An introduction to sociolinguistics By Janet Holmes (review)

Abstract

BOOK NOTICES 605 Wallace Chafe, in 'Seneca speaking styles and the location of authority' (72-87), shows how the correlation of speaking style with responsibility is made evident in the three most common Seneca speaking styles—conversational , 'preaching', and 'chanting' (or thanksgiving -ritual). Chafe contrasts the three styles in terms of four dimensions: prosody (from free to highly stylized), formulaicity (from low to high), sentence integration (from fragmented to highly integrated), and epistemology (from uncertain to certain). Chafe's analysis supports the finding 'that an increasingly remote authority for what is being said is likely to be indexed in a variety of identifiable, gradient linguistic features ' (87). Correspondingly, the Seneca thanksgiving speech, which conveys remote knowledge the authority for which is distant from everyday experience, is highly stylized prosodically, highly formulaic, and characterized by highly integrated sentences and a prevalence of particles and verbs of certainty. This is an important book because it looks at meaning in a stimulating way. [Zdenek Salzmann , Northern Arizona University.] An introduction to sociolinguistics. By Janet Holmes. London & New York: Longman, 1992. Pp. xvi, 412. This book is conceived as a sociolinguistics textbook for form 6 and university undergraduate students. In addition, it is designed as a general introduction to this subject for a wider readership. Accordingly, its objectives differ from a purely academic treatment of sociolinguistic fundamentals, insofar as it simultaneously provides a number of appropriate examples with exercises which consist of questions and an answer key. Ch. I ('What do sociolinguists study?', 1-17) sketches the scope of sociolinguistics. In the following Section I ('Multilingual speech communities ', 19-130), essential issues selected for discussion include language choice, maintenance and shift, the linguistic repertoire of multiethnic (and thus multilingual) countries, and language planning. Notions like diglossia, codeswitching and code-mixing are also introduced and commented upon. Section II (131-241) deals with 'Language variation: Reflecting its users'. Here the reader learns about regional and social dialects as well as other language varieties. Language change is also briefly reviewed. In this part of the book and again in Section III special attention is paid to gender issues such as women's linguistic behavior , sexist language, and sex and social class. One wonders, however, whether this relatively broad approach is justified when, at the same time, an issue as basic as language policy is virtually ignored, although there are numerous examples in the text which illustrate the practical implementation of language policy. The same shortcoming is observed in the case of well-established concepts like status and corpus planning, where an adequate discussion could have systematized the facts given in particular in Ch. 5. Section 111 (243-385) has to do with 'Language variation: Reflecting its uses', seen from the angle of linguistic performance that is evidenced in various registers, styles, degrees of politeness, etc. In her conclusions at the end of this section, H also gives a summary of what she has illustrated in her book. Each chapter contains a list of suggested additional reading, gives key words for important concepts, and provides references to the sources of the examples. A list of phonetic symbols and a glossary are given in the appendix. This introduction to sociolinguistic issues is certainly adequate for the readership as described by the author in her preface. For other readers, e.g. linguists, it is interesting to find references to recent studies conducted in various regions of the world in the field of sociolinguistics . In particular, the examples based on the author's own experiences in New Zealand are attractive and deserve further discussion instead of the 'classical' material, such as Einar Haugen's work on language development in Norway, which has frequently been referred to in the past. In conclusion, Holmes's book is a useful introduction for the target group who are not yet scholars, but students who are probably not very familiar either with the language problems of New Zealand or with those of other countries. [Karsten Légère, University of Namibia.] Old English breaking and its Germanic analogues. By Robert B. Howell. (Linguistische Arbeiten, 253.) Tubingen : Max Niemeyer, 1991. Pp. iii, 124. ...