Essays on anaphora By Howard Lasnik (review)

BOOK NOTICES 233 section that even begins to raise philosophical issues is Ann Johns' review of first-language composition theory and its implications for second -language research (Ch. 2). Johns' stated purpose is to 'provoke thinking about theory development in ESL' (33), and she makes the significant point that 'little has been said in major ESL publications about ideology and its connections to theory and practice' ; she argues further that, 'in the future, our profession would benefit from a more careful examination of theories and the ideologies they reflect, and of the classroom practices that result' (34). Although Johns raises the question, she does not undertake philosophical inquiry herself. As a start. ESL scholars might question the implicit belief in the positivist paradigm that underlies much research in applied linguistics. This paradigm— which assumes that language reflects an uncontested 'reality', that carefully controlled research can 'find' this reality, that research designs are value-free, and that researchers can be 'objective' observers—has been seriously questioned during the past decade by specialists in composition and rhetoric. The fact that this collection, with the exception of Johns' article, does not acknowledge these challenges to positivism attests to the lack of a philosophical perspective in the field. In order to construct a philosophy, or even to begin thinking philosophically, readers would require more than the description, summary, and reporting of empirical results offered in this collection. What is needed is a more critical examination of the issues in applied linguistics; to begin with, researchers need to pose fewer 'what' questions and more 'why' questions, of the following sort: why learn to write in a second language, and why is it assumed that scholars, rather than ESL students, are in the best position to answer this question? Why is the ESL investigator assumed to be an authority in determining 'good writing'? What investigative approaches other than an empirical one might be adopted? And how might knowledge-making in applied linguistics change if ESL students were collaborators in the research effort rather than 'subjects'? In her introduction, Kroll in fact claims that insights from this book will 'help identify the agenda for future classroom research' of the type conducted by teacher-scholars in composition (3). However, she does not acknowledge that teacher-research is typically student-centered , at least as described by major figures in the movement, such as Dixie Goswami & Peter Stillman (Reclaiming the classroom: Teacher research as an agency for change, Boynton/ Cook, 1987) and Glenda Bissex & Richard Bullock (Seeingfor ourselves: Case-study research by teachers ofwriting, Heinemann, 1987).These scholars define teacher-research politically as well as intellectually, questioning, among other things, the false dichotomies traditionally established between teachers and students, research and pedagogy. Finally, a philosophical perspective would encourage ESL scholars to examine the larger significance , as well as the limitations, of their inquiry. For example, the authors here could have discussed how their work informs firstlanguage research, rather than focusing exclusively on how their work is informed by firstlanguage studies. ESL specialists are in a unique position to question the many assumptions underlying research in rhetoric and composition by showing how the study of diversity in language and thought 'problematizes' the generalizations that first-language teachers and scholars have made about reading and writing processes. [Ruth E. Ray, Wayne State University .] Essays on anaphora. By Howard Lasnik. (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 16.) Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989. Pp. 179. Cloth $64.00, paper $19.95. This book contains a series of articles by Lasnik (some coauthored) published from 1973 through 1991. It also includes a previously unpublished essay giving ? selective history of modern binding theory' (1-36) and an essay 'On the necessity of binding conditions' (149-67) preprinted from a collection titled Principles and parameters in comparative grammar, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991). The selective-history chapter traces the development of binding theory from the 'Conditions on transformation' approach (involving each movement and the rule of interpretation [RI] for personal pronouns) to the Knowledge of language approach (involving licensing in a category's Complete Functional Complex together with movement of anaphors to infl position ). This is an excellent pedagogical article in which L sets out the motives behind various...