LINGUIST List 21.2978 Mon Jul 19 2010 Review: Discipline of Linguistics; Pragmatics: J. Östman et al. (2008) Editor for this issue: Anja Wanner <anjalinguistlist.org> This LINGUIST List issue is a review of a book published by one of our supporting publishers, commissioned by our book review editorial staff. We welcome discussion of this book review on the list, and particularly invite the author(s) or editor(s) of this book to join in. If you are interested in reviewing a book for LINGUIST, look for the most recent posting with the subject "Reviews: AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW", and follow the instructions at the top of the message. You can also contact the book review staff directly. Directory         1.    Lisa DeWaard Dykstra, Handbook of Pragmatics Message 1: Handbook of Pragmatics Date: 19-Jul-2010 From: Lisa DeWaard Dykstra <ldykstrclemson.edu> Subject: Handbook of Pragmatics E-mail this message to a friend Discuss this message Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/19/19-3741.html EDITORS: Jan-Ola Östman, Jef Verschueren TITLE: Handbook of Pragmatics SUBTITLE: 2008 Installment SERIES TITLE: Handbook of Pragmatics 12 PUBLISHER: John Benjamins YEAR: 2008 Lisa DeWaard Dykstra, Department of Languages, Clemson University SUMMARY The 2008 Handbook of Pragmatics is part of a larger work that includes articles on theories, fields, and issues within the general scope of pragmatics research, which they define as ''the cognitive, social, and cultural study of language and communication'' (p. 2, User's guide). The Handbook takes a loose-leaf notebook form and in its complete print form includes a Manual, Handbook, and User's Guide. The 2008 installment contains an updated user's guide designed to replace the 2007 guide. In addition, the 2008 installment contains 8 new contributions, two in the ''Traditions Updates'' section and six in the ''Handbook A-Z'' section. Traditions Updates refer to traditions and approaches to work in pragmatics, while the Handbook A-Z contains articles based around key words and terms in the field. Since the Handbook is designed to be a continuous, cohesive whole, to which different articles are added each year, each article is paginated individually, beginning at '1', and the purchaser of the Handbook is advised to add the new contributions alphabetically for ease of use. The 2008 installment contains the following new articles: Traditions: Conceptual semantics and Socio-onomastics A-Z: Authenticity, Contact, Embodiment, Énonciation: French pragmatic approach(es), Listener response, and Overlap Below I briefly outline each of the new contributions before turning to a critical analysis of the work as a whole. Traditions Update Conceptual semantics, by Urpo Nikanne As a subfield of generative linguistics, the field of conceptual semantics has as its goal an integrated theory of the human mind, a description of the human cognitive system with a special emphasis on how language is stored in the mind. In this contribution, Nikanne first situates the field historically, beginning with a description of two contradictory approaches to representations of semantic information in the mind: Those of the generative semanticists (G. Lakoff and others) and the interpretive semanticists (Chomsky and Jackendoff). The first group argued that semantic information was part of deep structure while the second argued that semantic information was a surface structure. Jackendoff's (1983) work would form the basis for the field of conceptual semantics. Nikanne goes on to describe the basic background assumptions in the field, focusing on the nature of the system, the modularity of the mind, and cognitive constraint. Detailed methodological guidelines are presented. Finally, a description of how systems build is given, involving both thematic and linking requirements that must be satisfied for ''a linguistic expression ... [to be] grammatical'' (p. 9). Socio-onomastics, by Terhi Ainiala The article begins with an overview of the history of the field, which is defined as ''explor[ing] the use and variation of names'' (p. 3), and which was born out of the overlapping fields of historical linguistics and history. A well-developed argument for investigations in this area is proferred. Ainiala then goes on to focus on toponyms, or place names, taking examples from studies done on Finnish naming practices. Data are compared against various sociocultural variables, such as gender, profession, age, and hobbies. Males are found to have a higher toponymic competence than women, which is attributed by the author to their previously larger social sphere, although this finding could be a factor of data collection methods as well. The article closes with a call for further research into urban naming practices. A-Z Authenticity, by Martin Gill This article begins with a detailed historical treatment of the concept of authenticity as emerging from 18th century Romantic thought, during which time the private self became the ''setting for all that is most characteristically human'' (p. 2). Over time, as the concept of the ''real'' continued to develop, the concept of authenticity became linked with identity. Gill provides an overview of the properties of authenticity, the primary among those being: authenticity as a relation between two things or ideas, authenticity as