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BOOK NOTICES 891 With a language such as Shona, which has been rather well researched, one expects much more. The author curiously lists no publications on Shona outside Europe and southern Africa! For example, two notable theses on Shona tone, morphology, and syntax (David Odden, Problems in tone assignment in Shona, University of Illinois, 1981; Scott Myers, Tone and the structure ofwords in Shona, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1987; New York: Garland Press, 1991) go completely unmentioned m 'Linguistic literature on Shona' (p 66). [G. Tucker Childs, Portland State University.] Achieving understanding: Discourse in intercultural encounters. By Katharina Bremer, Celia Roberts, MarieTherese Vasseur, Margaret Simonot , and Peter Broeder. London & New York: Longman, 1996. Pp. xvii, 270. This volume reports the summary and analysis of a remarkable research undertaking in second language acquisition. The researchers, from Germany, Britain, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands, present an investigation ofthe sociopragmatic and interactive factors that impede or facilitate communication between native speakers and immigrant workers in these countries, the latter being speakers of Turkish, Italian , Panjabi, Spanish, Arabic, and Finnish. These minority speakers are not voluntary students of their second languages but recently arrived economic or political refugees, mostly with little formal education . Researchers accompanied these speakers on routine errands to collect data on genuine interactions with majority speakers and supplemented these materials with simulated gatekeeping interviews with native speakers and with ethnographic data. The first two chapters ('Background to the understanding project', 1-8; and ? social perspective on understanding', 9-36), both by Roberts, present the focus and theoretical grounding of the project. What minority speakers understand, and how, is a product of such global factors as 'social presuppositions' (John Gumperz), dynamic schemata, and interactional frames, as well as of local (and dynamic) linguistic context, including, crucially, the responses of the majority interlocutor. Thus, a Moroccan man, arranging a trip home m a French travel agency, misunderstands the question of how he would like to travel (par quoi) as 'why' (pourquoi), because he expects to be interrogated in bureaucratic encounters. Ch. 3, 'Causes of understanding problems' (37-64), by Bremer, analyzes the variety of single and multiple factors that cause minority speakers to misunderstand their interlocutors; single lexical items, complexity of form or content, indirectness, ellipsis, abstractorhypothetical topics, lack ofshared schema or frame may all contribute to comprehension failure. Ch. 4, 'Managing understanding from a minority perspective' (65-108), by Vasseur, Broeder, and Roberts, outlines the options available to minority speakers faced with an interaction they do not understand . They may avoid the issue or indicate their nonunderstanding in a number of ways. Each strategy has potential consequences for the face ofthe interactants , however, and for the success of the interaction. Minority speakers seem to be most successful when they indicate what linguistic forms they have not understood, take initiative in the interaction, and are sensitive to face issues, but speakers vary in their ability to do this. Ch. 5, 'Case studies' (109-58), by Bremer, Broeder, Simonot, and Vasseur, presents four encounters between minonty and majority speakers and the causes, repair procedures, and significance of understanding failures that occur in these interactions. Ch. 6, 'Preventing problems of understanding' (159-80), by Bremer and Simonot, shows the resources native speakers have to facilitate intercultural interactions. This discussion continues in Ch. 7, 'Joint negotiation of understanding' (181-206), also by Bremer and Simonot, which shows how joint efforts by both native speaker and nonnative speaker can eventually achieve understanding. Roberts, in Ch. 8, 'Taking stock' (207-38), critiques the project methodology and situates the analysis with respect to theories of linguistic economy (Pierre Bourdieu), contextualization (John Gumperz ), and critical discourse analysis (Norman Fairclough ). An appendix gives biographical information on the minority speaker informants. The volume represents an excellent synthesis, with practical applications, of a variety of theories of interaction. It should be read by scholars in second language acquisition, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics , and intercultural communication. [Susan Meredith Burt, University ofWisconsin, Oshkosh.] Cultural performances: Proceedings of the third Berkeley women and language conference. Ed. by Mary Bucholtz, A.C. Liang, Laurel A. Sutton, and Caitlin Hines. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group, 1994. Pp. x, 807. Paper $40.00. This volume includes 68 conference papers organized...

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