Although it is well accepted that linguistic naming conventions provide valuable insights into the social and linguistic perceptions of people, this topic has not received much attention in sociolinguistics. Studies focus on the etymology of names, details about the social and historical circumstances of their emergence, and their users, and sometimes make recommendations about the appropriateness of terms. This article departs from this tradition. Focusing on the term “Takitaki” in French Guiana, it shows that an analysis of the discursive uses of language names by all local actors provides significant insights into the social and linguistic makeup of a complex sociolinguistic situation. Descriptions of languages in such settings should be based on the varieties identified by such an analysis and on practices in a range of naturalistic interactions. Based on these analytical steps, the authors propose a multi-perspective approach to language documentation.We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of this journal for valuable comments and criticisms on an earlier version of this article. All remaining errors are, of course, our own responsibility.

A micro-discourse-based approach is employed to examine the usage of nonparticle questions (e.g., ii? ‘{Is that} okay?’) in Japanese university orchestra meetings. Women appear to ask such questions more often than men do there. It is shown that a detailed discourse analysis, including participants' talk, nonvocal behaviors, and the use of documents, can uncover how superficially sex-linked usage arises from differences in speakers' activities at the moment. By means of both sequential and quantitative analyses of 140 nonparticle questions, it is demonstrated that their use with different frequencies by women and men is not a direct consequence of the sex of the speaker per se. Rather, the speakers' engagement in activities specific to particular discourses (e.g., note-taking) affects their opportunities to ask nonparticle questions.I would like to express my appreciation to my former academic adviser, Amy Sheldon of the University of Minnesota, and to the other members of my dissertation committee, Junko Mori, Betsy Kerr, Jeanette Gundel, and Bruce Downing, for their invaluable comments on earlier versions of this article. I am also grateful to the editor of the journal and two anonymous reviewers of this article who helped me to refocus the argumentation. I also appreciate the help of Anthony Backhouse, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, Jane Hill, Noël R. Houck, Hiroaki Ishiguro, Etsuko Oishi, and Tomoharu Yanagimachi, who gave me useful and insightful suggestions. I also thank Anne-Marie Cusac and Jane McGary, who made many stylistic changes. I am solely responsible for any problems that remain in this article. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of American Association for Applied Linguistics in St. Louis, Missouri. A related but different article concerning functions of nonparticle questions appeared as Okada 2005 in the Bulletin of Fuji Women's University 42 (Series I).

This article investigates two types of preference organization in interaction: in response to a question that selects a next speaker in multi-party interaction, the preference for answers over non-answer responses as a category of a response; and the preference for selected next speakers to respond. It is asserted that the turn allocation rule specified by Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (1974) which states that a response is relevant by the selected next speaker at the transition relevance place is affected by these two preferences once beyond a normal transition space. It is argued that a “second-order” organization is present such that interactants prioritize a preference for answers over a preference for a response by the selected next speaker. This analysis reveals an observable preference for progressivity in interaction.Thank you to Nick Enfield, Steve Levinson and Manny Schegloff for useful discussions about the phenomena discussed in this article, and to John Heritage for his careful reading and comments on earlier drafts. Portions of this article were presented at the 2002 Western States Communication Association convention, Long Beach, California, and at the Workshop on Feedback in Interaction at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, in February 2004.

This study investigates the organization of conversational interaction via push-to-talk mobile radios. Operating like long-range walkie-talkies, the mobile radios mediate a remote state of incipient talk; at the push of a button, speakers can initiate, engage, disengage, and reengage turn-by-turn talk. Eight friends used the mobile radios for one week; 50 of their conversational exchanges were analyzed using conversation analytic methods. The findings describe the contour of their conversational exchanges: how turn-by-turn talk is engaged, sustained, and disengaged. Similar to a continuing state of incipient talk in copresence, opening and closing sequences are rare. Instead, speakers engage turn-by-turn talk by immediately launching the purpose of the call. Speakers disengage turn-by-turn talk by orienting to the relevance of a lapse at sequence completion. Once engaged, the mobile radio system imposes silence between speakers' turns at talk, giving them a resource for managing a remote conversation amid ongoing copresent activities.We are grateful to Mimi and her friends for making it possible to collect this data. We also thank Jim Thornton, Marilyn Whalen, Paul Drew, Bob Moore and Luke Plurkowski for their helpful insights.