epistemic, authenticity as normative, consensual, final, absolute, and (in the West) as having a moral force. A list of main features of authenticity is given and problematized. Finally, a link between pragmatics and authenticity is provided, which includes such topics as speech acts, the problem of the native speaker, and the notion of ''authentic speech'' (p. 13). Contact, by Li Wei Language contact in this contribution is focused on the contact between two users of a particular language, not between two languages in and of themselves. Wei goes on to describe the various factors that produce contact between language speaker groups and then turns to a description of how contact is investigated. The three main areas of study are language maintenance, language shift, and language creation. Wei ties contact to pragmatics by discussing how bilinguals navigate language choice with whom and under what circumstances. Major theorists in the field, such as Fishman, Bell, and Myers-Scotton are discussed. Finally, Wei ends by describing the usefulness of Conversation Analysis as a method for the investigation of contact in interaction. Embodiment, by Liesbet Quaeghebeur Quaeghebeur sets herself the task of answering the question: ''what [should we] make of the idea that the mind as perception and cognition is embodied''? (p. 2). She first addresses theories of transcendental embodiment and then turns to empirical embodiment, leading to a discussion of cognitive linguistics. She suggests that the development of the mind proceeds in a similar fashion to that of the body, saying, ''all mental life should be seen as the ongoing result of the interaction between the organism and its environment'' (p. 5). Three levels of embodiment are explored: trivial, intermediate, and full; all of these are dependent upon the relationship between the mind and the body and its processes. Énonciation: French pragmatic approach(es), by Marjut Johansson and Eija Suomela-Salmi Énonciation is a French pragmatic approach that grew out of French Structuralism and Saussure's work, unlike Anglo-American pragmatics, which grew out of work in analytical philosophy and logic. Énonciation is based around three concepts: enunciation, or the act of uttering, énoncé, or the utterance itself, and enonciator, or the person performing the utterance. A detailed history of the field is given, beginning with Charles Bally and ending with Jacqueline Authier-Revuz. The article finishes up by describing some of the basic notions of Énonciation, such as the role of situation and context and the role of the speaker. Listener response, by Deng Xudong In this contribution, the issue of listener response, which is defined as ''the verbal and nonverbal behaviours of a listener in response to his or her co-conversationalist's talk'' (p. 1), is analyzed against two very different approaches, the lumping approach, in which responses form a single category, and the splitting approach, in which responses form separate tokens and are analyzed accordingly. A detailed theoretical model for each approach is provided, followed by three cross-cultural studies which show the difficulties that occur in intercultural interactions by speakers from different response cultures. Overlap, by Deng Xudong Overlap in this contribution is considered the same as simultaneous speech and can be viewed either as interruptive or as simply an aspect of conversational style. The particular use of overlap can be seen as an attempt to exert power and dominance in a conversation, although the results on this in the social psychological literature are mixed (findings on gender differences have also been inconsistent). The use of Conversation Analytic methodology to determine whether overlap is interruption or involvement has revealed that there are three main categories of overlap: transitional, recognitional, and progressional (designed to help the speaker). Xudong provides a detailed theoretical background before turning to specific studies. A particularly helpful list of studies in this area can be found on pp. 17-19 of this article. EVALUATION Overall, this Handbook is a fascinating compilation of very different articles, all of which come together around the central theme of pragmatics in its broadest interpretive sense. The contributions span mainstream and less commonly investigated issues. Each contribution provides a detailed theoretical component, often accompanied by an overview of the historical development of the particular line of thought in each area. A description of how research is conducted within each framework is also given. As well, most of the contributions contain information about specific studies in their area to help the reader connect the theoretical and analytical information. The work is consistently well done and it is clear that the editors have done a remarkable job in bringing cohesion to very disparate works. REFERENCES Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. MIT Press. ABOUT THE REVIEWER Lisa DeWaard Dykstra is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Clemson University. Her research focuses on cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics in Spanish and Russian. She has also published on the role of pragmatics instruction in *National Standards*-based curricula. 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