An ethnographic approach to language aims at explaining the organization of a verbal culture, understood as the result of speakers' practices and agency. The instrument of this research is fieldwork. For the verbal cultures of bygone societies, only examination of written records helps us to guess how speaking worked at the time. This general issue is addressed by scrutinizing a medieval Catalan chronicle. Ethnographic and pragmatic concepts are projected backward on data informative on face-to-face communication and the interactional construction of a social order. Speakers' rights and obligations, their metalinguistic and metapragmatic management of verbal resources (genres, texts, codeswitching), and the link between linguistic management and ideologies are uncovered. The article focuses on the relationship among evidence, knowledge and reporting of events, and the production and reproduction of authority in Catalan medieval society, as well as the different types of responsibility in discourse and their patterns of social distribution. Concentration is on three types of discourse events: delegated discourse, mediated communication, and a specific type of codeswitching in political oratory, quotation cum auctoritate.The research on which this article is based was funded by the Department of Research, Universities and Information Society, Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, Research Fund BFF2003-02954. I benefited from a visiting scholar stay at the University of California, Berkeley (spring–summer 2003). I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers who helped to imprive this article. Particular thanks go to Jane McGary, who patiently helped in editing the manuscript and making it a more readable text.

This study examines the co-construction of five successful gatekeeping encounters. Drawing from a database of employment interviews, the emically derived concept of trustworthiness is identified as a key determiner in the success or failure of job candidates. Three critical, potentially problematic moves are identified: supplying inappropriate references, demanding too high a salary, and failing to account for gaps in one's work history. What distinguishes the successful from the failed interviews is not the frequency of these potentially damaging occurrences but the compensatory characteristics of those encounters in which trust (and subsequent success) is established. The successful candidates vary widely in terms of second language ability (in the case of nonnative speakers of English) and work experience. What they share, however, is the ability to present themselves positively, to establish rapport/solidarity with their interlocutor, and to demonstrate flexibility regarding job requirements and preferences. Both linguistic and nonlinguistic features are examined.I am grateful to Gabriele Kasper and Claire Kramsch, who provided me with numerous critical and insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. The data analyzed here come from the database that was used for my dissertation research (2001). Attempts have been made to reflect the constructive, and much appreciated, criticisms of two insightful anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this article.

This study investigates the construction of linguistic modernity via English mixing in the discourse of Korean television commercials. Specifically, it is concerned with Korean-English bilinguals' linguistic construction of modernity as realized in three domains of advertising: technology, gender roles, and taste as a cultural form. Four hours of commercials were video-taped in Seoul, South Korea, during weekend prime time from August through October 2002. A total of 720 advertising spots were analyzed. The findings suggest that mixing English with Korean is a linguistic mechanism for the construction of modernity in contemporary South Korea. It is argued that knowledge and use of English in South Korea is a defining linguistic expression of modernity, and the conspicuous total absence of English is linguistically disassociated from modernity.A preliminary version of the paper was presented at Sociolinguistic Symposium 15, April 1–4, 2004, at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. My sincere thanks to Rakesh Bhatt, Ingrid Piller, Elizabeth Martin and Tej Bhatia for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments, and Alice Filmer for her assistance with copyediting.

This article describes linguistic features used to depict fictional American Indian speech, a style referred to as “Hollywood Injun English,” found in movies, on television, and in some literature (the focus is on the film and television varieties). Grammatically, it draws on a range of nonstandard features similar to those found in “foreigner talk” and “baby talk,” as well a formalized, ornate variety of English; all these features are used to project or evoke certain characteristics historically associated with “the White Man's Indian.” The article also exemplifies some ways in which these linguistic features are deployed in relation to particular characteristics stereotypically associated with American Indians, and shows how the correspondence between nonstandard, dysfluent speech forms and particular pejorative aspects of the fictional Indian characters subtly reproduce Native American otherness in contemporary popular American culture.I would like to thank the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the University of Michigan for their support. This manuscript has also benefited from the following individuals' comments and suggestions: Gerald Carr, Eve Danziger, Philip Deloria, Joseph Gone, Jane Hill, Judith Irvine, Webb Keane, William Leap, Bruce Mannheim, and the anonymous reviewer. For their time and effort, I am truly grateful. All errors are my own.

Michael Clyne, Dynamics of language contact: English and immigrant languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003 Pp. xv, 282. Hb $65.00, pb $24.00.

Ever since Thomason & Kaufman 1988 reawakened linguists to the role of external contacts in language change, and the origin and development of creoles became a major research topic (largely after Bickerton 1981), the field of contact linguistics has burgeoned. Sociolinguists have always been interested in the social side of language contact, but today the grammatical side of contact also is attracting researchers. Books published just since 2000 give some idea of the research activity. Three monographs exemplify the wide interest in grammatical aspects of codeswitching: Hlavac 2003 deals with codeswitching among second-generation Croatian speakers in Australia; and Kovács 2001 treats Australian Finnish and Hungarian in contact with English; and Canut & Caubet 2001 is a collection of articles on codeswitching involving French in various francophonie communities.

Rick Iedema, Discourses of post-bureaucratic organization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. ix, 234. Hb $82.00.

