Spoken English on computer: Transcription, mark-up and application Ed. by Geoffrey Leech, Greg Myers, and Jenny Thomas (review)

426 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 2 (1998) plores how 'deviant' forms of conservatives and liberals utilize the categories of thinking in their political actions and how their deviance does not discount the validity of L's theory. Part VI is dedicated to explaining why being liberal is superior to being conservative. L presents some interesting, cohesive ideas in this book. There is a strong appeal to many of the issues the author presents, especially if the reader is liberal. In addition, much of what L writes seems to have an intuitively correct sense to it. This aspect ofthe book, however, leads to my first criticism of it, the fact that there is little empirical evidence to support his claims. For example, it is unclear from where the different 'moral category systems' for both liberals and conservatives (e.g. Conservatives—promoting self discipline, responsibility, the morality of reward and punishment, protecting moral people from external evils, and upholding the Moral Order; Liberals —empathie behavior, helping those who cannot help themselves, protecting those who cannot protect themselves, promoting fulfillment in life, and nurturing and strengthening oneself) originate In addition, after he develops these categories and metaphors, L does no research to determine if his theory actually reflects more than just his way of thinking. A second criticism I have concerns the last section of the book. Until then, L is writing about how he believes liberals and conservatives view and talk about the political world. The last section of the book then leaps into a discourse on why being liberal is better than being conservative. This lecture diminishes the academic nature of the rest of the book. Overall, this book brings out some highly interesting ideas which could lead to some important research . Hopefully L will be one of the researchers doing this investigation. [Mark Higgins, Wayne State College.] Spoken English on computer: Transcription , mark-up and application. Ed. by Geoffrey Leech, Greg Myers, and Jenny Thomas. New York: Longman, 1995. Pp. viii, 260. Paper $19.99. This book focuses on the development of computerized spoken language corpora and the fields to which it is applied. The editors comment that the timing of publication is particularly appropriate considering the extent to which this area has grown in recent years. It provides a comprehensive account of spoken language corpora from various standpoints, incorporating fields as diverse as sociolinguistics. speech pathology, and dictionary compilation. It is divided into three sections, each preceded by an informative editorial introduction. The book illustrates the complexity ofrepresenting speech on a computer by addressing issues of 'transcription , mark-up and application'. Part A comprises seven chapters dealing with theory and practice, two themes which are pertinent throughout the book. Each contributor offers a new perspective on the debate The issue of standardization features prominently throughout. Long-standing arguments are revisited. Claims that data should be easily readable or standardized in order to maximize exchange and accessibility are contrasted with concerns that standardization impinges upon the 'meaning' of data and with the constraints it enforces on the researcher. Part B is concerned with application. Within its seven chapters, contributors from specific fields focus upon the practicalities of representing spoken language corpora. Problems are exemplified by those studying language impairment and those who need to consider grammatical detail or prosodie information. Issues relating to technology and the availability of software are also highlighted. As the editors suggest, these chapters not only document the practical problems of transcription for more specific purposes, but they add to the theoretical debate outlined in the previous section. The final section, Part C, devotes six chapters to a documentation of corpora such as the Machine Readable Spoken English Corpus, the British National Corpus, and the Collins/Birmingham University International Learners ' Dictionary of Spoken Language. Using samples ofcorpora, this section describes the processes used during transcription and mark-up, enabling the reader to see how some of the problems highlighted in the previous sections have been overcome in different ways. Spoken English on computer is logically organized , taking the reader through the main issues and arguments while introducing him/her to the specific problems of the particular corpus user. Each section builds upon the last, reaffirming existing...