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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 82, NUMBER 1, (2006) 200


sues presented. The tutors handbook is very useful,
as it presents official, usually published, translations
of the examples presented in the exercises, against
which one can compare and correct translations pro-
duced by students. Therefore, a teacher of translation
is spared the task of producing personal translations
of the examples. The wide range of examples, drawn
fromtechnical, scientific, judicial, administrative, lit-
erary, and general texts, and the level of accuracy of
the translations presented bode well for the authors
research and skills. There is no doubt that Hervey
(now deceased) and Higgins are highly skilled trans-
lators and teachers. The progression from chapter to
chapter is logical, and the material presented is quite
complete. The teaching methods and the material
presented are personalized, and there is room for ad-
aptation and the possibility of switching the order of
chapters.
As explained in the summary and conclusion, this
book is intended for use in teaching translators-in-
training what to think about when they translate. Its
strategies are based on an analysis of the salient fea-
tures of a text, the source that commissioned its trans-
lation, and for what audience the translation is
intended. The examples and exercises (termed prac-
ticals) are well chosen and very well executed. It
covers all of the relevant topics related to translation
and concludes with a warning: May the loss be with
you. Although the allusion is very clear, many trans-
lators might fail to see the humor in that last sentence.
Overall, the manual and tutors handbook are very
well presented, and very clear. However, there are
some drawbacks. The translations and explanations
contained in the manual are clearly written almost
exclusively for a British audience, and the level of
difficulty of the exercises makes the information
available for only quite advanced students in transla-
tion programsfor final-year students and postgrad-
uates who are already aware of the important issues
that have an impact on translation. [LORIN CARD,
Okanagan University College.]
The role of speech perception in phonol-
ogy. Ed. by ELIZABETH HUME and KEITH
JOHNSON. San Diego: Academic Press,
2001. Pp. xviii, 282. ISBN0123613515.
$74.95 (Hb).
This volume grew out of a satellite meeting on
The role of perceptual phenomena in phonology
held in conjunction with the 15th International Con-
gress of Phonetic Sciences. The meetings general
goal was to provide a forum for interaction among
speech perception researchers and phonology re-
searchers, and specific goals included identifying
classes of perceptual mechanisms that may offer
promising insights into phonological patterns, and
classes of phonological models that can capture lan-
guage-specific auditory/perceptual generalizations
(xvi).
The volume is divided into two sections, the first
of which is on The interplay of speech perception
and phonology. In Ch. 1, ELIZABETH HUME and
KEITH JOHNSON present A model of the interplay of
speech perception and phonology, acknowledging
that phonology has traditionally been approached
from the articulatory perspective, and attributing the
renewed interest in the perceptual side to rapid tech-
nological advances and the development of opti-
mality theory. In Ch. 2, The interplay of phonology
and perception considered from the perspective of
perceptual organization, ROBERT E. REMEZ dis-
cusses both unimodal (auditory) and multimodal
perceptual organization of speech. One of the conclu-
sions he draws is that there must be a lawful relation
between linguistic phonological intentions in speech
production and the sensory consequences of phonetic
expressions (48).
Section 2 deals with The perceptual basis of pho-
nological systems. In Ch. 3, Patterns of perceptual
compensation and their phonological consequences,
PATRICE SPEETER BEDDOR, RENA ARENS KRAKOW,
and STEPHANIE LINDEMANN focus on how perceptual
phenomena become part of, or are incorporated into,
phonological systems (56), linking, for example, the
perception of vowel-to-vowel coarticulatory effects
with vowel harmony systems. STEVE S. CHANG, MA-
DELAINE C. PLAUCHE

, and JOHN J. OHALA discuss


Markedness and consonant confusion asymmetries
in Ch. 4, using experimental studies to support their
argument that it is the physical, acoustic properties
of the sounds themselves that give rise to consonant
confusion asymmetries and not markedness effects
(100).
Other topics covered include Effects of vowel
context on consonant place identification: Implica-
tions for a theory of phonologization (Ch. 5, by JEN-
NIFER COLE and KHALIL ISKAROUS) and Adaptive
design of sound systems: Some auditory considera-
tions (Ch. 6, by RANDY L. DIEHL, MICHELLE R.
MOLIS, and WENDY A. CASTLEMAN). In Ch. 7, LARRY
HYMAN revisits *NCin discussing The limits of pho-
netic determinism in phonology, emphasizing that
predictions of what is and what is not attested cannot
be made on a single dimension alone (174). JAYE
PADGETT discusses Contrast dispersion and Russian
palatalization in Ch. 8, and DONCA STERIADE ad-
dresses phonological processes such as apical assimi-
lation in Sanskrit with regard to Directional
asymmetries in place assimilation (Ch. 9). In the
final chapter, Perceptual cues in contrast mainte-
nance (Ch. 10), RICHARD WRIGHT presents experi-
mental evidence in support of considering phonetic
cues not as abstract entities but rather as they occur
in natural language, with noise and distractions.
BOOK NOTICES 201
The studies presented in this volume offer a good
introductory perspective on this area of study and an
intriguing look at some of the possibilities that this
vein of research offers. A foreword by BJO