John Kirk & Dónall Ó Baoill (eds.), Language and politics: Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland (No. 1 in the series Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2000. Pp. xxii + 147. Pb £9.50

John Kirk & Dónall Ó Baoill (eds.), Language links: The languages of Scotland and Ireland (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 2). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2001. Pp. xx + 289. Pb £13.50

John Kirk & Dónall Ó Baoill (eds.), Linguistic politics: Language policies for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 3). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2001. Pp. xvi + 258. Pb £13.50

John Kirk & Dónall Ó Baoill (eds.), Travellers and their language (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 4). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2002. Pp. x + 196. Pb £19.50

Simone Zwickl, Language attitudes, ethnic identity and dialect use across the Northern Ireland border: Armagh and Monaghan (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 5). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2002. Pp. xx + 281. Pb £29.95

John Kirk & Dónall Ó Baoill (eds.), Language planning and education: Linguistic issues in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 6). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2002. Pp. xiv + 326. Pb £19.50

Edna Longley, Eamonn Hughes & Des O'Rawe (eds.), Ireland (Ulster) Scotland: Concepts, contexts, comparisons (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 7). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2003. Pp. xvi + 254. Pb £19.50

Maolcholaim Scott & Róise Ní Bhaoill (eds.), Gaelic-medium education provision: Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 8). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2003. Pp. viii + 144. Pb £12.50

Dónall Ó riagáin (ed.), Language and law in Northern Ireland (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 9). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2003. Pp. xii + 175. Pb £12.50

John Kirk & Dónall Ó Baoill (eds.), Towards our goals in broadcasting, the press, the performing arts and the economy: Minority languages in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 10). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2003. Pp. xxii + 308. Pb £19.50

J. Derrick McClure (ed.), Doonsin' emerauds: New scrieves anent Scots an Gaelic/New studies in Scots and Gaelic (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 11). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2004. Pp. x + 114. Pb £12.50

Neal Alexander, Shane Murphy & Anne Oakman (eds.), To the other shore: Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish studies (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 12). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2004. Pp. x + 166. Pb £12.50

John M. Kirk & Dónall P. Ó Baoill (eds.), Travellers and their language (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, no. 4). Béal Feirste: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona [Belfast: Queen's University], 2002. Pp. 196. Pb £19.50.

The language of the Travellers in Ireland is in many respects shrouded in mystery, and its study filled with dilemmas and contradictions. It is a secret language, but quite a bit is available in print about it. Some speakers consider the mere existence of the language as secret, and they would deny having a language of their own. Whereas secret languages are mostly used to convey messages to other group members in the presence of outsiders, some of these Travellers would not use it in the presence of outsiders at all. Yet however secret it may be, or may have been, language researchers are welcomed today as the speakers see the use of the language declining. The present book is the result of cooperation between academics and Travellers. Six contributors are Travellers and eight chapters are written by academics, with no overlap.

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun and Stefan Wolff (eds.), Minority languages in Europe: Frameworks, status, prospects. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp. xiii, 238. Hb $69.95.

This volume continues and extends an interest in the dynamics of minority languages in Europe which has already appeared in related works in which some of this volume's participants have been contributors or editors. The major theoretical framework that unifies and offers coherence to the contributions is that of a macro-sociological, macro-sociolinguistic perspective with links to political theory, and detailed discussions of policy in the context of European power structures. Against this emphasis, micro-interactional processes and linguistic ideologies emerging from within the local communities are not afforded the same degree of attention, even though they are not entirely absent from some at least of the volume's chapters.