Discourses of post-bureaucratic organization represents an ambitious effort by Rick Iedema to synthesize the fields of discourse studies and organization studies. Not since Deirdre Boden's The business of talk (1994) has this feat been attempted in such depth by a scholar whose starting point is linguistics (as opposed to management theory). Of course, each of the two fields being synthesized includes a large number of diverse perspectives. Iedema develops his theoretical paradigm primarily by highlighting and intertwining the strands of social semiotics and conceptualizations of the “post-bureaucratic organization.” He weaves these together with the aid of Foucauldian notions of discourse and governmentality. In this review, I will first summarize Iedema's argument and then offer an assessment of its strengths and limitations. My description of the book will go into some detail as a service to potential readers, because, in fact, this volume is not easy to read.

Diana Boxer, Applying sociolinguistics: Domains and face-to-face interaction. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. 244 pp. Hb $108.00, Pb $47.95.

This book has many fine qualities, including careful attention to what is meant by applying linguistics as opposed to applied linguistics. The author's goal is to show readers how research findings in micro-sociolinguistic interaction can be applied to several domains of public and private life: family, education, religion, the workplace, cross-cultural encounters, and so on. Application, in this case, involves awareness of subtleties that go unnoticed in face-to-face interaction, particularly those that create or sustain a power imbalance between participants. That awareness, in turn, sets the stage for “transform(ing) the social order” (p. 22, italics omitted) by empowering “individual speakers in their ordinary day-to-day interactions in all spheres of life and in all stages of life” (222). Instead of a social or political agenda, the book suggests in each domain what would constitute more “humane” interaction: stories would be addressed to children, as well as told about them; collaborative ways of speaking associated primarily with women would be given more status in the workplace and used more often by both women and men; gatekeepers who deal with international students (and other U.S. Americans who interact with speakers for whom English is a second language) would be more sensitive to the potential for face threat to arise from misunderstanding.

Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug, & Frank Palmer (eds.), Modality in contemporary English. Topics in English Linguistics 44. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. Pp. xvi, 396. Hb. $132.30.

This volume is a collection of sixteen papers, mainly arising from a conference in Verona, Italy, in 2001. There is a nine-page preface, though no concluding section, by the editors. The preface is mostly devoted to summaries of the individual chapters, except for an initial introduction of about one page. In it the editors aver that “all of these papers offer fresh methodological impetus to a variety of current linguistic debates” but also refer to “differences in theoretical perspectives, terminology and topics.” Differences in topics are of course desirable, but differences in core terminology are less so. An attempt on the part of the editors to comment on differences in terminology in studies on modality in general, or at least in those of the present volume, would have been welcome and might have enhanced the “methodological impetus” of which the editors speak. It would also have increased the interest of the volume for the reader wishing to gain a sense of the state of the art in the well-researched field of modality at the beginning of the new century.

Ana Roca & M. Cecilia Colombi (eds.), Mi lengua: Spanish as a heritage language in the United States. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 2003. 320 pp. $29.95.

The teaching of Spanish to native speakers has been packaged under diverse names, emerging most recently as “Spanish as a Heritage Language.” Whether it is couched as developmental bilingual education, maintenance bilingual education, Spanish for native speakers, or heritage language development, advocates for programs of academic excellence in two languages have been dealt a stunning blow by recent federal school reform measures. The No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001, eliminates, for all intents and purposes, the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII), as programs for English language learners have been subsumed under Title III of NCLB. All reference to bilingual education has been expunged from federal parlance, replaced in both form and substance by English language acquisition programs. The former Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (OBEMLA), the repository of research on minoritized languages in the United States, has been transformed into the Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited-English-Proficient Students. Needless to say, support for native-language instruction is not found in Title III, as English language acquisition takes center stage. Add to this scenario the referenda passed in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts dismantling bilingual education, as well as the anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping the country, and the prospect of fostering Spanish as a heritage language seems dismal indeed.

Lisa J. Green, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 285 pp. Pb $31.99.

When I first saw Cambridge University Press's announcement of Lisa Green's book, I was quite excited, because a systematic, comprehensive introductory book on African American English had been lacking in the field for quite a while. But now one is available and – to start with my overall impression – it is very good. In what follows I survey the book's contents as well as offer critical assessment of its goals and how they are achieved.

Walt Wolfram & Erik R. Thomas, The development of African American English. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Pp. ix, 237. Pb $40.95.

Wolfram and Thomas (W&T) have produced a meticulous study of African American English and its development, based on extensive fieldwork and ensuing linguistic analyses in Hyde County, North Carolina. W&T worked in collaboration with Elaine W. Green, Becky Childes, Dan Beckett, and Benjamin Torbert. Any student of African American English, or of sociolinguistics in general, will find a wealth of knowledge in this volume that reflects advanced studies of African American English that connect synchronic studies with their diachronic relevance.

Publications received (through March 31, 2005).

This is the first issue of Language in Society to go to press under my editorship, though most of the contents of this issue were edited by Jane Hill. I would like to thank Professor Hill for making the editorial transition as smooth as it has been. She has been ready to help and advise at a moment's notice. Readers of the journal, too, owe Professor Hill an enormous debt of gratitude for her work as editor. I hope that Language in Society will continue to be as interesting and up to date during my tenure, but Jane Hill will be a hard act to follow.