipios), each one o f whi ch allege dly has alleg edly, a distinctive language variety claimed as the Kiche standard. Lewis provides a detailed account of how each municipio grapples with issues of cultural and lingu istic maintena nce in the face of social c hange brought abou t by Spanish-speaking ladinos. This profile, the fact that Guate mala has be en considered the most collectivistic society of all those studied globally, and the inclination of Mayans to be extremely pa ss ive in the fa ce of outg roup aggressio n all make for a fascinating study. Indeed, it is the first book-length treatment of the relationships between vitality and language use. The intro ductory chapter lays the historical foundation for the study, by outlining four periods of language policy from the earliest days up to the so-called p o s t -i nd i ge ni s m o o r p o s t -M ay a n nationalism era. Lewis articulates well the roller- coaster relations hi ps between Mayan and ladinos, claiming that they now rep resent ext rem es alo ng a bipo lar continuum where the mid-points are different levels of integration. Chapter 2 provides us with a thorough theoretical backdrop to the empirical study to follow. It constitutes approaches from both the so cio logy and so cial psycho logy o f l a ng ua ge , t he f o rm e r o f w h ic h i s embedded in the relationships between diglossia and bilingualism, and the latter in terms of ethnolinguistic identity and vitality theories. In Chapter 3, Lewis explicitly states the studys two hypotheses: the Kiche and Spanish are not in a stable diglossic

Book Reviews
t h e m , a s w e l l as t h e l a n g u a g e maintenance data. Here in Chapter 7, we benefit from a rank ordering of the sites in terms of specified vitality profiles (and subjective vitality in terms of Paulstons dichotomy of language-group identity types). Even then though, the language data are related to the municipios by name and not to the vitality constructs just an al y s ed , m ak i ng t he w ho le s t o r y complex and confusing as ultimately acknowledged by the author (p. 239). Nonetheless , critical and fascinating findings emerge, including the fact that the youngest and oldest participants r e fl e ct t h e s t r o n g e s t l a n g u a g e maintenance indic es (and not young a d ul t s w h o n e e d t o a c co m m o d a t e l a d i n o - f av o u r i n g e co n o m i e s a nd businesses), and that a large group of Kiche speakers will converge to a lone la din o in Sp anish. M oreover, while instit utional support for this Mayan language may exist in some Kiche municipios, it appears as though eco nom ic s trengt h is necessary fo r perceptions of strong vitality. In an overview, Lewis declares that each community is a unique mix of factors that a r e m a i n t e n a n c e - s up p o r t i n g a nd maintenanceinhibiting which together establish a community-specific climate for Kiche maintenance (pp. 2401), and that t ho s e m uni cip io s w i t h t he h ig he st vitalities can be distinguished, in terms of strong language maintenance, from those with the lowest vitalities. The author ends this relatively short interpretative section of the chapter with the contention that, while some communities are adopting ladino values, they nonetheless engage in (or maybe compensate for this by) intense efforts at Kiche language loyalty a finding reminiscent of the phenomenon termed ethnic affirmation by Michael Bond (who found that when Chinese Hong Kong bilinguals were forced to use English as a mode of communication, they became more Chinese in their expressed values). This monograph is clearly an important data archive, despite the less than optimal ways in which it has been organised. We wondered how the raw data moved to the

319 kinds of statistical analyses adopted, and were looking forward to a discussion of the implications of the data, with regard to both the hypotheses and the theories that drove the investigation (as well as others p e rh ap s, s uch a s c o m mu ni ca t i o n accommodation theory). For instance, the findings suggest that Mayan language vitality may be worth sacrificing if it means greater financial gain for the individual or family. The importance of this finding is twofold: first, it highlights the strong relationship between economic vitality and overall vitality; second, in accordance with social identity theory, it demonstrates that lower-status groups, who are not cognitively aware of alternatives, will assimilate into the dominant group when given the opportunity. The dichotomy between subjective and objective vitality data appeared to us to be less than clear-cut, and the interpretation of the seven municipios vitality profiles could have benefited from (and extended) the typology introduced by Harwood, Giles and Bourhis (1994). Similarly, relating the code-mixing findings to the work of Ali Bentahila and John Gibbons would have been useful. Finally, while the study was designed to document the current state of affairs (p. 49), we wonder about its currency (some of the data were collected in the late 1970s). While reading the work demands some energy, many important findings and theoretical relationships can be found. We expect the book to be well-cited since it is unique in its theoretical eclecticism, valuable for the extent and breadth of its data, and intriguing in its choice of setting. We recommend it as an essential resource in bilin gualism and ethni c iden tity, national development and lang uage maintenance. Howard Giles and Jessica R. Abrams
Dept of Communication, University of California

Reference
Harwood, J., Giles, H. and Bourhis, R.Y. (1994) The genesis of vitality theory: Historical patterns and discoursal dimensions. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 108, 168206.

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twentieth century as the Rooseveltian nation. Other elements in TRs make-up that justify this characterisation are: his commitment to civic nationalism, which e xi ste d in uneas y ten sio n wi th his racialis m; his willing ness to use the coercive powers of the state to enlarge the possibilities for economic equality; a like willingness to use those same powers in disciplinary projects aimed at shaping p eo p l e s b e ha v io u r, es p e c ia ll y i n Americanising immigr ants; and his bellicose nature that delighted in combat and prized the intensi ty of wartime comradeship that melded men of disparate backgrounds into a powerful unity. In G e rs t le s R o o s e v el t i an n at i o n t he last-named of these elements persists, not in TRs bellicosity as such, but in the fact that up to the 1960s Americas wars functioned as cru cibles of (limited) multi-ethnic unity. In Gerstles narrative, the Rooseveltian nation takes shape in the first decades of the century. Here TR himself occupies centre stage, for he both perso nally embodied and simultaneously projected on the national scene the contradictions latent in a national identity divided against itself. Gerstle credits TR with being sincerely committed to civic nationalism, and admires his New Nationalism for its incipiently social democratic tendency. However, Roosevelts racial nationalism despite its qualified nature comes across as o v erp o wer ing the civ ic ve rsio n, e sp ecia lly in co mb inat io n wit h his a n ti -r ad i ca li s m a n d d e ma nd t h at immigrants Americanise, both of which were carried to ugly extremes by the vast disciplinary projectof World War I. In the 1920s, civic nationalism was completely swamped in the rampant racialism that brought overseas immigration to a virtual standstill, while at the same time the r e gu la t o r y fe at ur e s o f w ar t i me mobilisation (e.g. the War Industries Board), which Gerstle associates with TRs N e w N a t io na li s m , w e re r ap id ly dismantled. The Rooseveltian nation really came into its own under Franklin D. Roosevelt, a kinder, gentler nation builder than his presidential cousin. On the one hand, civic n at i o na li sm t o o k o n a p ro g re ss iv e industrial democracy coloration as a result of pressure from labour and assorted

American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century G ary G e rst l e. Pri ncet o n: Pr ince t o n University Press, 2001. Pp. xvi + 454. ISBN 0-691-04984-X (hbk): $29.95. Gary Gerstle argues in this book that two traditions of nationalism have decisively shaped American history in the twentieth century, most obviously in the areas of immigration and naturalisation law, but also in respect to policies guiding war mobilisation, the course taken by various reform movements from the Progressive Era to the present and, more broadly, in ani ma t[ing ] the nations communa l i m ag i na t io n . T he t w o ar e c iv i c nationalism and racial nationalism. The former sees the nation in ideological terms, as constituted by its commitm ent to freedo m, equality, the dignity of the individual and democratic self-government. The latter conceives o f Americ a in ethnoracial terms, as a people held together by common blood and skin color and by an inherited fitness for self-government. Civic and racial nationalism are to be understood as equally official, in the sense that both are grounded in the founding documents and in law. That is patent in the case of civic nationalism , but racia l nationalism was also inscribed in the Constitution, which endo rsed black slavery, and was encoded in a key 1790 law which restricted naturalisation to free white persons. Both forms of nationalism are likewise complex. The abstract values on which civic nationalism rests can be interpreted as justifying a wide variety of c o nc re t e p o l ic ie s . B y ch am p i o ni n g eco nomic and racial equality, ev en Communists could portray themselves as c o m m it t e d t o t w en t ie t h -ce n t ur y Americanism. Similarly, the boundaries of racial nationalism have shifted over time, and its adheren ts include some, like Theodore Roosevelt, who are willing to accept some (but not too much) hybridity (race-mixing). Roosevelts position on this question was not, in fact, unprecedented, since earlier Anglo-Saxonists also held that their incomparable race could absorb, and be enriched by, lesser strains. But for Gerstle, it is one of the features that gives Roosevelt archetypical stature and leads him to speak of the United States through most of the