Adam Jaworski, Nikolas Coupland and Dariusz Galasiński (eds.), Metalanguage: Social and ideological perspectives. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004. Pp 324. Pb Euro 30,79.

It is commonplace in linguistics to argue that human language is unique in being able to represent itself, an insight that has underpinned much of the early work undertaken by sociolinguists in the area of language attitudes and folk linguistics. However, the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of sociolinguistics, informed not least by recent work in (critical) discourse analysis and language ideology studies, has highlighted the extent to which this central metalinguistic function represents more than a mere cognitive ability to reflect on language “as object.” This is because it is through metalanguage (ML) that we are able to convey our ideas not only about what language is, but what we think it ought to be. As such, ML shows itself to be more than simply self-serving: It is inherently ideological. Seen in conjunction with an increasing awareness of the nature of language as not only socially contextualized but also contextualizing, the notion of metalinguistic competence is therefore closely bound up with hegemonic struggle at a particular point in history (late modernity) when many traditional social boundaries might well be being dismantled but where new ones are constantly emerging in their stead – a process to which language and discourse are indisputably central.

Zarina Estrada Fernández et al., Diccionario yaqui-español y textos: Obra de preservación lingüística. Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico: Universidad de Sonora; Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2004. Pp. 405.

The Yaqui or Yoeme live historically in the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico, and in recent times also in Arizona. They are well known ethnographically and ethnohistorically through the works of Edward Spicer (e.g., 1980, 1984), and ethnopoetically through the work of Evers & Molina 1987. Their Uto-Aztecan language is closely related to that of the Mayo, in Sinaloa, and the two varieties are known collectively as Cáhita. Descriptive studies of Yaqui, including partial lexicons, have been published by writers including Johnson 1962, Lindenfeld 1973, Lionnet 1977, and recently by Molina et al. 1999; but no detailed reference grammar exists. The work by Molina et al. was, surprisingly, repudiated by one of its coauthors (Shaul 1999); yet, in spite of its shortcomings, it has been a useful reference for Yaqui lexicon. Now we also have the volume under review, by Zarina Estrada and coworkers, which contains no grammatical sketch but provides a substantial two-way dictionary plus a collection of texts.

Carlo L. Prevignano & Paul J. Thibault (eds.), Discussing Conversation Analysis: The work of Emanuel A. Schegloff. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. 206. Hb $72.00.

Emanuel Schegloff's life is like the conversations he studies: structures (e.g., graduate school, marriage) and plans (e.g., dissertation topics) blend with and give way to chance encounters (e.g., meeting Harvey Sacks his third year of graduate school at Berkeley), fortuitous and unexpected events (e.g., suddenly losing the data source for his dissertation and luckily finding another one), and tragedy (the premature death of Harvey Sacks). These and other events during the course of his intellectual life have shaped the context in which he made decisions about his work and developed his unique perspective on the study of language and interaction.

Leelo Keevallik, From interaction to grammar: Estonian finite verb forms in conversation. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2003. Pp. 270. Hb $57.50.

This book – presented as a Ph. D. thesis at the University of Uppsala, Sweden – comprises analyses of eleven frequently occurring epistemic expressions in present-day spoken Estonian. The constitutive elements in these expressions are finite verb forms in any of the three persons – for example, ma arvan ‘I guess’, ütleme ‘let's say’, kule ‘listen!’, on ju ‘(it) is surely’. In addition to the verb form, which is either in the indicative or imperative mood, there may be another element, typically a personal pronoun or verbal suffix (1st or 2nd person), and even a clitic particle (on+ju). Semantically, most of the verbs denote human cognition or speaking. An exception is the verb olla ‘to be’ (cf. on ju above).

John Aitchison & Harold Carter (eds.), Spreading the word: The Welsh language 2001. Talybont, Ceredigion: Y Lolfa Cyf., 2004. Pp. 160. Pb. £8.95.

