Politically speaking: The pragmatic analysis of political language By John Wilson (review)

240 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 68, NUMBER 1 (1992) levels of representations raises the question of what relations are possible, justified and beneficial among the several levels. Two such theories are Marr's theory of vision and Chomskyan generative grammar, with their separation of competence from performance. The book under review belongs to the research line of computer modelling of performance started by Parsifal (Mitchell Marcus, A theory of syntactic recognition for natural language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980) in the Government-Binding framework. The monograph starts with a critical introduction to the relevant issues. Through extensive quotations from Marr's work (David Marr, Vision, San Francisco, CA: Freeman, 1982) K presents the methodological justification for multileveled theories of cognition. He then proceeds to explore, in the more limited domain of the language faculty, the necessary features of a psychologically real theory of grammar. The arguments that led some scholars to consider transformational grammar not psychologically real are presented and rebutted by the introduction of a more articulated framework for evaluation, which takes into account the separateness of competence grammar, runtime grammar, parsing technique, and evaluation metrics. Although nothing new is added to the debate here, the main issues of a discussion that spans a decade are reviewed clearly and concisely . Ch. 2 is an overview of several proposals in the framework of deterministic parsing. Most notably, the first such parser, Parsifal, is presented in detail. Arguing against some recent criticism of Parsifal's use of look-ahead, K claims that the use of look-ahead to resolve local ambiguities is empirically correct if coupled with the assumption that lexical-semantic information can be used during syntactic processing , when it is needed for disambiguation. K also reviews the formal properties ofParsifal, drawing on other works in the literature to argue that determinism provides a functional explanation of WH-islands at most, and that it is neutral with respect to grammatical formalism. Ch. 3 explores the relation between the Barriers theory (Noam Chomsky, Barriers. Cambridge , MA: MIT Press, 1986) and deterministic parsing. The parsing platform is Parsifal, with alterations and augmentations that link it more tightly to the grammar and make it more accurate empirically. An algorithm for chain formation is proposed here. K discusses its integration in the existing parser and its application to some linguistic facts, such as violations of the Subject and Adjunct Conditions and parasitic gaps. Some interesting ideas are put forth in this chapter, although more extensive exemplification and, if not a real implementation , at least lower-level specifications of the algorithms would have substantiated the proposal more convincingly. The book ends with a number of theoretical investigations of the possible contribution of the theory of performance to the theory of competence. In general, the reader interested in these issues will find in K's book an accurate and critical review of the main issues in the tradition of deterministic parsing, in itselfa needed and useful contribution. Because the book is not intended as a review, however, more space should have been devoted to the author's new proposal ; interesting ideas, such as those related to the algorithms for chain formation, are not given enough space and detailed description. The book would have also benefited from more careful editing and typesetting. [Paola Merlo. University ofMaryland.] Politically speaking: The pragmatic analysis of political language. By John Wilson. (Language in Society series.) Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. 203. Cloth $45.95, paper $16.95. Politically speaking offers an interesting and frequently amusing look at political speech from the perspective of linguistic pragmatics. Unlike Robin Lakoffs Talking power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), it does not investigate political power or even politics in a generic sense; and, unlike Frederick Bowers's Linguistic aspects oflegislative expression (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1990). it does not examine statutory language. Rather, Wilson explores politicians' utterances in speeches and interviews. Examples from other cultures are used, but mostly the study deals with recent British and American political figures. A notable feature of the book, W's quotations—from Margaret Thatcher's 'We are a grandmother' to Ronald Reagan's '[in England] a criminal with a gun, even if he was arrested for burglary, was tried...