Present-day Language Research Articles

Under the shadow of three lingua francae: repositioning translation in East Asia

Translation as a form of resistance to globalization can be studied in relation to the quest for a common language in East Asia, the fastest-growing regional community in the world in the last few decades. The region has seen at least three lingua francae used in its history, including English, Chinese and Japanese, and the roles of these “languages of wider communication” have been variously documented and studied. In particular, English, the present-day language of dominance, has troubled the East Asian community. The successes of over a century of learning English as a foreign language notwithstanding, there is still skepticism concerning the amount of time and effort spent on acquiring a foreign, western language. In this light, translation becomes a much valorized solution. After all, translation provides the conditions allowing for true democratization, as the case of the European Union attests.

Meeting the Challenges of the Present-Day English Language Classroom with Innovative Tasks and Activities

The importance of English cannot be ignored since it is the most common language and the ability to use it effectively has become essential in today's fast-growing world. The emphasis on grammar rather than conversation, the inability of the English teachers to speak English in the classroom, adaptation of bilingual language for teaching language in the classroom, current examination system that emphasises rote memorisation instead of acquisition of analytical and creative skills, lack of adequate practice given to students – are some of the reasons why English is not spoken by students adequately.

White matter in aphasia: A historical review of the Dejerines’ studies

The Objective was to describe the contributions of Joseph Jules Dejerine and his wife Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke to our understanding of cerebral association fiber tracts and language processing.The Dejerines (and not Constantin von Monakow) were the first to describe the superior longitudinal fasciculus/arcuate fasciculus (SLF/AF) as an association fiber tract uniting Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, and a visual image center in the angular gyrus of a left hemispheric language zone. They were also the first to attribute language-related functions to the fasciculi occipito-frontalis (FOF) and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) after describing aphasia patients with degeneration of the SLF/AF, ILF, uncinate fasciculus (UF), and FOF. These fasciculi belong to a functional network known as the Dejerines’ language zone, which exceeds the borders of the classically defined cortical language centers.The Dejerines provided the first descriptions of the anatomical pillars of present-day language models (such as the SLF/AF). Their anatomical descriptions of fasciculi in aphasia patients provided a foundation for our modern concept of the dorsal and ventral streams in language processing.

Tonally conditioned vowel raising in Shuijingping Mang

In the Mang (Hmongic) dialect of Shuijingping, Guizhou, China, vowels are raised in certain tonal contexts. When a syllable bearing the historical A2 tone occurs in sandhi context, it surfaces with a low tone (historical S) and a raised vowel nucleus. When a syllable bearing the C2 tone occurs out of sandhi context, it also surfaces with a raised vowel. In most other documented cases of tone–vowel quality interactions, there is some factor, such as syllable structure, metrical structure, or vowel duration that mediates between tone and vowel quality. These earlier analyses cannot be straightforwardly extended to Shuijingping Mang since no synchronic mediating factor seems to be present. However, this paper shows that, historically, there was another mediating factor between tone and vowel quality, namely voice quality. It is common for tones in East and Southeast Asian languages to have characteristic phonation types. It is also common for phonation type to affect vowel quality. Comparative evidence shows that the tones that condition the vowel alternation in the present-day language historically underwent a tonally-driven breathy-modal voice alternation. Subsequently, the tonal grammar has changed; however, vowel raising remains as a synchronic alternation.

‘Et Skriftsprog gjør sig ikke selv’. Metacommentaar op het taalplanningsproces in Vlaanderen en Noorwegen in de 19e eeuw ‘van binnenuit’: Den Ny-Norske Sprog- og Nationalitetsbevœgelse (1877) van Arne Garborg als casestudy

