The dialogic emergence of culture Ed. by Dennis Tedlock and Bruce Mannheim (review)

432 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 2 (1998) through a corpus of 105 orthographic rulebooks outside the official Duden tradition published between 1855 and 1994, roughly sketching the impact of orthographic conferences on the transition from works with geographically or professionally limited currency to national orthographic standards. The work runs parallel to S's 1994 Systematische Bibliographie der deutschen Rechtschreibbücher, (Egelsbach, Frankfurt, & Washington, DC: Hänsel-Hohenhausen ) which establishes the relative chronology of these works. After outlining the plan of her book in the Einführung (1-5), S situates the study of orthographic rulebooks within the field of dictionary studies , 'Wörterbuchforschung', placing it within the relatively new subfield of 'Metalexikographie', or theoretical dictionary studies—as opposed to 'Lexikographie ' in a narrowed sense, referring to practical dictionary studies or dictionary creation (10)—in Ch. 1 (6-15). Ch. 2 (16-29) presents classification models of other authors as a counterpoint to S's own classification scheme for rulebooks, which unfortunately is not present in this work—readers are expected to have S's Systematische Bibliographie at hand and to draw their own comparisons. The most useful element ofthis chapter is the half-page section 2.2.3, 'Charakteristische Bausteine Orthographischer Regelbücher' (29), which defines the orthographic rulebook according to its essential elements: a substantial rules section ('Rechtschreibregelapparat') followed by a word list ('Wörterverzeichnis'). Ch. 3 (30-48) outlines the chronology and availability of S's source materials, though here again, her bibliography must be consulted in order to locate her sources. After briefly commenting on the intended audience for orthographic rulebooks m Ch. 4 (49-52), S launches into historical description, which constitutes the bulk ofthe work. Ch. 5 (53-60) sketches the German orthographic situation from the early nineteenth century through early attempts at unified standardization. Ch. 6 (61-89) takes a closer look at the municipal rulebooks of Hannover, Leipzig , and Berlin. Brief histories of two orthographic conferences (1876 and 1901) and their effects on orthographic standardization as reflected in various subsequent municipal and state rulebooks form the substance of Ch. 7 (90-96), Ch. 8 (97-128), and Ch. 9 (129-57). An aside into the reduction of multiple spellings in Ch. 10 (162-77) in rulebooks for official business (jurisprudence, post office) is followed by Ch. 11 (178-230), which covers the state rulebooks for Baden, Saxony, and Württemberg. Ch. 12 (23 1-32) introduces the continuation of the rulebook tradition in Switzerland (Ch. 13, 233-69) and Austria (Ch. 14, 270-95), where the tradition continues up to the present day. In four appendices (296-333) S presents comparative overviews of selected lemmata for various editions of a rulebook ( 1 and 2), for two rulebooks published in the same year (3), and of the rules section ofselected rulebooks (4). The work concludes with a bibliography (334-73) and indices (374-77). That this work is intended as a companion volume to S's bibliography explains its very broad scope. Yet in trying to say at least something about every rulebook the book dabbles along, forsaking theorizing , the clear outlining oftrends, and consistent comparative analysis of rulebook content or format for an unbalanced positivist description of unimportant details and presentations of data tables and issues of terminological debate without subsequent analysis or proposed resolutions. As a result the reader is left with a confused sense of why these works deserve our attention and what developments are to be witnessed in them. A clearer focus limited to certain elements mentioned or hinted at in the work—such as the comparison of rules sections as given in Appendix 4; a close examination of one development, e.g. the reduction of multiple spellings as begun in Ch. 10; or a longitudinal study of changes reflected in the Prussian rulebook (new editions from 1880 to 1969)—might have given the work greater coherence and made trends and the impact of the conferences clearer to the reader. Given that S has obviously put in much time gaining intimate familiarity with these materials, I hope that this will be her next step. [Désirée Baron, University of Regensburg.] The dialogic emergence of culture. Ed. by Dennis Tedlock...