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104ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW appropriateness are given as the regulative rules of textuality. Following one chapter on the evolution of text linguistics and another on the assumptions inherent in a procedural approach to the study of the text (operationality and human plausibility are decisive criteria, with motivation and strategies of text users important topics of investigation), each of the seven standards of textuality is explained and illustrated. Literary texts are thoroughly integrated into the discussion, with a knowledgeable treatment of some of their special distinctions. The book is especially readable for its wide-ranging selection of sample texts, many of which are literary. The authors have provided analyses of many of these to illustrate how the theory they set forth may be applied. Another outstanding feature is the extensive thirtypage bibliography. Careful indexing makes the book easy to use. Scholars who have found recent titles by Jonathan Culler, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, or Mary Louise Pratt useful will find continuity and expansion ofmany oftheir ideas in Introduction to Text Linguistics. LEE H. DOWLING University of Houston The Pocket Oxford Russian Dictionary: Russian-English, English-Russian. Compiled by Jessie Coulson (Russian-English) and Nigel Rankin and Delia Thompson (English-Russian). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. 817p. The main desideratum in any pocket-sized dictionary is its compact format and portability. The assets of these features pale, however, if the dictionary fails as a reliable compendium of contemporary vocabulary, idioms and colloquial expressions. The new Pocfcet Oxford Russian Dictionary admirably fulfills this task, and will be welcomed as a useful and convenient resource by students and instructors alike. Each of the Russian-English and English-Russian sections includes approximately 30,000 words reflecting everyday, technical, colloquial, andidiomatic usage. The first section, compiled by Jessie Coulson, is an update of her 1975 dictionary, which credited itself well as an abridgement of Professor M.C.C. Wheeler's hardbound Oxford Russian English Dictionary (1972). Adhering to much of the structural format of the latter, Mrs. Coulson's dictionary accompanies its entries with an abundance of necessary grammatical information on stress change, verb conjugation, and declension forms for nouns and adjectives. For example, the genitive singular ending is given for all nouns, followed by endings for other cases which show an irregularity ofendingor a change ofstress. Mrs. Coulson's dictionary distinguishes itself as a welcome improvement over Romanov's Pocfcet RussianEnglish Dictionary, as well as other paperback dictionaries on the market which lack the thorough, up-to-date treatment of the Pocfcet Oxford Russian Dictionary. The English-Russian section ofthis dictionary was compiled largely by Mr. Nigel Rankin and, following his death in 1979, by Miss Delia Thompson. Drawing from smaller Oxford dictionaries, the English-Russian section likewise excels as a thorough compendium of general, technical, and idomatic aspects of the language, presented in a concise yet imminently readable format. Particularly helpful are the English glosses which Mr. Rankin and Miss Thompson employ in order to render the appropriate usage for a given entry. For example, the adjective "abject" is accompanied by three glosses distinguishing "miserable," "low," and "craven." Book Review105 Likewise the adverb "again" is differentiated as to "once more" and "anew." The noun "measure" is glossed for "size," "degree," or "limit." In comparing the Oxford Pocket English-Russian Dictionary with two other widely-used English-Russian paperback dictionaries, I found the former to be incomparably moreserviceable, upto -date, and precise in meaning and application. Firmly bound in a deceptively small (5" ? 3 3/4") format, the Russian-English, English-Russian halves of this dictionary comprise 817 pages of current, useful words and expressions. KEVIN J. MCKENNA The University of Utah Jonathan Culler. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981. 242p. This collection of essays "pursues signs" to some extent, but more, it pursues in various forums and on various occasions the thesis of Culler's celebrated Structuralist Poetics. The preface of the earlier book announces: My claim in this book is that in trying to revitalize criticism and free it from an exclusively interpretive role, in developing a programme which would justify it as a mode of knowledge and enable us to defend it with fewer reservations, we might do well...

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