‘ Et Skriftsprog gjør sig ikke selv’. Meta-comments on the language planning process in 19th century Flanders and Norway : Arne Garborg’s Den Ny-Norske Sprog-og Nationalitetsbevægelse (1877) as a casestudy The research presented in this article is part of a larger comparative sociolinguistic project on the history of the language standardization of Norwegian (in Norway) and Southern Dutch (in Flanders) during the long 19th century (1794-1917). I discuss the views of Arne Garborg (1851-1924), one of the foremost Nynorsk-defenders in the language debate. This Norwegian author published a programmatic collection of essays, entitled Den ny-norske sprog-og nationalitetsbevægelse : Et forsøg paa en omfattende redegjørelse, formet som polemiske sendebreve til modstræverne (1877). In this work he systematically presents his views on language planning processes, both as a general principle and applied to the Norwegian case. Garborg also introduces a comparative European perspective in his discussion. Garborg’s comparison of the Norwegian and Belgian language struggle will be discussed in detail. This article presents a selection and an analysis of the language planningrelated sections in Den ny-norske sprog-og nationalitetsbevægelse, but also tries to discuss these views in the light of present-day insights in the linguistic historiography of Norwegian and Southern Dutch. We finally try to connect Garborg’s views to present-day language planning theories.

Effects of Teaching Literature on Culture Learning in the Language Classroom

Problem statement: The role of literature in enhancing readers’ cultural understanding in the language classroom was explored. It was a part of an extensive research which focused mainly on language learning and creativity. It is argued that the interface of language, literature and culture are at the forefront of present-day language and literature learning and this facilitates inter-racial, intra-racial and global understanding. Approach: As method, a quasi-experimental study was conducted on two intact groups; the control (n = 30) and experimental (n = 30) groups. Both groups underwent an eight week experiment whereby one short story, The Burden of Sin by S. Karthigesu was taught to both groups. The control group was taught using the routine and traditional reading and comprehension teaching approach while the experimental group was taught using the reader response approach adapting Ibsen’s the I Model text exploration and literary devices. Results: Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted on the data collected using two non-parametric tests: The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test to determine the significant difference between the experimental group’s pretest and posttest scores and the Mann-Whitney U test to determine the significant difference between the scores of the experimental and control groups. Conclusion: The results proved to be substantially significant. The findings revealed that cultural understanding can be taught through literature in a language classroom and it is a valuable instructional medium in the learning of culture.

Endangered Languages of Austronesia (review)

Reviewed by: Endangered Languages of Austronesia Aone van Engelenhoven Endangered Languages of Austronesia. Edited by Margaret Florey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv + 304. $165.00 (cloth). Margaret Florey is well-known among fellow Austronesianists for her continuing and successful efforts to defend the linguistic rights of communities whose languages are truly small and often very endangered. This book fully meets the expectations that her name raises. The book contains four parts. Part 1 is an overview, with an introduction by Florey and a chapter on language documentation in the West Austronesian world and Vanuatu by Alexander Adelaar. Part 2 discusses linguistic vitality, while part 3 contains information on several initiatives related to capacity building and revitalization. Part 4 focuses on pedagogical approaches to revitalization and maintenance. In her introduction, Florey notes that she coined the term "Austronesia" to refer to insular Southeast Asia and Oceania, where most Austronesian languages are spoken, [End Page 81] with Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa added as a kind of Austronesian exclave. Adelaar's chapter shows that it would be a mistake to interpret the term as implying a geographical unity, since "Austronesia" covers a multitude of different nations with different traditions and perceptions. Adelaar introduces the Austronesian language family and provides a concise overview of projects on endangered languages in the Austronesian-speaking world—from the island of Madagascar east of Africa to the island republic of Vanuatu east of Australia. So many different languages cannot possibly be covered in one chapter; Adelaar confines himself to projects for which information was accessible either through the Internet sites of their funders or through publications by their project members. No attention is given to mainland Southeast Asia, where Austronesian languages are a minority, although Adelaar does provide information about Austronesian language projects in Sri Lanka, the Comoros, the Netherlands, and Surinam. Adelaar discusses the major organizations involved in language documentation, many of which are based outside of the Austronesian-speaking regions. Although he mentions the efforts undertaken by the Indonesian National Language Center, he overlooks the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NWO), which Margaret Florey and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann quote in their contribution and which has a long and successful tradition of cooperation with the Language Center on endangered language research in Indonesia, as evidenced by the many publications of the Indonesian Linguistics Development Projects (ILDEP). Adelaar summarizes the state of the art in endangered language documentation in Madagascar, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, the Philippines, East Timor, and Vanuatu. He gives somewhat more extended coverage to the diaspora, since the case studies come from a variety of places around the world, and, of course, to Indonesia, due to its geographical size. Part 2 treats the theory of linguistic vitality and its assessments and challenges. Three of its chapters discuss languages in Indonesia, and the fourth discusses Negrito languages in the Philippines. Nikolaus P. Himmelmann's chapter is one of the most significant contributions for understanding the process for language endangerment and loss. He introduces the term "language endangerment scenario," by which he means "a specific and complex constellation of varied factors of language endangerment" (p. 45). He distinguishes symptoms and factors of language endangerment. He introduces two endangerment scenarios, the immigration scenario and the emigration scenario, using the Tomini-Tolitoli languages of Sulawesi Island as an example. He goes on to distinguish "moribund" from "endangered" and "long-term endangered" languages. He compares his characterizations of language endangerment with the information on Buru in the subsequent chapter, which confirms the usefulness of the scenario approach for endangered language research. Himmelmann concludes that a typology of endangerment scenarios is required that enables a systematization of the arrays of factors that lead to large scale language shift. Charles E. Grimes approaches language death in Eastern Indonesia by detailed consideration of two languages, Hukumina and Kayeli, spoken on Buru Island in the Indonesian province of Maluku. He grounds his examination of how these languages became extinct in a discussion of the history and present-day language ecology on the island, including a short anthropological digression on power and place on the island; he then seeks similar scenarios elsewhere in Central Maluku. Finally...