For three decades, John Aitchison and Harold Carter (A&C) have shouldered principal responsibility for interpreting the results of the decennial UK census as it relates to the use of the Welsh language in Wales. In this book A&C give their account of the 2001 census data on Welsh. First-level analysis of the 2001 data is available through an excellent government web site – http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/ – but A&C's further, mainly geographically based analyses have become the standard resource for reading patterns of Welsh language maintenance and shift.

Richard Buttny, Talking problems: Studies of discursive construction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Pp.ix, 214. Hb $45.00.

Richard Buttney's Talking problems: Studies of discursive construction addresses the centrality of ordinary talk as a key site in the construction of human sociality and social reality. He characterizes talk about problems as a linguistic abstraction from actions or events that call for solutions. Such discourses have regular patterns which people routinely deploy as they tell their troubles and seek solutions to problems. How people structure such talk and position themselves and others in it provides insight into how those people identify themselves socially and operate within moral systems. Problems do not exist independently of the ways in which people perceive and evaluate both the problem situation and themselves. People position themselves as good, blameless, likable, and so on through what Buttny calls a “microlevel rhetoric.” Examination of that rhetoric sheds light on the interests at stake, since positioning means casting oneself or another in terms of specific, often moral characterizations (dutiful, realistic, happy, etc.) which are in turn related to one's membership category (social role, ethnic identity, etc.). Buttny thus builds on work in ethnomethodology and conversational analysis to develop a particular set of methods for the analysis of trouble-telling. He focuses, as he puts it, on communicative practices, positionings and constructions: “How problems get interactionally formed and oriented to, and how interlocutors position themselves in the course of such problem talk” (p. 9, italics in original). Buttny examines three areas of trouble-telling: teens talking about being young parents, therapy talk among clients and their therapist, and talk among college students about race relations. The book is organized into eight chapters: an introduction (summarized above) and conclusion, and two main sections of three chapters each, the first focusing on talking about problems, the second on reported speech about race.

Dennis R. Preston (ed.), Needed research in American dialects. Publications of the American Dialect Society, 88. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Pp. vii, 261. Hb $20.00.

This collection is the fourth in a series of volumes titled Needed research in American dialects, published by the American Dialect Society (ADS) in 20-year intervals since 1943. In addition, the book represents the continuing evolution of the state of American dialectology and related sociolinguistics as outlined in Dennis Preston's edited collection, American Dialect Research (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1993), published in commemoration of the ADS centennial in 1989. The current volume is a striking compilation for several reasons. First, it (like the ADS in general) is to be commended for continuing with many of the themes first outlined in the 1943 volume, currently available as part of PADS 31 (1964), which also includes the 1963 Needed Research volume. This commitment to solving research questions and completing research and publication tasks outlined early in the society's history is remarkable in an era when it is all too easy to substitute research on the latest fashionable topic for good solid scholarship on basic questions and sustained research that provides valuable time depth. At the same time, though, the current volume is not fettered by its commitment to historical continuity, and coverage of newer research areas whose importance has been recognized over the past couple of decades is comprehensive as well. Finally, Preston is to be commended for the slate of authors he has brought together in this volume. The chapters are written by leading researchers in the areas covered, and the authors are themselves responsible for some of the chief advances in the field since the publication of the 1983 volume.

Kingsley Bolton, Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xviii, 338. Hb US$70.00.

Almost everyone knows that many places in the non-Anglophone world have had a long and tumultuous love affair with English, yet few are aware of China's flirtation, if not infatuation, with it. But with at least 200 million students of English in mainland China alone (Yong & Campbell 1995) – more than two-thirds of the population of the United States – the romance could hardly have been hidden for long. Kingsley Bolton has been letting the secret out for the past decade. This fascinating, timely, and very readable new book is the result of his many years of perseverance. In short, English in China has had “a long and barely remembered history” (p. xiii) which stretches back to the beginnings of maritime trade of Britain with Canton and Macao.

Publications received (through 1 December 2005).