Joel Walters, Bilingualism: The
sociopragmatic-psycholinguistic interface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xi, 323. Pb. $37.50.
In the Preface to this volume, Joel Walters explains why we need
“yet another model of bilingual processing” (p. viii): The
field of bilingualism is divided between researchers focused on the social
situating and functions of bilingualism and those concerned with mental
structures of bilingualism. Yet bilingual speakers function linguistically
at the intersection of these two realms; Walters is concerned to construct
a map of cognitive processes at that intersection. In other words, Walters
takes on an enormous task: to construct a psycholinguistic model of
bilingual processing that includes the wealth of social and pragmatic
information that plays a role in bilingual speech and interaction.