A sociolinguistic perspective on Roma group names in Transylvania

This article focuses on one aspect of a sociolinguistic survey which was done between summer 2007 and summer 2009 by SIL International in collaboration with Manchester University. The article evaluates data compiled from over 130 interviews with different Romani speakers from all over Transylvania. The aspect considered here is the relationship between group names and different dialects of Romani. Both the endonyms (how Roma groups designate themselves) and exonyms (how members from other Roma groups refer to them) are considered. As one of our main findings, we describe a clear correlation between present-day language varieties and two common group names, Corturari ‘Tent Roma’ and Romungri ‘Hungarian Roma’, which reflects a major division of Romani speakers into groups that have been travelling around and those groups that have been settled for a longer period of time.

Early modern English kinship in the long run: reflections on continuity and change

ABSTRACTThe article highlights the significance of alliances of blood and marriage in early modern England and beyond, including both positive and negative relations among kin. Examining different historiographical approaches, it emphasizes the role of kinship in explanations of historical change and continuity. Rather than focusing on the isolated nuclear family or, conversely, on an alleged decline of kinship, it highlights the importance of enmeshed patterns of kinship and connectedness. Such patterns were not only important in themselves (whether culturally, socially, economically, or politically), it is suggested, but they also invite new comparisons with other early modern societies, and in the long run. Even patterns typical of present-day ‘new families’ and ‘families of choice’, or aspects of the present-day language of kinship may bring to mind some similarities with notions of kinship and related ‘household-family’ ties characteristic of the early modern period, the article proposes.

Concerning the Underspecialization of Race Theory in American Philosophy: How the Exclusion of Black Sources Affects the Field

the pluralist Volume 5, Number 1 Spring 2010 : pp. 44–64 44 despite the recent rise in articles by American philosophers willing to deal with race, the sophistication of American philosophy’s conceptualizations of American racism continues to lag behind other liberal arts fields committed to similar endeavors. Whereas other fields like American studies, history, sociology, and Black studies have found the foundational works of Black scholars essential to “truly” understanding the complexities of racism, American philosophy—driven by the refusal of white philosophers to acknowledge and incorporate the foundational works of Black scholars at the turn of the century, as well as the relevant insights of contemporary race theorists—remains in a very real sense underdeveloped and theoretically impoverished. This notable absence of “historically melaninated perspective” has allowed American philosophers to continually celebrate the seemingly random reflections of white thinkers, like John Dewey, Jane Addams, and the recently emergent works of Josiah Royce, concerning “race,” as indispensable sources of insight into racism.2 Race theory,3 as understood in American philosophy, is primarily geared toward proving that historical American figures like Dewey or Royce can be useful to contemporary race problems by emphasizing their rejection of biological determinism, their seemingly proleptic embracing of multiculturalism, and their participation in liberal race organizations like the NAACP. The problem with this approach however, is that it erroneously assumes that the growing rejection of biological determinism around the turn of the century was concomitantly a rejection of white supremacy and the dogma of Black inferiority. By failing to ask whether or not embracing the environmentalist position on race, popularized in America by Franz Boas, can be unproblematically translated into our present-day language of diversity and multiculturalism, the American philosophical tradition functions as a first rate apologetic—an