Book Reviews
radicals, including Communists. On the other hand, a limite d hybridit y was realised in tha t ethn ic group s o nc e despised as racially inferior now found acceptanc e as Ameri cans. Yet racial nationalism remained very much alive, not only in the continued repression and degradation of African-Americans, but also in anti-Semitism and in the fact that Nordics remained the racial ideal in popular culture. Indeed, we learn from Gerstle that FDR became a kind of Nordic father and that, by identifying with him, anyone including Jews and Catholics could claim a vicarious Nordic ancestry! Nordics pretty much drop out of the picture in World War II, but Gerstle follows the theme of limited hybridity in a lengthy analysis of the melting pot platoon of wartime movies, in which Euro-American G.I.s perform heroically and are melded in t o a n o v e r ar ch in g w hi t e ne s s . U nh yb ri d is e d r a ci al na t io na li s m continued to dictate segregation in the ar m ed fo r ce s, an d i ns p i re d t h e incarceration of Japanes e-Ameri cans (about which Gerstle has surprisingly little to say, although he stresses anti-Asian racism in discussing immigration and naturalisation policy). However, the s ubt l e re i nv i go ra t io n o f r ac ia l nationalism was largely overlooked at the time because the need to counter Nazi racism produced a systematic campaign to popularise the finding that, scientifically sp ea k in g, ra ce w as a m y t h. T h e theoretical discrediting of racial thinking meshed with an even more ma ssiv e rhetorical campaign exalting the values America stands for tolerance, freedom, equality, democra cy: in sh ort, civic nationalism. The wartime reinforcement of both civic and racial nationalism set the stage for a violent collision between the two. Thanks to the Cold War, no such collision took place for two decades, during which time the nation was in flux. Civic nationalism fuelled the civil-rights movement into the mid-1960s, but it (civic nationalism) was distorted by an obsession with the menace of C ommunis m, whi ch Americans mistakenly, Gerstle seems to think regarded as incompatible with the nations fo undat ional princip les. Excep t fo r southern white resistance to civil rights and integration, explicit racial nationalism

321 w as ha rd t o fi n d. T ru e, t h e M cC arr an-W alt e r Act , p a sse d o ve r President Trumans veto in 1952, preserved the racially inspired national origins quotas in immigration but, as Gerstle points out, it also removed the absolute prohibition on Asian immigration and the existing ban on the naturalisation of Asian immigrants. The contradictions inhere nt in the Rooseveltian nation finally produced its predestined crack-up in the late 1960s. The proximate causes were twofold. First, African-American militants, convinced that white racism was end emic and ineradicable, rejected the civic nationalist premises of the civil-rights movement and embraced black nationalism which, as Gerstle describes it, does not seem to be a form of racial nationalism, although he does not explain why it isnt. Secondly, the Vietnam War, attended by atrocities in the field and mendacity at the highest levels of go v er nm e n t , c aus e d w i de s p r ea d questioning of the nations commitment to its noble ideals, and led a radical minority to charge that the American Creed was nothing more than a cynical smokescreen for racial and economic oppression. Acting together, these forces brought o n a profound crisis in the realm of ideology, culture, and institutions that left many of the countrys residents feeling that they no longer belonged to the same national community or shared a common set of ide als. Th at marke d the end of the Rooseveltian nation. The quarter-century since it ended in bitterness and demoralisation Gerstle covers in an epilogue. Here he deals with multiculturalism (of several types), the reassertion of old-fashioned Americanism (including encoded racism) under Ronald Reagan, the culture wars and the recent effort by liberal theorists to articulate a form of civic nationalism that would be both tolerant of difference and generative of social solidarity. Gerstle is sceptical about achieving this newly chastened civic nationalism, but he concludes soberly that w e sh o u ld n ev e r t he l es s la bo r t o strengthen the civic component of our nationhood... There is much to admire in the book. It is imaginatively researched and gracefully written; the notes provide an excellent guide to the scholarly literature, and the

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they now receive such great emphasis. One obvious reason is that the civil-rights m o ve m e nt a n d b l ack n at i o n al i sm sensit ised Americans to race and its pernicious role in our national life. What is not so obvious is that the effort to overcome the damage done by racism had the unintended effects of rehabilitating race as a social concept and bestowing on it a largely unacknowledged legitimacy as a guide to social policy. Affirmative action played the crucial role here, for it not only strengthene d the corporate identity of groups benefiting from the policy (as Gerstle acknowledges), it also made race the key factor in determining what groups would be deemed eligible to receive those benefits (a fact not noted by Gerstle). As a result of these developments, racial thinking and racial classification loom larger today in social commentary and historical analysis than they have at any time since the 1920s. In the case at hand, one would have to go back to Madison Grants The Passing of the Great Race (1916) to find Nordics featured as prominently as they are in Gerstles chapter on the New Deal Era. True, the animus behind his usage differs from Grants by 180 degrees, but language has a way of getting beyond w h a t i t s us e rs in t e nd , a n d t he contemporary prevalence of racial talk, even in so impressive a book as this one, has troubling potentialities. Philip Gleason
Department of History, University of Notre Dame

illustrations are numerous, well chosen and have substantial captions that enrich the authors argument an argument only the starkest outlines of which are sketched in the preceding summary. The book p erforms a valuable, if pain ful and disturbing , service in showing how persistent white racism has been, what subtle forms it takes, and how it can be detected below the surface in otherwise admirable movements and epochs. And it is certainly to Gerstles credit that he recognises the reality of a countervailing tradition, and attempts to do justice to Americans commitment to the nations high ideals. Yet Gerstle is himsel f too much a p roduct o f the gene ratio n that lost confidence in the American Creed to do full justice to it. Despite his effort to be fair, racial nationalism gets much the most sp ace in his narr at ive, engages his analytical powers most urgently, and comes across to the reader as the dominant partner in Americas national identity. For that reason, the book takes its place, albeit a r e la t i ve l y m o d e ra t e p la ce , in t he historiographic literature of racialisation, by which I mean the tendency of many scholars over the past ten years or so to see race and racism as the key interpretive categories in understanding the American past. W itho ut den ying tha t these ugly realities are indeed important features of the American story, and that they affected national development in ways previously unremarked, one may still inquire why

Botswana: The Future of the Minority Languages Herman M. Batibo and Birgit Smieja (eds). New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Pp. xxiv + 292. ISBN 0-8204-4381-6 (pbk): $47.95. This book addresses a subject that is enjoying enhanced interest in the Southern African region. This is partly the result of the decision by South Africa, in its post-apartheid democratic dispensation, to break the regional mould by giving eleven languages official status. By so doing, South Africa has challenged notions that were previously hegemonic in the region, such as the one nation = one language equation, and the fear that enhancing the

status and use of minority languages will endanger national unity. In their introduction, the editors outline three aims: to provide information about s o c io li n gui s t ic an d re l at e d i s su es regarding the mino rity languages of Botswana; to provide facts about, and chart future trends of, minority languages in order to sensitise the public and relevant authorities about the issues involved (p.xiii); to assist decision-makers. They also note that six key issues arise from the contributions to the volume: linguistic domination as an historical legacy; the marginalisation of minority languages; o v er -subsc rip t io n t o S et sw ana and English; the tendency towards language

Book Reviews
shift and death; the language conflict situation; the growing awareness towards self-determination. These issues all relate to the political situation historical and contemporary that ha s giv en rise t o the besieged co ndition of minority languages in Botswana. In this regard, it is unfortunate that the volume does not contain a discrete, comprehensive exposition and analysis of the roots and contours of language policy in B o t s w an a. W h i le m o s t o f t h e contributions refer in some way or other to t he p o li t i ca l p ro g r am m e o f w h i ch single-track promotion of Setswana as national language (alongside English as official language) is an essential part, few deal directly with the nature, causes and wider results of the programme. For instance, the chapter by Sommer and Vossen (Language Gain and Language Lo ss : T he S p re a d o f Se t s w an a i n Ngamiland) records the promotion and spread of Setswana in a fairly neutral manner. By way of example, they say: from the end of the nineteenth century at the latest, when Setswana was introduced as the major language in administration, church services and schools, its influence as a medium of communication increased continuously t o t he ex t e n t t h at by no w t h e expansion of Setswana has reached all geogra phic corners of, and social levels in, Ngamiland (p. 130) T he p as s iv e v o ic e e l id e s a ge nc y, sugge sting a natural process. Thi s cautious tone is true of most of the other p a p e rs i n t h e bo o k . H o w e v e r, N ya t i- Ra m ah o b o s co n t r ib ut i o n (Linguistic and Cultural Domination: The Case of the Wayeyi of Botswana) is an exception. In the introduction, the author states that the story of the Wayeyi is therefore about the struggle for their total being. It has always had a linguistic, cultural, socio-economic and political dimension to it (p. 217). Nyati-Ramahobo is trenchant in concluding that: our democracy will continue to be defined in terms of the acceptance of Tswanadom by n o n -Se t s w an aspeaking tribes. Minority languages will continue to be suppressed in our