RN LIND-
BLOM and an index are also included. [HOPE C. DAW-
SON, The Ohio State University.]
Discourse analysis. By BARBARA JOHN-
STONE. (Introducing linguistics.) Mal-
den, MA: Blackwell, 2002. Pp. xv, 269.
ISBN 0631208771. $38.
In this book, Johnstone proposes a comprehensive,
eclectic approach to the analysis of discourse. She
asserts that since no discourse theory provides defini-
tive answers, her approach is a heuristic, exploratory
tool that provides a means for answering some ques-
tions while raising others.
The book consists of eight chapters. The first is
an introduction in which the author defines the termi-
nology of the discipline, including discourse and
analysis. In this introductory chapter, J also distin-
guishes between discourse in the singular form,
which refers to an instance of speech, writing, or
signing, and discourses in the plural form, which
denotes a set of ideologies. The middle six chapters
constitute the main body of the book. In each, J dis-
cusses a fundamental aspect that shapes and is shaped
by discourse.
Ch. 2 tackles the mutualism of language and
worldview. The chapter gives an overview of the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and discusses its strong ver-
sion, linguistic determinism, and its weak version,
linguistic relativism. Ch. 3 critiques a number of
analytical approaches proposed for the explanation
of discourse structure. It distinguishes between
grammar, which regards the sentence as the basic
linguistic unit, and discourse, which attempts to de-
fine the structure of suprasentential linguistic units.
J examines a variety of approaches and attempts to
determine whether discourse rules are generative or
statistical. The fourth chapter discusses how dis-
course is shaped by its participants, their role-
relationships, and social status. It emphasizes the
creativity of discourse and argues that although social
factors color texts, discourse is unpredictable be-
cause each interlocutor is a unique individual. Ch. 5
is a reviewof paradigmatic and syntagmatic intertex-
uality in discourse. J argues that text producers per-
form a dual task; they appropriate and borrow from
previously constructed texts, while adapting their
discourse to the communicative needs at hand. The
sixth chapter is about discourse and medium. It dis-
cusses the differences between oral and written dis-
course, how discourse shapes and is shaped by its
medium, and the characterizations of electronic com-
munication. Ch. 7 looks at speech act theory and
examines the correlation between the intentions of
participants and discourse. J argues that people use
discourse as performance to project a specific iden-
tity. The eighth and final chapter reviews the basic
concepts discussed in the previous six chapters. It
also raises the question of whether meaning is deter-
mined by the text, author, audience, or a combination
of all three. The chapter echoes the principal issues
discussed in semantics, literary criticism, and semi-
otics.
Despite a few typographical errors, the book is
an enterprising attempt to construct a comprehensive
approach to the analysis of discourse. It uses a variety
of discourse genres and registers from a number of
typologically diverse languages in the discussion and
exercise sections. Ironically, the comprehensibility
of the proposed approach may prove to be difficult to
its intended audience: undergraduates and beginning
graduate students taking their first (or only) course
about discourse (xi). [YOUSIF ELHINDI, East Tennes-
see State University.]
If I could turn my tongue like that: The
Creole language of Pointe Coupee Par-
ish, Louisiana. By THOMAS A. KLING-
LER. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 2003. Pp. 627. ISBN
0807127795. $75 (Hb).
The Creole language in Louisiana had long coex-
isted with two other French-related speech varieties,
Cajun French and Plantation Society French (also
called Colonial French by many authors). The three
varieties have been displaced by the most widely
used language, English, but there are still small Cre-
ole and Cajun French communities. The number of
Louisiana Creole speakers is constantly and rapidly
shrinking, and most of them are over sixty-five, and
nearly all of them are bilingual.
This book is the first comprehensive grammatical
description of the Creole spoken in Pointe Coupee
Parish. It is divided into three parts, preceded by a
short section containing maps and an introduction.
Part 1 (1133) consists of three chapters. Ch. 1
presents Colonial Louisiana, its exploration, and
early settlement. Ch. 2 examines the origin and de-
velopment of Louisiana Creole. In the authors opin-
ion, it was not imported fromelsewhere but is instead
an indigenous language that had its genesis on the
plantations bordering the Mississippi and subse-
quently spread to the regions where it was or still is
spoken. Ch. 3 looks at the demographic and social
history of Pointe Coupee Parish and describes its cur-
rent sociolinguistic situation.
Part 2 (135372) provides a thorough description
of the major Creole grammatical structures. Ch. 4

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