Concerning the Underspecialization of Race Theory in American Philosophy: How the Exclusion of Black Sources Affects the Field.

the pluralist Volume 5, Number 1 Spring 2010 : pp. 44–64 44 despite the recent rise in articles by American philosophers willing to deal with race, the sophistication of American philosophy’s conceptualizations of American racism continues to lag behind other liberal arts fields committed to similar endeavors. Whereas other fields like American studies, history, sociology, and Black studies have found the foundational works of Black scholars essential to “truly” understanding the complexities of racism, American philosophy—driven by the refusal of white philosophers to acknowledge and incorporate the foundational works of Black scholars at the turn of the century, as well as the relevant insights of contemporary race theorists—remains in a very real sense underdeveloped and theoretically impoverished. This notable absence of “historically melaninated perspective” has allowed American philosophers to continually celebrate the seemingly random reflections of white thinkers, like John Dewey, Jane Addams, and the recently emergent works of Josiah Royce, concerning “race,” as indispensable sources of insight into racism.2 Race theory,3 as understood in American philosophy, is primarily geared toward proving that historical American figures like Dewey or Royce can be useful to contemporary race problems by emphasizing their rejection of biological determinism, their seemingly proleptic embracing of multiculturalism, and their participation in liberal race organizations like the NAACP. The problem with this approach however, is that it erroneously assumes that the growing rejection of biological determinism around the turn of the century was concomitantly a rejection of white supremacy and the dogma of Black inferiority. By failing to ask whether or not embracing the environmentalist position on race, popularized in America by Franz Boas, can be unproblematically translated into our present-day language of diversity and multiculturalism, the American philosophical tradition functions as a first rate apologetic—an

Māori: A Linguistic Introduction (review)

Reviewed by: Māori: A Linguistic Introduction Ulrike Mosel Māori: A Linguistic Introduction. Ray Harlow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xiv + 241. $85.00 (cloth). Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is spoken by approximately 160,000 people in New Zealand and has been recognized as an official language since 1987. In spite of innovative language revitalization measures—in particular, the immersion programs in preschools—the language must still be considered endangered because its natural intergenerational transmission as a first language has ceased. Typologically, Māori comes close to an isolating language, as it has productive bound morphemes only for nominalization, causativization, and passivization. Grammatical relations, tense-aspect, and person are expressed by particles and independent pronouns (pp. 99–100), whereas number is regularly indicated by determiners and idiosyncratically by vowel lengthening or reduplication (pp. 114–15, 127–29). The encoding of grammatical relations shows nominative-accusative alignment, but a few constructions align the argument of intransitive predicates with the patient argument of transitive verbs (pp. 24–28, 115, 129). As for the order of constituents, Māori is a typical verb-initial language; it has prepositions, and modifiers follow their heads (p. 150). The seven chapters of the present volume give a comprehensive overview of historical, sociolinguistic, phonological, and grammatical aspects of Māori. Each chapter is accompanied by up to five pages of notes that contain further explanations and additional references. The relatively brief first chapter (pp. 5–9) summarizes the documentation of Māori from the first book in and on Māori in 1815 to recent linguistic publications on grammar and lexicography, modern literature, and children’s books. Chapter 2 (pp. 10–40) is devoted to the genetic affiliation of the language and to the reconstruction of sound changes and grammatical developments in Polynesian languages, including the debate on whether Proto-Polynesian had an ergative or accusative case-marking pattern (pp. 24–28). Furthermore, it outlines the grammatical and lexical innovations that separated Māori from other Polynesian languages in prehistoric times and those that developed during the period of contact with English, although they were not necessarily caused by the influence of that language (pp. 29–37). A case in point is the development of a verb phrase construction in the progressive aspect from a locative prepositional phrase with a unmarked nominalization as its complement. Chapter 3 (pp. 41–61) describes the phonological, grammatical, and lexical variation across Māori dialects and discusses the significance of these differences for present-day language maintenance efforts and the implications they have for the reconstruction of New Zealand’s prehistory. A number of variant forms in Māori dialects have parallels in other closely related Polynesian languages, but are unlikely either to have developed independently in the Māori dialects or to have been already present in the common ancestor language of Māori and those other Polynesian languages; one can argue that these features support the hypothesis that New Zealand was settled by different though closely related groups at different times and places (pp. 52–55). [End Page 92] Chapters 4–6 present a sketch of Māori phonology, morphology, and syntax. Each chapter focuses on those issues that have been of special interest in typological, historical, or theoretical research and surveys how they have been treated in traditional grammars and in more recent frameworks. The phonology chapter (pp. 62–95) covers, as expected, the phoneme inventory, phonotactics, syllable structure, and stress assignment, but also contains a very interesting section based on Harlow’s own research. Comparing the recordings of aged speakers that were done by Radio New Zealand in the 1940s with the speech of young people recorded recently, Harlow demonstrates that the voiceless stops are increasingly aspirated and that the pronunciation of vowels becomes more similar to English (pp. 75–81). The chapter concludes with a section on the Māori writing system and the development of Māori as a written language (pp. 85–92). The chapter on morphology (pp. 96–134) starts with a notorious problem in Polynesian linguistics: the classification of words. Most lexical words (i.e., content words in contrast to functional words or particles) can occur...