323 democracy. The rights of minority children and adults to learn in their la ng uages and access important messages such as HIV/AIDS in their languages will continue to be denied (p. 231) The book has four substantive sections History and Location, Patterns of Language Use and Attitudes to Change, D e sc r ib i ng D e v el o p m e nt s : F ut u re Chances for Minority Languages and Applied Linguistics for Education and Language Policy. There are two chapters in the first section in which political and policy matters could have been dealt with comprehensively. Jansons contribution (The History of Min ority-Lang uage Sp eake rs in Bo t sw ana ) p ro v ide s a succinct survey of the movements and historical locations of Khoesan-speaking and Bantu-speaking minority groups w h i l e , u n fo rt un a t e l y , n o t d i r e ct l y addressing the issues of how they came to be su pp r ess ed un der a p o l icy t hat advances English and Setswana almost e x cl us i v el y . H as s el b ri n g s ch ap t e r (Where are the Khoesan of Botswana?) presen ts a classification of Khoesan languages, together with an account of the culture and economic activities of the speakers of these languages, as well as observations on domains of use and language vitality. There are five chapters in the second section. Two address issues specific to p a rt i cu la r l an gu ag e gr o up s: T h e Shek galagadi Struggle for Survival: Aspects of Language Maintenance and Sh if t (b y L uk us a) an d T h e Socio-Linguistic Survey of the Eastern Khoe in the Boteti and Makgadigadi Pans Areas o f Bot swana (by Batibo and Mosaka). The former shows that there are only about ten to fifteen thousand speakers of Shekgalagadi among a total population of about 1.5 million. One of the main conclusions is that Shekgalagadi is under intense pressure from Setswana, because of both practical and political reasons. In fact, the author concludes that the language risks becoming completely extinguished or dead in the long run (p.76). The chapter by Batibo and Mosaka shows that speakers of Eastern Khoe languages seven or eight languages, depending on classification mainly inhabit a vast area of about 77,000

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development by a practitioner who has a p p ro ach ed t he t ask wi th p a ssi o n, commitment and expertise, together with a holistic perspective on the relationship between language and development. The c ha p t e r n ar r at e s a n d p r o m o t e s a c o m p r eh e ns i v e p r o g ra m m e fo r revitalising Khoesan languages, one that is guided by a number of principles, which include support(ing) attempts to develop the general living conditions of San people a holistic approach (p. 201). The second part of Vissers chapter recounts the project to strengthen the Naro language at DKar in the Ghanzi district of Botswana. Visser also provides answers to the question of w h y a t t en t io n sh o u ld b e g iv e n t o marginalised languages. For instance, he observes that providing a written form to a language opens the way for them [the speakers of the language] to learn the skills of reading and writing, which in turn opens the way to development (p. 204). He also states that by receiving their own dictionary, the Naro people felt that they had become members of the human race. So by giving them their dictionary, we could rekindle a sense of dignity for the Naro (p. 205). T he co nt ribut io n by Bie sele an d Hitchcock(Ju|hoan-language Education in Namibia and its Relevance for Minority-Language Education in Botswana) also provides an account of a practical project of language developmen t and rev italisa tion in a marginalised community. This chapter contains a wealth of experience together with reflections on experience. The final chapter in the volume, Strouds An A pp lied Linguist ics A pp ro ach to a Politics of La nguage Revitalisa tion, offers a number of reflections on the wider context in which language issues in m ar gin ali se d c omm uni ti es are embedded. Stroud says that r evital isa ti on is perh aps b est approached as a medium and a tool for socio-political transformation (p. 281). As a number of the contributions to this volume demonstrate, academics are good at analysing so me of t he effect s o f suppression and marginalisation, but, for obvious reasons, rather shy when it comes to addressing socio-political issues and transformation. The book is technically well-produced and generally well-edited,

square kilometres. During the twentieth century, their lifestyle changed completely from hunting-gathering to a sedentary one. They are now poor and marginalised. One of the conclusions is that there are high risk s of langu age dea th bec ause no younger people are prepared to learn the language, and the government has no program for promotion of the Khoe languages (p. 91). Like Shekgalagadi, the Eastern Khoe languages are under intense pressure from Setswana, the proclaimed national language. It is useful here to pause and ask a q ue s t i o n t h a t m u s t u n d e r l i e a l l investigations into the co nd ition o f minority languages. That question is: Why bother? Would it not be more efficient and cost-effective if minority languages died out completely? Two contributions in the second section of the volume provide a partial answ er to this questi on. The chapter by Batibo and Mosaka (Linguistic Barriers as a Hindrance to Information Flow: The Case of Botswana) concludes that, in the case of speakers of minority languages: the lack of proper comprehension of t he nat ional messages no t o nly alienates them from the mainstream of national activities but also puts them in great risk of being left behind when i m p o r t a nt an n o un ce m en t s o r instructions are given by government or other agencies (p. 101) The next chapter, Future Trends in the Media: Destiny of Minority Languages (by Mathangwane and Smieja), notes that although a hi gh perc entage of thei r resp ondents would prefer the use of Setswana and English on radio, as well as on television and in the written media, a significant proportion would prefer that other ethnic languages of Botswana are also used on the radio (p. 124). This, say the a ut h o r s, w o u ld ad v an ce be t t e r communication, as well as promote pride in all the people of this country and result in national pride and equality (p. 124). In this section, there is a significant chapter by Visser, entitled Language and Cultural Empowerment of the Khoesan People: The Naro Experien ce . It is significant because it is an account of a practical project in language and cultural

Book Reviews
in a readable and accessible format. It is a valuable addition to the subject of minority languages in Southern Africa, with resonances in similar contexts elsewhere.

325 With the reservations noted here, the book substantially fulfils the aims of the editors. Brian Harlech-Jones
Department of English, University of Namibia (brianhj@iafrica.com.na)

Lang uage Revitalisation: Policy and Planning in Wales C. H. Williams (ed.). Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. Pp. xviii + 388. ISBN 0-7083-1667-0 (hbk): 35. This book consists of a collection of papers, most of which have previously existed as reports of one kind or another. Their presentation as a book leaves one with the feeling of a sloppiness which could have been remedied by a more careful and constructive rewriting and editing; there ar e n um e ro u s ca se s o f r e p e at e d information throughout the volume and there is little continuity in the different presentations. The destinataire would appear to be from Wales since there is consider able reference to specialised knowledge associated with that country; in fact, both the authors and their exemplars refer primarily to south Wales. Th e contributors include several academics who have made important contributions to official language planning activity in Wales in recent years, and others whose link with this process is more tangential. The book also includes the statement of the W e ls h La ng ua ge B o ar d ab o ut i t s philosophy and practice. (I have written elsewhe re an exha ustive critique of language planning in Wales [Williams & Morris, 1999]. This review will seek to open new avenues of debate.) It is axiomatic that any planning activity m us t b e fo un de d u p o n a cl ea r understanding of how that which is being planned operates, and how it is likely to operate in the future. For la ng uage planning this means that its prerequisite must involve some theoretical concern with social and economic change. In this volume, this is missing , restricted or insufficiently thought through. Only a m in o r it y o f t h e aut h o r s h av e a social-science backgro und, and their contributions tend to be descriptive rather than analytical. Among those who do introduce a conceptual framework there

are two primary influences Fishmans work on reversing language shift, which is used as a mechanical framework for operation, and the entire rhet oric of neo-liberalism which is currently driving political practice in the UK. This generates profound problems which tend to be overlooked or not recognised by the various contributors. T he co n se q ue n ce s a re se v e ra l. Adopting the neo-liberal discourse where the focus is on devolving responsibility and accountability to an empowered individual or community leads to the absence of reference to the social and to any conception of social theory. On the other hand, Fishmans work acts as a surrogate for theory in several of the papers, so that concepts tend not to be contextualised, and there is a strange interplay between neo-liberal structures and functionalist action. The net effect is a highly descriptive approach that is strong on information, but weak on interpretation and reflection. More importantly, the focus of struggle is a reified Language divorced from the social and the political; there is an inability to transform a language struggle into a political one. Thus it is hardly surprising that, despite the neo-liberal rhetoric, there is a complete lack of awareness that the emphasis on empowerment and the rolling back of the state mean that rights of the earlier liberal discourse can no longer exist. It is customary to encounter two different discourses on minority language groups. The first involves a representation of autochthonous groups which have rights that derive from autochthony which are not recognised by the state. This failure is presented as an outrage and as the consequence of an oppressive state which consciously represses the language groups: t he s o lu t io n i nv o l v e s e m p o w e r in g sp ea k er s o f t he la ng ua ge , t he r eb y liberating them from the influence of the state. The second involves a representation of a changing context within which there is a need to introduce structures which will

