Hellenistic and Roman Greece as a sociolinguistic area By Vit Bubenik (review)

BOOK NOTICES 391 (as in defining ship as 'every description of vessel used in navigation not propelled by oars'). This creates 'lexical illusions' for both drafters and interpreters, since the normal meaning and use of a word continue to impinge on and distort the stipulated meaning. Analyzing the tactics of drafters to avoid ambiguity introduced by multiple modification (in examples like charitable or social institutions), B focuses attention on the distinction between natural-language resolutions of ambiguity (by paragraphing or repetition ) and artificial means such as tabulation. While B claims that his intended audience is 'lawyers and others who have an interest in the operation of legislation' (7), it nevertheless seems to me that a fair amount of linguistic background is required to fully appreciate some of the technical aspects of this work. The book is clearly not intended as an introduction to legal language in the way that Mellinkoff's The Language of the Law (Little, Brown & Co.. 1963) is. Rather, it serves as an overview of the linguistics of drafting and interpretation. The book might have benefitted from some discussion of recent approaches to legal language which treat legal interpretation as a species of literary criticism (e.g. the work of Stanley Fish and others), especially in light of B's position that literary criticism is the 'nearest parallel' (3) to legal interpretation . Nevertheless, this is a book that will provide much useful information to linguists interested in statutory language. [Edwin Battistella, University of Alabama in Birmingham .) Gender variation in Dutch: A sociolinguistic study of Amsterdam speech. By Dédé Brouwer. Dordrecht & Providence: Foris, 1989. Pp. xv, 126. Paper $19.00. The aims of this book are twofold: first, B wants to provide an accurate description of the sociolinguistic variants used by men and women; second, she tries to gain insight into the factors that underlie this gender-related variation . To answer these questions, she studies the use of standard versus nonstandard speech by a carefully selected group of subjects in an Amsterdam neighborhood. B's thesis is that the social difference in the roles and positions of women and men are reflected in their respective use of language. The most consistent sociolinguistic findings about gender variation in language have been found at the phonetic level, and for that reason B concentrates on pronunciation in her study of Amsterdam speech. She criticizes older studies that assume biological factors to be the source of differences between female and male language usage. In addition, she points out difficulties that arise from classifying the profession of housewife, or from establishing a woman's social position in terms of the socioeconomic status of her husband . It follows that the misclassification of women argues for the need to reevaluate findings on differences between women's and men's speech. As far as sociolinguistic variants are concerned , B's conclusions may be roughly summarized as follows: first, women use a standard variety of Dutch more frequently than men do. Second, the two primarily independent variables B used, children and outside employment, both promote the use of the standard variety in women as well as in men. Also, secondary independent variables, such as level of education, social network, and lifestyle, seem to affect language use. Third, women do not have a positive attitude towards the use of coarse language. Finally , B finds a prevailing belief that the use of the standard language is more suitable for a woman than for a man. Beyond these findings. B's second aim is to use statistical data to explain why gender differences in language behavior exist; she stresses that men's language is not the norm, and that women's language is not deviant. B speculates that different social norms for women and men are crucial in accounting for sex differentiation in language, and thus that language behavior is accounted for by different ideas about one's own social roles. Gender variation in Dutch provides a fine example of the sociolinguistic method and does not assume an extensive linguistic background. It therefore has a variety of potential readers. B's style is clear and concise, and she offers convincing support for her arguments. Knowledge of Dutch is not necessary...