The status of the Dutch language in Suriname

Dutch has been the official language of Suriname since 1667. For three centuries, until 1939, when the immigration of Javanese indentured labourers from the Dutch East Indies ended, migration to Suriname has been a forced one, in one way or another. Languages and cultures of migrants usually only survive when migrants live together in closed communities and adapt their culture to the new environment. This was the case in Suriname: a sizeable immigration, residential conglomerates and an adaptation of the dominant culture, albeit a forced one. In this article, I will present some historical notes to explain the present-day language situation of Suriname and the place of Dutch in it.

Belgian Dutch versus Netherlandic Dutch: New patterns of divergence? On pronouns of address and diminutives

The linguistic climate in northern Belgium (Flanders) has been changing in recent years. A new corpus of spoken Dutch meets the need for data reflecting actual and present-day language use in this part of the Dutch language area. The ‘Spoken Dutch Corpus’ allows us to uncover and analyse the present state of colloquial Belgian Dutch and the changes which mark this condition. This paper discusses the realization of two morphosyntactic variables, the variants of which are markers of Belgian Dutch versus Netherlandic Dutch. In spite of more than half a century of official language policy promoting convergence with northern Netherlandic Dutch, the results reveal a growing divergence from the northern norm: the younger generations show a greater preference for the endogenous, Brabantic, variants than the older generations. The northern Dutch variants have not been integrated in colloquial Belgian Dutch. Apparently they are still considered to be ‘Hollandic import’. 1

Standardization: Studies From the Germanic Languages (review)