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customary survey research which operates deductively in linking theory to concepts a n d m ea s ur es . In t h e s a me w ay , unqualified assumptions are made about the relationship among (for example) language, culture and identity, without referenc e to how these concepts are c o n st r uc t ed by t he i r d i sc ip li na ry meta-discourses. This results in naive statements of the I speak Welsh, therefore I am Welsh type. The one contributor who cannot be accused of avoiding concepts is the editor, who contributes about a third of the volume. However, his use of concepts does not appear to have been carefully thought through. There is a theoretical eclecticism which results in concepts deriving from different theoretical problematics sitting uncomfortably side by sid e static, functionalist concepts such as domain n e x t to t h e d y na m ic c o n ce p t o f reproduction, a reference to ideology alongside reference to discourse or values, concepts that display an awareness of so cial process to ge ther with hi ghly conspiratorial claims. He does refer to various models and typologies, but these merely add to the descriptive as opposed to analytic thrust of the work. The main weakness here, as with all of the papers, involves a failure to treat the language g r o up as a s o c ia l gr o up , w i t h t he consequence that description prevails. The tendency to focus on the language group with a limited reference to the overarching normative order, and the place of social groups in that order, c o nt r ib ut es to a n um be r o f hi gh ly significant silences, the most significant of which involves race/racism. Given that ethnicity has been constructed in the social sciences as deviation from the normative, and that race legislation has given way to statements about ethnicity rather than race, this silence may well derive from the desire ( me nt i o n ed a bo v e ) t o ma ke W el s h normal. Whatever the reason, it results in ignoring the fundamental issue for all stateless language groups how can a minority on the margins of the normative order reproduce itself without excluding and offending other social groups? It is impossible for a language group to exist outside of the normative order, and therefore its constituent members must be part of a plethora of social groups and not

g ua ra nt e e t h e r ep ro d uc t io n o f t he lang uage groups within a univ ersal conception of diversity for everyone. The most predominant discourse in thi s volume is the first, but there are also elements of the second to be found. The representation of the language group as an oppressed entity involves constructing the relationship between the subject (Welsh speaker) and the object (the Welsh language) in such a way that any value associated with the language accrues to the speakers and not to the world. This means that it is not possible to locate the language within the normative order. This is nowhere clearer than in the use, or p er h ap s m i s us e, o f o n e co n ce p t normalising. It is a tendency which appears to have derived from the concept of normalisacion widely used in Catalunya and the Basque country. It involves a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of normativity. It has relevance for the one single concept which almost all of the contributors freely use domain. It can be argued that, at its origin, domain referred to language use as institutionalised social practice, that is, to behaviour that was taken for granted to the extent that it was not reflected upon. This normativity refers to stabilised discourses which the social actor does not and cannot reflect upon. In this respect it is the exact converse of the use of normalising in this volume where it is meant as making the use of Welsh in this or that setting normal. While there is nothing wrong in using it as a concept, it should be grounded in a theoretical and philosophical awareness that allows it to establish meaning by reference to what the discourse is striving to achieve. At present it exists merely as a manifest expression of a desirable goal, rat he r t han as an operational concept. The other cause for concern is the tendency to develop a highly simplistic model of change based on the claim that changing attitudes leads to changing behaviour; this can only be accounted for by a lack of knowledge of the relevant disciplin es. In this res pect the cited literature is very narrow, focusing on the parochial and/or the sociolinguistic. This is also true of much of the survey work which is cited, and whi ch is almost e x c lu si v e ly b as e d o n k no w l e dg e / d a t a-g at h e ri ng r at h e r t h an o n t he

Book Reviews
simply members of a particular language group. We are rapidly moving into a new normative order related to a new form of society the information society and a new form of economy the knowledge economy. Token reference is made to this in the volume but the enormity of the change and its consequences for all social groups is not grasped. New spaces are opening up for diversity, but within an in clusive social and p olitic al order. Industrial-age discourses, particularly the various disciplinary meta-discourses, are inadequate for understanding this change. There is the danger of a failure on the part of language groups to realise that they must move beyond ensuring the entry of the minority language into regional labour market by ensuring that the space is develo ped within the New Economy which results in the benefits of language

327 exploitation accruing to everyone, and not merely to those who speak that language. These are the issues confronting language planni ng toda y. Unfortunately, thi s v o l um e be t ra ys a n i n ab il i t y t o accommodate the challenges of the Old Economy, let alone to confront the New Economy; there is the very real danger that Welsh will remain rooted in the former as it becomes the source of displaced labour for the latter. Welsh must belong to the world and not merely to those who speak it. Glyn Williams
Ynys Mon, Wales, (sos004@bangor.ac.uk)

Reference
Willi am s, G . and M o rris, D. (1999) Language Planning and Language Use: Welsh in a Global Age. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Principles of Linguistic Change (Volume 2): Social Factors William Labov. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Pp. xviii + 572. ISBN 0-631-17915-1 (hbk): 60.00/$74.95. ISBN 0-631-17916-X (pbk): 19.99/$34.95. William Labov, perhaps the best known sociolinguist in the world today, has been co ncerne d wit h issues of linguistic variation and change for almost forty years. From the start, Labovs work has broken new ground, both in the conception of linguistic change and variation, and in methodology. Simply put, his research has define d and bro ught l ife to a now extremely healthy discipline. It is almost impossible to imagine what this area would be like without the inspiration of Labov. The book under review is the second of a three-part series, the general title of which is Principles of Linguistic Change. The first volume of the series (Internal Factors, 1994) won the Leonard Bloomfield Book Award of the Linguistic Society of America in 1997; the current one is Social Factors and the third (forthcoming) is Cognitive Factors. In the first book, Labov studied the linguistic, or language-internal, principles that govern language change including ch ai n s hi ft s , m e rg e rs , s p l i t s an d near-mergers . In this second one, he

concentrates on the social location of the innovators of change, including the role of factors such as socioeconomic class, ne ighb o urho o d a nd ge nde r. Lab ov promises that the third volume will examine cross-dialect comprehension, acquisition and the place of inherent variability and competing grammars. In the 1960s, Labov began a study of v ar ia t i o n i n En gl i sh as s p o k e n i n Philadelphia, and has since pursued this both on his own and through the work of his many students. He says that in this volume, I have tried to use every available resource of sociolinguistic research and analysis to ill umin ate long-standi ng problems of linguistic change (p. 519). The book is based largely on the study of Philadelphia English, using data from both a t el e p ho ne s ur v ey a nd p er so na l interviews. Throughout the volume, the conclusions based on the Philadelphia study are reinfo rc ed and deepened through a telephone survey of North America as a whole, as well as through studies done worldwide to further test the Philadelphia results. The book is divided into four major sections. Dealing initially with the speech co m m un i t y, L ab o v be gi n s w i t h a discussion of what he calls the Darwinian Paradox the evolution of species and the evolution of language are identical in form,

