Literacy, emotion, and authority: Reading and writing on a Polynesian atoll By Niko Besnier (review)

REVIEWS183 Wierzbicka 1988, 1991, 1992); the contents, in spite of the repetitiveness brought about by the chosen format, is as exciting as ever, the style as sharp and witty, the arguments as precise and thought-provoking. This is not to say that one must agree with everything that is being said, as I think I have shown. W certainly does not expect this from anyone, including her closest colleagues; her willingness to reflect on her own achievements, to admit errors and inaccuracies, and to revise earlier assumptions on the basis of interminable discussions with linguists and nonlinguists alike is second to none. REFERENCES Goddard, Cliff, and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.) 1994. Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kovecses, Zoltán. 1986. Metaphors of anger, pride and love: A lexical approach to the structure ofconcepts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lutzeier, Peter Rolf (ed.) 1993. Studien zur Wortfeldtheorie/Studies in lexical field theory. Tubingen: Niemeyer. Peeters, Bert. 1985. 'Tout ne se tient-il pas dans le système?' Bedenkingen bij de paradigmatische samenhang van taalelementen. Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuidnederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis 39.141-56. -----. 1991a. Encore une fois 'où tout se tient'. Historiographia Lingüistica 17.427-36. -----. 1991b. Review of Kövecses (1986). Australian Journal of Linguistics 11.229-32. -----. 1993. Les primitifs sémantiques. Langue française 98. Paris: Larousse. -----. 1997. The syntax of time and space primitives in French. Language Sciences 19.235-44. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1988. The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. -----. 1991. Cross-cultural pragmatics. The semantics of human interaction. Berlin· Mouton de Gruyter. -----. 1992. Semantics, culture and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press Department of English and European Languages and Literatures University of Tasmania GPO Box 252-82 Hobart TAS 7001 Australia [Bert.Peeters@utas.edu.au] Literacy, emotion, and authority: Reading and writing on a Polynesian atoll. By ???? Besnier (Studies in the social and cultural foundations of language, 17). New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xx, 234. Cloth $54.95, paper $19.95. Reviewed by James Collins, State University ofNew York, Albany This ambitious, well written book challenges the prevailing view of literacy as a contextindependent 'technology of the intellect', presents detailed analyses of reading and writing on the Polynesian atoll of Nukulaelae and argues for complexly gendered literacy practices, a letter writing that strikingly elaborates emotion, and a literate-based religious authority that is both powerful and constrained. The ethnographic and linguistic materials are carefully laid out so that the reader who is not a specialist in the language group or the region can nonetheless follow the analysis. The analyses focus on literacy events and practices and are thus written in a typifying style, without close attention to variation but with ample illustration (see Besnier 1988 for a quantitative analysis of spoken/written genre differences in this setting). The Nukulaelae particulars are always contextualized with reference to regional literatures as well as theoretical literatures bearing on given arguments and controversies. The book consists of eight chapters, plus a preface discussing transcription conventions and orthography (for there is no standard orthography) (xiii-xx) and an index of Tuvaluan words (226-7), in addition to the usual notes, references, and general index. Ch. 1, 'Introduction', 184LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) (1-20) presents a synoptic account of the anthropology of literacy, arguing against the 'autonomous ' thesis, associated with Jack Goody and David Olson among others, that literacy has clearcut consequences for cultural form and human mind, consequences that transform and transcend sociocultural contexts. Rightly, B argues that a simple relativist or situated counterargument to the autonomy thesis won't suffice either. Critically engaging the 'ideological model' of literacy associated with Brian Street and collaborators, B proposes to develop his analyses of literacy events as part of generalizing arguments about equality and inequality, gender, emotion, and authority. Ch. 2, 'The ethnographic context' (21-51), presents both contemporary and historical descriptions of this atoll society, characterizing its face-to-face intimacy, its isolation, and its necessary network ofconnections with the rest ofTuvalu, Polynesia, and the world ofinternational shipping. Writing is of course an ideal preelectronic form of exchange for...