Reviewed by: Standardization: Studies from the Germanic languages ed. by Andrew R. Linn, Nicola McLelland K. Aaron Smith Standardization: Studies from the Germanic languages. Ed. by Andrew R. Linn and Nicola McLelland. (Current issues in linguistic theory 235.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. 248. ISBN 1588113663. $107 (Hb). Following the introduction by Nicola McClelland and Andrew R. Linn to Standardization: Studies from the Germanic languages, the fourteen articles are divided into three sections. In the first section, ‘Diffusing and shaping the standard’, Ana Deumert (‘Standardization and social networks: The emergence and diffusion of standard Afrikaans’) shows that the traditional focus on strong ties in social network theory is insufficient for an account of standardization of Afrikaans. Wim Vandenbussche (‘Dutch orthography in lower, middle and upper class documents in 19th-century Flanders’) concludes that standardization debates had little effect on nineteenth-century writers of Dutch for whom, instead, there was a slow process of standardization with a top-down diffusion pattern. Stefan Elspaß (‘Standard German in the 19th century? (Counter-) evidence from the private correspondence of “ordinary people” ’) discusses variation in three grammatical features reported to have been standardized by the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries. Elspaß shows that this was hardly the case and argues that the variation was partly reinforced by elementary school teachers who were unsure about their own command of the standard. Nils Langer (‘On the importance of foreign language grammars for a history of standard German’) makes the case that information from foreign language grammars can provide insight in drawing up the history of languages which he exemplifies with auxiliary tun and polynegation in German. In the final paper in this section (‘Norms and standards in 16th century Swedish orthography’), Alexander Y. Zheltukhin argues that despite spelling variation in the sixteenth century in Sweden, a set of norms was firmly established in religious writings of the time. The next collection of papers comes under a section titled ‘Standard and identity’ and begins with a paper by Luc de Grauwe (‘Emerging mother-tongue awareness: The special case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period’) discussing the growing separation of identities among speakers of varieties of Germanic. The next article by Jetje de Groof (‘Two hundred years of language planning in Belgium’) presents the history of language planning activities in Belgium as a means of understanding the present-day language situation. Kendra Willson (‘Political inflections: Grammar and the Icelandic surname debate’) discusses arguments concerning the adoption of a European-like system of surnames in place of the traditional patronymic system in Iceland. In the final paper of this section (‘Standardization, language change, resistance and the question of linguistic threat: 18th-century English and present-day German’), Peter Hohenhaus shows that concerns about the linguistic threat of Anglicization in German are not founded. The final section of the book, ‘Non-standardization, de-standardization and re-standardization’, begins with an article by Gerald Newton summarizing ‘The standardization of Luxembourgish’. Arthur O. [End Page 537] Sandved (‘Language planning in Norway: A bold experiment with unexpected results’) shows that despite more than one hundred years of language planning in Norway, three standard varieties have emerged, and Anthonia Feitsma (‘ “Democratic” and “elitist” trends and a Frisian standard’) argues that because speakers have not aspired to a Dutch norm, but have instead established a unique linguistic identity, the standardization of Frisian contains a strong vernacular element. Ane Kleine (‘Yiddish: No state, no status—no standard?’) gives an account of the rather remarkable standardization of Yiddish despite the lack of a political center. Finally, Marko Modiano (‘Standardization processes and the mid-Atlantic English paradigm’) discusses the emergence of a standard second language variety of English used among Europeans, which, in contradistinction to the historical prominence of British English in Europe, incorporates forms from several other Englishes. K. Aaron Smith Illinois State University Copyright © 2005 Linguistic Society of America

An assessment of paralinguistic demands within present-day cross-cultural foreign language teaching

Article An assessment of paralinguistic demands within present-day cross-cultural foreign language teaching was published on November 26, 2001 in the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (volume 39, issue 4).

The present-day Bulgarian language Situation: trends and prospects

Until recently the present-day Bulgarian language situation was regarded as problem-free. Sociolinguistics has shown, however, that the present-day situation is quite complicated as a result of the mass migration from villages and small towns to bigger cities, and to Sofia in particular. At the same time, tensions are generated by ethnic languages that currently have the status of dialects used in informal communication. This article examines the factors complicating the Balkan language situation in both the recent and the more distant past. The origin of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian in the nineteenth century is traced on a diagnostic plane, with an emphasis on the role of towns in central and northeastern Bulgaria. The consolidation function of Sofia as the capital of Bulgaria after the 1878 liberation from Turkish domination is also discussed. The article shows the integration of dialects in Standard Bulgarian via the creation of mesolects as a result of so-called dialect convergence.' Processes in compact Turkish and Gypsy communities aiming to upset the status quo of bilingualism are also analyzed.

Multimedia systems for teaching television news

In present-day language teaching the use of original news programmes received by satellite is becoming more and more important. It is a vital source of up-to-date linguistic material, and gives students a significant sense of direct contact with the country whose language they are studying. But the use of this material presents considerable difficulties. There is not much point in simply asking students to sit through television programmes in the form in which they are broadcast; they tend to fall asleep. Material has to be selected and edited, and a framework of concepts and questions must be constantly provided for purposes of study. Multi-media systems based on microcomputers provide the obvious way of doing this.