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change are, generally, in the central section of the socioeconomic hiera rchy, with skilled workers ahead of the unskilled and the unemployed. The women who lead linguistic change have respected social and economic positions in their local networks. They are those women who show a higher degree of social interaction on their block and have a greater proportion of friends and acquaintances outside the block. And they are women who are nonconformist with respect to norms, stable linguistic variables and stigmatised variables as well. In this part of the book, Labov provides ske tche s of a number of the people involved in the Philadelphia study , sketches that bring the study alive; he also tests his hypotheses about leaders by looking at linguistic change in a number of other communities around the world. In the final section of the book, Labov e x a m in e s i ss ue s o f t r an s m is s io n , incrementation and continuation. He states a general condition for linguistic change: children must learn to talk differently from their mothers, and these differences must be in the same direction in each succeeding g e ne r at i o n ). H o w t hi s v e r na cul a r r e o r ga ni sa t i o n t a k es p l ac e i s t he transmission problem. Labov found that in the pre-adolescent and adolescent years, children reorganise their vernacular, with girls in the lead. The incrementa tion problem involves the step-by-step nature o f ling uistic change . Fina lly, Labov examines the continuation problem, or why changes continue over time and in the same direction. He develops models for change that take into account these various factors. Labov concludes with two majo r principles of linguistic change. First is what he terms the Nonconformity Principle: ongoing linguistic changes are emblematic of nonconformity to established social norms of appropriate behaviour, and are generated in the social milieu that most consistently defies those norms. Second is the Constructive Nonconformity Principle: linguistic changes are generalised to the wider community by those who display the symbols of nonconformity in a larger p at t ern o f up w ard mo bi lit y. T hese principles, Labov argues, provide an a cc o un t fo r t h e t r an s m is s io n , incrementation and continuation problems and, more gene rally, for his overall

although their fundamental causes are completely different. In particular, he r a is e s t he i m p o r t an t i s su e o f t he non-adaptability of sound change. He asks, if there is no adaptive radiation in language, and no natural selection, what then are the fundamental causes of sound change? (p. 15). Because structural factors in language and social factors are distinct from one another, it is possible to study them independently ; the goal of this volume is to examine the latter. Following this introduction, Labov outlines the study of linguistic change and variation carried out in Philadelphia, discussin g sampling techn iques, the neighbourhood survey and the telephone survey. He then goes on to present the specific lingu istic variables that were examined in the survey, including many that have become well-known in the literature, including the variable (dh) and the Philadelphia vowel system. Data were collected to allow the study of class, style, age, social-network and gender influence, and the survey was carried out in several neighbourhoods of Philadelphia. H av i ng e st abl is he d th e re le v ant linguistic variables, the second part of the book (on social class, gender, neighbourhood and ethnicity) focuses on these social variables, and the third part examines what characterises the leaders of linguistic change. These two parts occupy the largest portion of the book. Basically, the findings in the Philadelphia study reported in the second part of the book are as follows. Ethnicity had little effect on change in progress, while gender, age and social class are important factors. With respect to gender, Labov formulates what he calls the gender paradox: women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly prescribed, but less when they are not. He argues that women are the primary transmitters of linguistic change, and that the trajectories of change for women and men will be different. For instance, women adopt new prestige features more quickly than do men and react more against the use of stigmatised ones. While the second section of the book establishes that women are the leaders in linguistic change, the third investigates more deeply just what it is that defines a leader. Labov proposes that leaders of

Book Reviews
findings. He has shown, he concludes, that this outline of the social motivation of linguistic change is a model of change from below, originating within the linguistic and social system (p. 518). This volume pulls together Labovs extensive work on the social factors in language change. While much of the content here has been published already, both by Labov and many others, the book still make s en grossing reading , and provides a depth that is almost impossible in journal articles. There is much to learn from it, both in terms of what has been done and the kind of questions that remain unanswered. One cannot help but be impressed by Labovs contribution to the understanding of language variation and language change. He intrigues the reader by setting out a series of problems and paradoxes, and by showing how answers to one problem lead to questions that one could not have conceived of in advance. He is clear about what comes from within a language and what is driven from without.

329 This is a book that anyone interested in social factors in language change will want to read. It will also be of interest to many others than sociolinguists (I for one am not a sociolinguist, but I am pleased to have had the opportunity to read this book): the Labovian paradigm has found its way into a wide array of research areas, including p h o ne t i cs , p ho n o l o g y, s yn t ax an d second-language acquisition. Labovs influence on the study of social factors in language change can be compared with Chomskys on the study of syntactic structure. Simply put, one cannot imagine what these fields would be like without the impact of these two. Labov, like Chomsky, has defined a field, has trained many of the major players in the field today, and continues to ask questions that lead the resea rch. He will leave a remarkable legacy, one that is likely to influence the directions of study for some time to come. Keren Rice
Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto (rice@chass.utoronto.ca)

English in Cameroon Hans-Georg Wolf. Berlin: Mouton de G ruyt er, 2001. Pp . x ii + 35 9. ISB N 3-11-017053-1 (hbk): DM 165. This book is an extensive sociohistorical and sociolinguistic study of the Englishes spoken in bi/multilingual Cameroon, and a signi ficant contributio n to W orld Englishes, sociolinguistics and African studies. It is also an eloquent account of the coexistence of English and French in a post-colonial context, and of English indigenisation in a multilingual African country. In Chapter 1, Wolf presents the main focus of his study, a critical analysis of the status, role and varieties of English spoken in Cameroon. He also presents a theoretical critique pointing to the limitations of positivist methodologies in explaining phenomena such as linguistic variation an d l in gu is t i c p o w e r. W o lf us e s a cultural-model approach to study English in Cameroon; by so doing, he is able to analyse Cameroon English from a dynamic and multi-dimensional perspective. Chapter 2 deals with English in West Africa. W o lf demo nstrate s t hat the

situation of English in countries such as Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria is different than in Cameroon, for both sociohistorical and cultural reasons. In these settings, English was introduced in the nineteenth century by British colonists and by former slaves from Americ a. Therefore, two native varieties of Standard Englis h (Americ an and British) were introduced in West Africa; no other European language played a significant role in this region during that period. These varieties were nativised or Africanised t hr o ug h co n t ac t w it h in d ig e no u s languages, as a result of which new non-western varieties of English emerged. In all these former British colonies, English became the official language of the newly independent states; none of the indigenous languages was elevated to this rank. Consequently, English became the most powerful language of these countries except in Cameroon, where French is dominant. Chapter 3 is the heart of the book: here, Wolf analyses English in Cameroon in historical perspective. While the country is a creation of German colonists, the author argues that contemporary Cameroonian

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education, Cameroon English is mainly spoken by the lites, Pidgin by the masses. Wolf points out that the former is more widely intelligible; due to its use in formal domains, its lingu istic structure and lexicon are closer to native varieties of Standard English, in spite of the cultural p ar t ic ul ar i t ie s b ro ug ht ab o ut by francisation and Africanisation. On the other hand, Pidgin English is not globally i nt ell igib le, becaus e o f t he i nte nse creolisatio n o f Eng lish and African languages. Wolf devotes chapters four and five to a systematic analysis of Cameroon English in order to demonstrate its differentiation from West African English and other western standards. He shows that it has been defined by two main factors its use in a mostly Bantu linguistic and cultural environment, and the presence of French as the dominant official language. In general, Wolf has provided a new and fresh analysis of a variety of English in a non-western setting. He urges us to depart from the use of Eurocentric and positivist approaches, he warns against devaluing indigenised standards and he encourages sociolinguistics to include culture in any study of language variation. Wolfs study is also helpful with regard to t he teaching o f English. C urrently, contrastive analysis dominates in African secondary education and the influence of African languages on nativised standards is viewed negatively. Therefore, most ESL programmes focus on correcting this problem. Wolf invites us to see more positively and naturally the influence of African languages, and to teach English f ro m a cr o s s- cul t ur al a nd g lo b al perspective. Whil e Wolfs study has provided a very thorough analysis of English in Cameroon, his work would have been less anglocentric and more balanced if he had included a succinct analysis of Francophone Cameroonians perceptions of English and anglophones. As more emphasis was given to the relationship between English and French, this would have provided a more comprehensive assessment of the situation of English. Hassana Alidou
Texas A & M University, USA (halidou@tamu.edu)

language policy is mostly shaped by Frenc h and Br itish colonisation. He emphasises British and French language policies and their impact on the current role and status of English (in both standard and non-standard varieties). According to Wolf, German and British colonists did not i n v es t a de q ua t el y i n ed uc at i o n i n Cameroon; indeed, they relied on the private sector and missionary groups to promote education and their languages. U n fo r t un at e l y, m is s io n a ri es a n d busine ssmen used more indigen ous l a ng ua ge s fo r ev a ng e li s at i o n a n d commerce. And German lost ground after the war, when Germany had to give up its former African territories. France has never stopped its linguistic and cultural expansion. With political independence, Cameroon opted for state bilingualism, but the successive elections of two Francophone presidents with strong ties to France and francophonie reinforced the intense francisation of Cameroonian s o c io p o l it i ca l a nd e co n o m i c li fe . Francophone Cameroonians occupy more prominent positions in government and Frenc h is the dominant language of administrat io n and edu cat io n. This s i t ua t io n ha s t ri g ge re d a s e ri o u s sociocultural, economic and political division among Cameroonians. The supremacy of francophones has i n fl ue nc ed t h e e m er ge n ce o f a n anglophone speech community. Indeed, Cameroonians who have English as their primary official language clearly define themselves as members of a particular s p e e ch co m m un i t y. D i v er se ethnolinguistic groups have consciously minimised or ignored their linguistic diversity in order to resist the dominance of French and its speakers. Interestingly, anglophone Cameroonians not only claim English as their own, they also use it to differentiate themselves politically and c ul tu ra ll y fr o m t h ei r Fr an co p h o ne counterparts. The anglophone speech community can be defined as a nationalist movement characterised by the use of Standard Cameroon English and Pidgin English the former is learned mostly in school, whereas the latter is acquired as a lingua franca mainly in urban and rural settings. A s a v e r y l im i t e d n um b er o f Cameroonians has had access to formal

