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BOOK NOTICES 225 this book to anyone who wiU face the drudgery, frustration, andjoy of learning a field language. I would also recommend the more technical treatises (e.g. W. Samarin's Fieldlinguistics) for use if and when needed. How I wish I had had BurUng's new vade mecum with me when I was in the field! [M. Lionel Bender, Southern Illinois University.] Variación y significado. By Beatriz R. Lavandera. Buenos Aires: Hachette , 1984. Pp. 267. L's book has material ofspecial value to those interested in creóles, discourse analysis, River Plate Spanish, and Romance socioUnguistics. Her over-aU concern is with how variation analysis, pioneered by Labov, can be fruitfuUy studied beyond the level of phonology. It is noteworthy that she presents not only analyses of meaning in paradigmatic variation, involving the familiar Labovian sociolinguistic variable, but also syntagmatic (i.e. sequential) variation of forms in discourse. The book has a brief introduction and eight chapters, five of which have previously appeared in EngUsh. Ch. 1 presents a quantitative analysis of variation among the semanticaUy distinct verb forms in Sp. si clauses in conditional , non-past sentences. These verb forms, which carry different meanings, nevertheless show social and styUstic conditioning. Thus it is possible that messages and the frequencies with which they are exchanged differ among different social groups. However, L hastens to point out that, without a detailed ethnography of a speech community, no implications can be drawn regarding the cognitive orientation or communicative capabilities of the social groups involved. In Ch. 2, a Spanish translation of L's important 1978 article 'Where does the sociolinguistic variable stop?', she argues that, beyond the phonological level, the condition that forms in variation must 'mean the same thing' should be weakened to aUow functionaUy equivalent alternating forms. Ch. 3 deals with L's principle of reinterpretation : If two forms in variation have the same referential meaning, but differ in stylistic meaning (which does not affect truth value), then they may be reinterpreted as signals of social or situational significance. She argues, for example, that the indicative verb form in Spanish conditional si clauses, which differs from other verb forms in its modal semantics—it is the least contingent —has been reinterpreted as a signal of assertiveness, is thus seen as more masculine, and ends up being used more by men than women. This chapter leads to some confusion because L's three-way semantic division here, aside from being questionable in its own right (does modal semantics not affect truth value?), does not mesh with her two-way division between referential meaning and social/situational significance in Ch. 1, which is concerned with the same conditional sentences. Ch. 4 deals with the communicative competence ofbilingual Argentine speakers ofSpanish and CocoUche, which is not quite either a pidgin or a creóle. The full styUstic range of these speakers is spread across both languages; thus their Spanish in monolingual situations appears styUsticaUy reduced. Ch. 5, on the identity of the relative pronoun and complementizer que, is the least interesting socioUnguistically. Chs. 6-7 are concerned with syntagmatic variation in discourse: here L focuses on what she terms 'active variation'—the speaker's use of linguistic forms to create social contexts (as opposed to 'passive variation', in which forms merely reflect social phenomena). Ch. 6 presents an analysis of the discourse properties of the pronouns uno and vos/usted in personal and impersonal uses; Ch. 7 deals with indicative and subjunctive verb forms, the latter used in opinion -justifying narratives for points peripheral to the speaker's main Une ofargument. Ch. 8 is an extended and highly useful discussion, centered on methodology, of socioUnguistic research involving Romance languages. L gives both a general bibliography and an especiaUy valuable one on socioUnguistic studies of Romance languages. A landmark contribution, this book contains information with which aU sociolinguists should be famUiar. [Arthur K. Spears, Ci'ry College, CUNY.] Kreolsprachen, Substrate und Sprachwandel . By Norbert Boretzky. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983. Pp. xiv, 316. DM 98.00. The relative importance of substrata and universals in creóle genesis has become a central issue in creóle studies. UniversaUsts have 226 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 62, NUMBER...

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