Communicative Language Teaching: State of the Art

This paper looks briefly at the beginnings of what has come to be known as communicative language teaching (CLT), then discusses current issues and promising avenues of inquiry. The perspective is international. CLT is seen to be not a British, European, or U.S. phenomenon, but rather an international effort to respond to the needs of present-day language learners in many different contexts of learning. Not long ago, when American structuralist linguistics and behaviorist psychology were the prevailing influences in language teaching methods and materials, second/foreign language teachers talked about communication in terms of language skills, seen to be four: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. These skill categories were widely accepted and provided a ready-made framework for methods manuals, learner course materials, and teacher education programs. They were collectively described as active skills, speaking and writing, and passive skills, reading and listening. Today, listeners and readers are no longer regarded as passive. They are seen as active participants in the negotiation of meaning. Schemata, expectancies, and top-down/bottom-up processing are among the terms now used to capture the necessarily complex, interactive nature of this negotiation. Yet full and widespread understanding of communication as negotiation has been hindered by the terms that came to replace the earlier active/passive dichotomy. The skills needed to engage in speaking and writing activities were described subsequently as productive, whereas listening and reading skills were said to be receptive. While certainly an improvement over the earlier active/passive representation, the terms productive and receptive fall short of capturing the interactive nature of communication. Lost in this productive/receptive, message sending/message receiving representation is the collaborative nature of meaning making. Meaning

A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (review)

Hebrew Studies 31 (1990) 188 Reviews address. If we want to know something about the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud. we shall have to describe the Babylonian Talmud and its paramount traits of rhetoric and logic and determine whether it is a compilation or a well-crafted composition. working our way from the outside to the inside. In starting from the smallest whole units of thought. the individual sentences. Kalmin has replicated an error of several generations' standing. The utterly useless result. comprising made-up words that only the author and his six best friends use anyhow. is yet one more cost exacted by the rather aimless and self-referential (not to say self-serving) program of academic isolates in rabbinical seminaries. This is what emerges when scholars talk entirely to themselves and listen to no one else. The difference between Kalmin's version of "the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud" and an academic reading of the same problem is the difference between Nintendo baseball and the kind you play on a real baseball diamond. Jacob Neusner University ofSouth Florida Tampa, FL 33620 A COMPREHENSIVE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE FOR READERS OF ENGLISH. By Ernest Klein. pp. xix +721. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Cloth. This well-bound. one-volume work with easy-to-read print in threecolumn pages represents a fme publishing job by Macmillan and an excellent scholarly project by Ernest Klein. The thirty thousand or so Hebrew entries appear in boldface Hebrew characters followed by the part of speech and the linguistic stratum from which the entry stems. The various meanings numbered consecutively come next and then a concise etymology. Finally, a listing of derivatives is presented. In the case of verbs, the stem appears followed by all existing verb patterns (binyanim) with the appropriate meaning of each. This work, purporting to be A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary , has a few significant deficiencies. The five strata identified by Klein from which the entry words derive are "Biblical," "Post Biblical," "Medieval," and "New Hebrew," as well as "Foreign Words." There is no further explanation. definition, or discussion of these categories! As promised in the flyleaf, one would expect to trace in a comprehensive etymological dictionary "the way its vocabulary has changed in meaning Hebrew Studies 31 (1990) 189 Reviews and in usage over the centuries." The etymological infonnation presented. however. is too scanty for this. There are no quotations showing the forms. usages of the words. changes in senses. nor dates of the usages. Solely in the case of New Hebrew words is there a specification beyond mere defmition. If the creator of an entry word is known. Klein includes a note like the following which appears for P':Jo: "[coined by Eliezer ben Yehudah (1853-1922) ...]!. But even in such cases. Klein does not cite the original quotation carrying the word. nor any early quotation with it. or any example of its usage. For all strata Klein does adduce the stem in cognate languages together with the meaning of the stem in these languages. All words from languages other than Hebrew. Aramaic. and Yiddish are printed in Roman characters and translated into English. Klein also provides the various translations of a word if these differ in Biblical. Post Biblical. Medieval. or New Hebrew. This reviewer finds the contemporary language aspect of the dictionary the weakest. Klein·s knowledge is broad. and his analyses are accurate. The representation of New Hebrew and Foreign Words in the present-day language appears distorted. Although Hebrew stemming from earlier strata is presented well. a plethora of common. everyday words in current usage from the New Hebrew stratum are conspicuously missing. Indeed. a multivolume dictionary cannot include all the words of the Hebrew language in all its periods. much less a one-volume work. Nevertheless. the claim that "in this dictionary. the vocabulary of present-day Hebrew is covered thoroughly:· leads one to wonder at the omission of certain entries (e.g.• l'='mt, ll,at, iTOl, I!)~:JC, ppo. iTllU:lo. ~£). p~-p'~). In the case of iTel one is particularly puzzled because the entry iTOU with the plene spelling is followed by "see iT'il~." Klein does include other foreign...