Book Reviews
On Immigration and Refugees Michael Dummett. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. Pp. xiv + 160. ISBN 0-415-22708-9 (pbk): 7.99/$12.95. Although written before the events of the summer of 2001, Sir Michael Dummetts On Immigration and Refugees offers a prescient and well thought-out look at the challenges that face Britain and the world in light of tensions over immigration and race in the era of the Bradford, Oldham a n d B ur n l e y r i o t s . A n a cc l a i m e d p h il o s o p he r a n d r ig o r o u s s ch o l ar , Dummet t presents his concerns in a m a n n e r i n t e n d e d t o b e c l e a r a nd accessible to the layperson, positioning himself as one of those rare individuals deserving to be called a public intellectual. His approach is that of a passionate advo cate who uses straightforward philosophical arguments, not only to bring this most important issue to his readers attention, but also to offer criticisms and suggestions that allow one to see the potential for a better future. Coming from a political philosophy background, and with a long interest in racial issues, Dummett begins his book by setting the intellectual groundwork for the debate. He tackles head-on many of the longstanding rightist arguments regarding im m i gr an t s . T h ro u gh de ft an d straightforward logic, Dummett considers the concern expressed over immigrants overwhelming a host nation. What makes this a particularly adroit discussion is the manner in which he gives credence to the concern while denying its validity. Thus, even accepting the states responsibility to protect against such a wave, Dummett sees t ha t o nl y t h e ra p i d a nd ma s si v e immigration characteristic of intentional large-scale movements from metropolis to p e ri p h er y , r e m in is ce n t o f co l o n ia l strategies, might bring about such an eventuality. Otherwise, the movement of new peoples is merely a part of the perpetual shifts that make cultures rich and changing. The author also parries concerns over multiplying nation-states and demands for self-government by illuminating democracy as not merely majority rule, but also minority respect. The result is a demand that the calamitous imp act o f m ajo rity op inio n up on a min ority pop ula tion be of foremost

331 importance, rather than a facile idea of democracy. D um m et t s e x p l o r at i o n o f t h e relationship among the state, its citizens and potential refugees and immigrants begins with a controversial assumption, that each state ought to admit those who seek to enter its territory unless one of the exceptional circumstances that would justify a refusal applies (p. 53). He goes to some length to theorise this starting-point, noting that it is not the states responsibility to facilitate such a movement, nor should a government be allowed to make such movement impo ssible. Thi s tensio n between the states sovereign right to control borders and its responsibility to citizens of the nation and of the world is a dialogue that resurfaces throughout the book. In making his argument, Dummett draws from UN documents, discussions of human rights and the writings of Pope John XXIII. These sources and illustrations are a rare and welc ome addition to Dummetts own internal logic and allow the reader to connect the philosophical argument of the book with current events. With the imperative of entrance as a ba ck gr o u nd , D um m et t p re s en t s well-crafted refutations to some of the most common concerns about immigration. In addition to the previously mentione d criticism of submergence theory, the book considers the destination of most asylum seekers and refugees. Despite what public media may suggest, the vast majority of migrants at risk end up, not in western countries, but in neighbouring locations in which they often face hardships and persecution similar to those in the land from which they flee. These arguments might suggest that any anti-immigrant legislation is then the result of ignorance rather than intent; conversely, Dummett points to some of the strategies used by European politicians (and I would suggest these arguments are also seen in North American contexts) to perpetuate an atmosp he re in which refugees are largely discouraged, if not outright attacked. It is in seeing through these arguments that Dummett offers his readers strategies for vocal participation in advocacy of immigrant rights. Cutting to the core issue, he writes, the principal ac t ua l m o t i v at i o n fo r e x cl us io ni st immigration policies is, of course, racial

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the claims that a strong and stringent immigration control is the one essential step to ensure good race relations (p. 102). One of his most compelling discussions is of the malleability of public opinion, whereby he refutes the claim that attitudes towards immigrants and racial minorities are deeply seated and thus difficult to change. As he demonstrates even in the short period addressed by his history attitudes towards others have changed, even if in rhetoric alone and, if this is possible, what other gains might be achievable given the political will? The small percentage of human beings who travel across the world to take up a home in another country suggests that those who do must have highly compelling reasons. In the end, Dummett suggests that states alone are insufficiently motivated and equipped to deal with the concerns of immigrants and refugees, calling for an international body which might make the refoulement principle more than mere rhetoric and instead make new homes possible for those who face threat. On Immigration and Refugees is a bold book, setting out with a mandate to illustrate the challenges of a divisive and complex issue for a lay audience, yet with a rigorous philosophical background. Dummetts considerable intellectual skills and perhaps more importantly his passion for the subject are conveyed in this wide-ranging work. Although at times lacking in some of the detail and examples that have the potential to both engage and alienate readers, the book addresses an issue that should trouble us. Of particular value is the authors willingness to confront directly the claims of those who would oppose him. His sometimes rambling style and lack of reference to other scholarship may frustrate an academic audience, but this is not the constituency that Dummett is most eager to convince. This is a remarkable book, both for its boldness in taking on the racist origins of exclusionary practices, and for addressing its attack to a wide public audience. One can only hope that Dummetts book receives more attention than the current Americ an best-seller focusing on immigration: Pat Buchanans The Death of the West. Heather Hindman
University of Chicago, USA hhindman@midway.uchicago.edu

prejudice, or sometimes more general prejudice against foreigners (p. 58). Yet, this is not the end of the story, but its beginning, for Dummett illustrates the ways in which both political elites and the common individual are able to skirt the racial dimensions of the dilemma. With a states primary respo ns ib ility to its citizens, some argue that their concerns should supersede other issues. The rise of anti-immigrant parties across Europe might also serve as an indicator of public d e m an ds fo r im m i gr at i o n c o n t ro l , especially in a political climate governed by a shifting electorate. Yet, as Dummett illustrates, it is the duty of the state to administer just laws and ensure just conditions for those living within its boundaries, whether citizens or aliens (p. 84) and, in this pursuit of justice, admit those who lack protection from their own state. In an ideal world, none would lack the support of a fair and free government, but this is currently not the case. Western states have found a clever ruse to simultaneously make claims of justice to the world and appease what is seen as an anti-immigration electorate the prevention of migrants, particularly asylum seekers and refugees, from reaching the nations borders. A politician need never deny the request of those in peril if they cannot reach the country to present their claims. Dummett does an ex cep tio na l job of revealin g the inconsistencies and o ften o ut right fabrications that allow for human-rights legislation while excluding those under threat from finding a haven. With the sanction of airlines, unwritten agreements as t o the enfo rcement o f immigration legislation and arcane bureaucracy entailed in processing applications, the practical exclusion of outsiders is made possible. In outlining specific examples of policies that functionally close the border to racial minorities, Dummett deflects the concerns of those who see a field of bogus refugee claims in a setting where such claims cannot even be made. The final third of On Immigration is devoted to a consideration of the last fifty years of race relations and immigration legislation in Britain, with a coda devoted to comparison with othe r Europea n countries. Dummett examines the dubious arguments put forth by politicians as well as private individuals, noting in particular

