Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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