Computational Psycholinguistics is an integrated collection by researchers withinpsycholinguistics aimed at providing a balanced treatment of current computational modeling inboth language perception and generation. The initial chapters of the book provide an introductionto the general techniques used in computational modeling (Dijkstra & de Smedt), as well asperspectives from traditional symbolic artificial intelligence (Daelemans & de Smedt) andconnectionist approaches (Murre & Goebel). The themes presented in the introductorychapters are well integrated into the rest of the book, consistent with the goal of providing arelatively self-contained introduction, suitable for a graduate-level psycholinguistics classroomor a general introductory source.

This book, like its four predecessors, consists of invited articles selected from presentationsat the previous year's International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning. In areview of this length, it would be unreasonable to attempt to do justice to all 18 articles, so I willconcentrate on a few of the theoretically oriented discussions and provide a brief overview of therest.

An invaluable contribution of scholarly papers on the bilingual–bicultural nature ofdeaf people is the volume edited by Ila Parasnis. This collection of 18 insightful papers is awelcome contribution in the context of recent national debates about whether deaf people areconsidered a minority group with their own unique linguistic and cultural identity, or consideredas audiologically disabled individuals. Collectively, the authors of the papers provide strongarguments in favor of recognizing the bilingual and bicultural nature of deaf people'sexperience. The contents of this well-edited book provides both theoretical and practicalknowledge leading to the empowerment of deaf people and to expanded views of bilingualismand second language acquisition. Reflective presentations by deaf people and applied linguisticdiscussions by researchers are combined to provide researchers and practitioners innovativeperspectives on the development of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic competence of thisunique population. The authors also contribute to research on linguistic, cognitive, and socialaspects of language and literacy development.

This collection of 15 papers includes two that also appear in Lambert (1994). Lambert hasincluded significant perspectives on language teaching in America, with papers reflectingelementary and secondary education as well as adult needs and language-maintenance efforts.Presenting an excellent, inclusive set of concerns, this issue of Annals deservesspecial attention.

This volume contains 34 papers presented at the Groningen Assembly on LanguageAcquisition in September 1995. According to the editors, the conference was designed topromote “a lively discussion about the merits and constraints of different approaches tolanguage acquisition.” Not surprisingly, in a conference that explicitly mentions it iscontinuing in the tradition of GALA 1993, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, 23of the papers in one way or the other deal with the innate properties of language and their statusin language acquisition, whereas 7 papers have a connectionist perspective. Only 2 of theconnectionist papers provide data from language learners. Two papers describe aspects of firstlanguage acquisition without an obvious theoretical allegiance. Only 1 paper considers howchildren make use of negative input provided in an experimental setting for learning aboutirregular verb forms. There is not a single paper on how interaction with caregivers influenceslanguage acquisition or how language is socially constructed.

As part of the Cambridge Language Teaching Library series, this book provides a solidintroduction to vocabulary and semantics for teachers and teacher trainers involved in languageeducation. The authors maintain a multidisciplinary perspective on these topics by including bothL1 and L2 views and research from linguistics, psychology, anthropology, cognitive science, andeducation.

This book, based on an undergraduate course at Cambridge University, provides acomprehensive introduction to language change. Chapter 1 sets forth the history of the study oflanguage change and the basic questions in the field. The remainder of the book is divided intotwo parts. Chapters 2–7 examine internally motivated change at the phonological,syntactic, semantic, and lexical levels. Within each chapter, the author outlines importanttheoretical positions, from the Neogrammarians to the generative work of Lightfoot and morerecent studies of grammaticalization. Although, as McMahon notes, the separation of types oflanguage change by levels involves considerable idealization, the result is greater clarity oforganization. The second part (Chapters 8–12), which is concerned with language contact,language variation, pidgins and creoles, language attrition and death, and linguistic evolution, isorganized topically. It is this section that is perhaps of most interest to students of SLA. As in thefirst section, McMahon reviews the perspectives on language change that emerge from a widevariety of classic studies, including Bickerton's work on Guyanese Creole andDorian's studies of East Sutherland Gaelic. Although specialists might be disappointed tosee their favorite studies missing, the examples provide an effective introduction for the intendedaudience of undergraduates.

Language Contact, Language Conflict treats the increasingly commonphenomenon of language contact and the subsequent cultural influences that contact can entail.The collection of papers is the result of a symposium held in Duisburg in March 1992 and isdivided into two sections: (a) theoretical linguistic issues and (b) case studies from throughoutthe world. In the foreword, Hymes admits his skepticism toward the search for universals inlinguistics, cognition, and human nature when “so much of anger as of joy is in thedetails” and, therefore, to preserve humanity, “the complex, emergentconfigurations of particular languages and ways of life are what need to be understood andshared” (foreword, no page number).

Ethnomethodology is a qualitative research methodology developed as an alternativepossibilityfor social scientists investigating the different ways in which reality is socially constructed. Fortheorists and researchers of language acquisition and language use in educational settings,ethnomethodology makes it possible to examine social discourse and participation structures inand out of school that are tied to success or failure in language learning. As Gumperz explains,with the help of ethnomethodology we study how knowledge is acquired, what role differencesinhome and ethnic background play in the acquisition process, and how the acquisition processinteracts with evaluational progress and the child's motivation to learn.