Book Reviews
Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language Stephen May. Harlow: Longman, 2001. Pp. xvi + 384. ISBN 0-582-40455-X (pbk): 30.99. Thi s is a so li d and co mp r ehen siv e treatment of a complicated subject. May has read just about everything he ought to, and is generally fair-minded about what he deals with. His style, while not exactly elegant, is not obscure; it reflects the social science idiom in which he works. To those in the field, the book may be recommended as an important contribution. It does, however, make this reviewer think that the methods of the social sciences obscure as much as they illuminate, and I shall pursue this theme. The basic problem is that speakers of minority languages is not a theorisable category. Some of Mays concerns are with historic nations having a written literature, such as the Catalans and the Welsh, others with indigenous peoples whose experience in time and space is limited by an oral culture. The latter are usually tribal, and tribes do have general features about which something general might be said. May, however, wants to block this option off because his book is also a piece of advocacy in favour of the rights of minority languages. Those rights are (he argues) often den igr ated by the charge tha t minority languages are primitive and backward. To enter the modern world must be (so these critics conclude) to learn a national language. The Catalans and the Welsh might well shrug off this judgement, but it is dangerously close to the mark for tribal peoples. Vocabulary can no doubt be added to Arunta or Inuit corresponding to scientific technicalities, but the whole cast of thought is so different that for tribal peoples to participate in the high academic culture of the west almost certainly requires that they must use a national, or preferably an international language. They must learn to think in different ways. May follows the current trend for casting what he thinks desirable in the form of rights. Rights are curious concepts, being imperious in what they demand and flabby in what holds them up. At their worst, they constitute an argument for riot. They make rigid what in political and, especially, tribal terms is flexible. Worse,

333 they obscure other realities, in particular economic ones. May tells us quite a lot about how Welsh or Irish or Maori have been revived in recent times, but hardly concerns himself with the costs. It used to be said of Gandhi that it cost an awful lot of money to keep him in poverty, and it costs the British taxpayer quite a bit to supply a few Welsh speakers with a television channel of their own. Another unreality is Mays emphasis on the universal stigma attached to minority languages. In a pluralist modern world at least, there is no such thing as a universal stigma; it depends on the circles in which one moves, and these days there is certainly plenty of what migh t be called dialect chic about. Attitudes are not the monolithic things the author presents. On the other hand, people commonly seek to minimise pain, and many people (as the monoglot English illustrate all too well) find learning a new language a gr eat pain. Midd le-class immigrants to Wales may indeed send their children to Welsh-language schools, but not a great deal will stick in later life. To be a Welsh monoglot is to decide that ones entire career will be lived in Wales (or, for a long shot, Patagonia). And as someone remarked recently: If Welsh is the language of heaven, why does it have so many irregular verbs? It is significant that May is at his best when discussing specific cases such as the Catalans or the Maori, though even here his stance as an advocate reveals the odd irritating bit of political parti pris. He recognises that a number of surviving aboriginal languages in Australia have speakers numbered in the hundreds, but can characterise as white hysteria those who oppose the Mabo and Wik decisions. It is the history of these situations which illuminates, but May wants to fits them into a basic framework of understanding, and he has chosen the familiar idea that m aj o ri t y -m in o r it y re l at i o ns ar e fundamentally those of oppressor and oppressed. Wherever he looks he smells inequalities of power. But power is so abstract an idea that it cries out for a bit of substance, and May finds it in French critical theory, and particularly from the writings of Foucault and Bo urdieu. Warning flags go up in the preface where, in some prelimi nary epistem ological throat-clearing, May explains that he is

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languages pick up, and in picking it up may be said to consent to or collaborate in their own marginalisation. Again, no use can be made of this. Very little use indeed could be made of a term which u nites vague ne ss w i th me ta phor, generating melodrama in the fine old French style. May himself appears to have picked up this taste for melodrama. He wonders, for example, whether the nin eteenth-century Fr enc h policy of e nfor cing F ren ch in e duca ti on throughout the country might not be construed as linguistic genocide. Not to our taste, indeed, but killing people is a b it d iffe r en t fr o m f o rc in g t he m t o construe Racine and Molire. The analytical apparatus of the book co nsists partly in subjecting May s already miscellaneous material to a trawl through a variety of antinomies that might (or might not) be used to theorise ethnic group s. Are su ch groups pre-modern or modern, primordial or situational etc.? It is all rather like being trapped in a consulting room by a crazed optometrist offering us first this lens, then turning it over as he says is this better? Well yes, one thinks, some bits are clear, but theres also a lot of blur. Then how about this lens? And so on. The answer, of course, is that any one of them, or none, can be used according to what you are doing. On my view, then, neither the generalising devices of social science nor the foggy concepts of critical theory help one get much closer to the realities of what is going on in these extremely various situations. Reality is, of course, a tough nut to crack, and is no easier in this area because the ordinary obfuscations and duplicities of politics are hard at work. May is at his best in dealing historically and descriptively with say Maori policy in New Zealand, or the cohesion problems of the French state over the centuries. The search for a grand theory of rights to cover all of this merely weakens the coherence of the many useful things he knows. Kenneth Minogue
London School of Economics, UK (k.minogue@lse.ac.uk)

engaged in critical social research which is not content with the interp retiv e concern of describing a social setting as it really is, since this assumes an objective commonsense reality, where none exists. He no more believes this than the rest of us, and by page 16 he is already deconstructing what he calls (s tigm atis es a s?) an or th odoxy distinguishing between majority and minority languages and which (he says) stigma tises mino rities. This must be recognised for what it is a social and p olitical process, deep ly imbued in power relations, and arising out of the political nationalis m of the last few centuries. Reality, it turns out, is what critical theory rather than common sense thinks it is. Maybe but, like everything else, it requires argument. In giving a bit of theoretical dash to his argument, May has recourse to Pierre Bourdieu and the concept of habitus. This term refers to a system o f dispositions common to all products of the same conditionings . Bourdieu is concerned with social class, but Mays idea is that it can also cha ra cterise e t hnic it ies . S o h abit us i s wh at t he conditionings produce, then? Well no, not exactly, because it is also what produces them. The habitus orients but do es not determine individu al behaviour. It would be tedious to enter this fog in more detail, but the best one can say is that it explains whatever it explains. Quite how you might test the idea remains obscure. The curious thing is that while May occasionally uses the term on other pages, it ends up as little more than a piece of dcor. It is not as if there were some puzzle that the idea might solve. The same is true when May invokes Bourdieus notion of symbolic violence. It seems that majorities, through their governm ents, commit t hi s thing on minority-language speakers. Violence is a pretty dramatic word. Broken bones and blood on the streets, then? Well no, not exactly. The term just seems to refer to such internalisation of the sense of s t i gm a as t he sp e a ke rs o f o bs cur e

Book Reviews
Bilingual Education Donna Christian and Fred Genesee (eds). Alexandria,Virginia: TESOL, 2001. Pp. vi + 188. ISBN 0-939791-94-3 (pbk): $29.95. Th i s bo o k, c al le d s im p ly B i l i n gu al Education, is a volume in the Case Studies in TESOL Practice Series edited by Jill Burton (Univ ersity of South Australia) and published by the TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) orga ni sa tio n. It is edited by Donn a Christian, president of the Center for Applied Linguistics (Washington) and Fred Genesee (McGill University). These simple facts illustrate a couple of issues which deserve comment as background to this collection of straightforward case studies. The first comment, frequently made, is how international TESOL has become. Not only are the three editors here from different countries, but half of the books case studies are set outside mainland USA. Back in the 1960s, when TESOL was organised, one of the founding bodies was NAFSA (National Association of Foreign Student Advisors), and one of the major discussions was whether to name this new organisation for teachers of English as a Foreign or Second language. I can still remember being impressed and surprised wit h t he p as sion w ith which M ary Finnocchiaro, tears running down her cheeks, argued for ESL. I dont think I had ever heard a distinction made before and TESOL was a clever compromise but the point I am making here is tha t the arguments made that day were all focused within the boundaries of the USA. The remarkable internationalisation of TESOL reflects the phenomenal growth of English as a language of wider communication, and it is worth observing here that TESOL has become global through cooperation rather than competition across borders. But that is partly a romantic view. The field of ESL in the United States did acquire a competitor, and from an unexpected quarter. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, totally unforeseen, became a legal precedent to the 1968 Bilingual Education Act and the 1974 Supreme Court decision (in Lau v. Nichols) in favour of bilingual education. As usual, the Supreme Court did not stipulate the Remedies, which were left up to a panel consi sting of all Hispani cs. In those

335 Remedies, ESL instruction was relegated to a footnote, and the (then) president of CAL, Rudy Troike, wrote in his regular column in CALs Linguistic Reporter (1976: 19) that one major consequence of the Lau decision is that certification of elementary teachers in ESL (or attempts to establish such ce rt i fi ca t i o n) sh o u ld be h al t e d immediately, as there will be little role for su ch teachers in the sc hools. W hat followed for the next twenty-five years was a division of scholarly attention, personnel, funding, publications and readership between ESL and BE (bilingual education) which was not really healthy for either. There is therefore re al cause fo r celebration and hope for cooperation with two publications in the new century: the book under review here, and the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) publication, Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectiveson the Official English Movement, edited by Gonzlez in 2000, in which TESOL and BE join hands. Bilingual Education consists of a brief series preface, an introduction by Christian and Genesee, 11 case studies under three headings, references and an index. It is pleasingly produced and blessedly free of typos and misprints. The introductory Bilingual Education: Contexts and Programs begins with an elegantly simple definition: BE can be defined generically as education involving two languages as media of education (p. 1). The authors go on to discuss their fr am e w o rk f o r ca t eg o r is i ng B E programmes: goals of the programme, the status of the languages of instruction, and the profile of the students. They then continue to introduce their tripartite division of the case studies: (a) learning a ma jo ri ty l ang uage th ro ugh BE; (b) maintaining an indige nous language through BE; (c) learning an international language through BE. The organisation is by the goals, but the effect is to emphasise the importance of the context in shaping the programmes, and the result is quite (if unintended) postmodern no sweeping claims of grand theory, no claims of salvation through BE, no claims that this is the only way to educate children. The autho rs com petently introduce and characterise the 11 case studies from around the world, representing a variety of types of BE, in a few well-considered

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t h e s t u d e n t bo d y is dual-language proficiency; under sta ndin g a nd th e experienc e of work ing (and working hard) with others unlike oneself, cooperatively achieving set goals, will probably be more important, ultimately, than speaking two languages. It may seem a truism to say that a good school is better than a bad school, but for decades promoters of bilingual education have promised that if the school were run in the mother tongue of the students (especially Spanish), the school would ipso facto become a good school. It isnt so, and no one knew that better than the Latino parents of East Los Angeles who initially supported the Unz initiative (Proposition 227) in 1998, which in effect outlawed bilingual education in California. One cannot expect the language medium of education to overcome the social facts of poorly funded schools, a demoralised and p o o r l y t r a i n e d t e a ch e r co r p s , discrimination and un(der)employment. The collateral damage of poor quality bilingu al programmes remains to be studied; in Inter-American we see the rarely reached promise good ones can hold. The other truly interesting chapter in this section is a 50-year-old [sic] trilingual school programme in the Ladin Valleys of south Tyrol in northern Italy, described b y Kur t E gger and Mar gar eth Lardschneider McLean. One reason it is interesting is because we know so little about these valleys and their schools; this i s the fi rs t ac count of th e sch ool programme that I have read in English (most of the literature is in Italian or German). This paritetic school system was a political compromise between two opposing sociopolitical tendencies, one that favoured German as the primary medium of inst ruction and one that favoured Italian (p. 65), and the result w as an offi cia lly suppor te d an d successful trilingual programme. Another reason it is interesting is the unusual approach taken by the schools to the vernacular Ladin. It is only used as a spoken medium, and attempts to standardise the many dialects into a creation of an artificial, common variety h ave been carefully a voided a s unnecessary and perceived as a danger to the spoken language. Generally,

sentences. It takes enormous knowledge and expertise to write such a seemingly simple introduction, straight to the point, so rting o ut t he imp ortant concerns without ambiguities and vague statement which is presumably why we so rarely se e it . Christ ian and Genese es introduction is a model of its kind. P art 1, Learning a Majority Language, covers two-way immersion, transitional and maintenance bilingual programmes three in the US (English and Spanish), one from Italy (German, Italian and Ladin not to be confused with Judeo-Spanish Ladino) and one from Slovakia (Slovak and Hungarian). Chapter 2, by Chery l Urow and Jill Sontag (both teachers in the programme), on the Inter-American Magnet School in Chicago is one of the most interesting contributions, for several reasons. Like the original Canadian immersion p ro gr am m es , i t w a s o ri gi nal ly th e brain-child of two parents. The study emphasises again the enormous importance of involving the parents in p r o gram m e p lann ing , s up p o rt an d participation. As a two-way programme in which the goal is double-language proficiency for both Spanish-speaking and English-speaki ng children, it avoids the damning side-effect of most A m er ican tr ans ition al b ili ngu al programmes: ethnic segregation and the concomitant negative attitudes. I have long said that the best language teachers are the other children, and this resource is deliberately used in the programme w here students in all grades are encouraged to use each other as language resources. Teachers promote this intera ctio n by teachin g coop era tive language strategies from the earliest grades (p .15). The t ea chers are all b il i ng ual , ed uc at ed an d d ed ic at e d individuals. Creativity and experimentation are an on-going curricular activity, with the emphasis on the schools diverse population and the exchange of different p o in t s o f view . The account of the curriculum sounds just plain fun and makes me long for the classroom again. Clearly, Inter-American is a model school w hi ch sho ws what it is p ossible to achieve with a dual-language curriculum, and I would add that I doubt that its most important contribution to

Book Reviews
standard languages can be a real problem in BE and Heritage Language programmes where children learn in effect, are taught that their parents do not speak correctly. This also happens, of course, in mainstream programmes, but there the children have little language choice and the issue becomes one of social class. With Occitan and Louisiana French the result frequently is one of opting for the majo rity lang uage and deny ing et hnicit y, t he v ery o p p os ite o f the programme goal of revitalisation. The Ladin Valleys schools elegantly avoid the e n t i r e p r o b l e m by n o t a d o p t i n g a standard, written form. It works just fine. Part 2, Maintaining an Indigenous Language through Bilingual Education, consists of three chapters on language re v i t al i sa t io n p r o g ra m m es : o n t h e Hawaiian language (not the creole) by Lois A. Yamauchi and Puanani Wilhelm; on Maori, an excellent chapter (as usual) by Richard Benton; and on Canadian M o ha w k by K ai a t i t hk he A nn et t e Jakobs and Aronhi:niens Edward J. Cross. Apart from Hebrew, the most commonly known (and only?) revitalised la ngu age at the na tiona l level, it is di ffi cu lt t o kn o w ho w t o ev a lu at e revitalisation programmes. If one were to take seriously and exclusively the goal spelled out by Yamauchi and Wilhelm (and it is quite typical) to create a new generation of native speakers who use Hawaiian in all aspects of their lives (p. 92) one would have to fail all such p ro gram me s, i ncludi ng M ao ri. B ut Bent on does no t fall int o any such hyperbole: enable the program to become a joyous and effective way of increasing their competence in everyday spoken Maori to gain the confidence and mastery of content necessary for them to make further progress through English (p.102). The notion that school can be joyous is not exactly common to min ority students fro m stigm atised grou ps, yet is probably the most important (and ignored) aspect of some revitalisat ion pro grammes; gaining confidence, progressing and staying in school are others. Bentons concluding comments are worth citing in full: Th e essential ing redients in the program have been long-term support

337 from the school administration; gifted and highly innovative teachers in the cl as s ro o m ; go o d, c o o p e r at i v e relat io nship s wit h con tribut ing elementary schools; and effective liaison with parents of present and future students. The strength of these links bodes well for the future of this program and others like it. It is only to be hoped that a sudden increase in official attention to English/ Maori bilingual education, and particularly to ways of assessing achievement through Maori-medium programs, does not end up restric ting the creativity through which programs such as this one survive and prosper (p.107). I only wish Benton were US Secretary of Education in th ese days of Bush-improved education through the major means of mandated school-assessment. In summary, these thre e chapters deserve careful reading, but it is a serious mist ake to fo cus onl y o n language achievement. As Bentons essay makes clear, perfect language proficiency is not necessary for success; it is all the entailed feat ure s o f t he se p ro g ram me s th at deserve scrutiny and reflection. Part 3, Learning an Interna tional Language through Bilingual Education, is to me the least interesting. It consists of thre e chapters detailing matters for ma jori ty stude nts i n im m ers ion programs; two in English/Japanese (one in Japan, one in the US) and one in English/ French and English/Spanish in (of all places) Indianapolis. If anything attests to the importance of language in tra de and recent globalisation, tha t school does (since 1994). But w e alr eady kn ow , a nd hav e kno wn fro m antiquity, that elite bilingualism is not a problem. Majority children do well in private schools, no matter how you teach them language. (They may not think very well after 12 years in rigidly religious schools, but they express themselves with very good language skills) . Of cou rse, teac hers-in-training (the primary au dienc e of t his b ook) need to un de r st a nd t he ra ng e o f la n gua g e functions in their future students lives,

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background to abstract speculation about social factors. This book deserv es to become widely used. Christina Bratt Paulston
Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh, USA (paulston@imap.pitt.edu)

and this section provides a necessary balance. In sh o rt, Christian, G enesee and TESOL are to be congratulated on a fine collection o f case studies, aimed at TESOL, BE and el em en ta ry teachers-in-training. The classroom view gives an immediacy to educat ional the ories of language learni ng and a