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Mitchell 2008

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J. W .

U N G E R

Language in Society 37 (2008). Printed in the United States of America


doi: 10.10170S0047404508080469
Michael A. K. Halliday, On grammar. London: Continuum, 2002. Pp. x, 442. Hb $49.95.
Reviewed by J. W. Unger
Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University
Lancaster, L A1 4YT, UK
[email protected]
This is the first volume in a series entitled The collected works of M. A. K. Halliday. Halliday pro-
fesses to be a “generalist” (p. 7), and this is clearly reflected in the range of titles in the series: The
language of early childhood, Computational and quantitative studies, and Language and society, to
name just three of the ten. Halliday’s introduction in this volume (1–14) serves as an introduction to
the whole series. In it, Halliday revisits many of the debates he has had in the past: among others, with
followers of Chomsky; with psychologists; with corpus linguists who claim that corpus linguistics is
just a tool for analysis; with sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu who, Halliday claims, sidesteps the
need for any linguistic analysis at all. Halliday likes “weak boundaries” (1), and this is reflected in
some of the papers reproduced in this volume. Although they are all centered on his evolving notions
of “grammar,” anyone familiar with Halliday’s work will know that “grammar” for Halliday is not
restricted to a traditional or generative conception of syntax, but rather includes phonological, lexi-
cal, and other linguistic levels. For anyone not very familiar with Halliday’s work, On grammar should
not be confused with an overview of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Rather, it is a collection of snap-
shots, allowing readers to trace the scholarly development of Halliday’s ideas over time.
On grammar is divided into three sections, each prefaced by an Editor’s Introduction by Jonathan
J. Webster, which puts the included chapters into context and provides some helpful background
information. The first section, “Early papers on basic concepts,” comprises five papers published
between 1957 and 1966. These papers are interesting not least because they show the foundations of
Halliday’s later, better-known contributions to linguistics. The section also includes a comprehen-
sive description of English written in 1964 for teaching purposes, which, in its time, must have
represented a complete paradigm shift. The second section is called “Word-clause-text” and covers
publications from 1966 to 1985. As the title suggests, these papers cover issues of lexis, clause
structure, and textual structure. Halliday’s famous “ideational,” “interpersonal,” and “textual” func-
tions make their first appearance in “Language structure and language function” (chap. 7). The
growing importance of context in Halliday’s work becomes increasingly apparent in this period.
“Construing and enacting” is the third section, which spans 1984 to 1996. These chapters deal prin-
cipally with Halliday’s growing interest in the issues raised by unconscious use of language versus
conscious, self-aware thinking about language. For example, he distinguishes between perceptions
of spoken (“spontaneous and unselfconscious,” 323) and written language. In chapter15, Halliday
makes a distinction between “grammar,” which is what we (often) unconsciously use, and “gram-
matics,” which is the conscious study of grammar.
On the whole, then, this book will be useful or even fascinating to anyone wishing to get an idea
of how Halliday’s ideas on grammar evolved over a half-century.
(Received 31 January 2007)

Language in Society 37 (2008). Printed in the United States of America


doi: 10.10170S0047404508080470
Durk Gorter (ed.), Linguistic landscape: A new approach to multilingualism. Clevedon: Multilin-
gual Matters, 2006. Pp. 1, 89. Hb $54.95.

Reviewed by Thomas D. Mitchell


English, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
[email protected]
The four articles in this book adopt the definition of linguistic landscape (LL) offered by Rodrigue
Landry & Richard Y. Bourhis (1997:25) as their authors investigate the visual makeup of cities world-

312 Language in Society 37:2 (2008)


BOOK NOTES

wide: “The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, com-
mercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic
landscape of a given territory, region, or urban conglomeration.” The authors categorize signs as
either top-down (official signs issued by public bureaucracies) or bottom-up (non-official signs posted
by individuals or businesses), and each article examines details such as where the signs appear, the
order and relative prominence of languages on multilingual signs, and whether or not multilingual
signs contain (full or partial) translations.
Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Elana Shohamy, Muhammad Hasan Amara, & Nira Trumper-Hecht examine
the signs in ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous Israeli cities and East Jerusalem. The au-
thors discover that in Israeli cities, Hebrew0English signs predominate in Jewish communities and
Arabic0Hebrew signs prevail in Israeli-Palestinian communities. They find that Arabic0English signs
are most prominent in East Jerusalem. The authors attempt to explain their findings in terms of
signs’ potential attractiveness to their audience, the identity moves involved in the presentation of
self to the public through signs, and how signs might reflect the competing interests between domi-
nant and subordinate groups with respect to sociopolitical power.
Thom Huebner analyzes the LL of 15 Bangkok neighborhoods to investigate language contact,
language mixing, and language dominance. He finds that official signs most often appear in Thai,
and that those that are in Thai and English appear to be directed toward tourists. His focus, however,
is on non-official signs, and these findings indicate that the language of wider communication in the
city has shifted from Chinese to English. Huebner discusses the language of multilingual signs to
reveal English’s influence on Thai with respect to lexical borrowing, orthography, syntax, and
pronunciation.
Peter Backhaus focuses on the differences between official and non-official multilingual signs
found in 28 locations in central Tokyo. He shows that among official multilingual signs, English is
prevalent and typically appears as a translation of the more prominently displayed Japanese. Among
the non-official multilingual signs, he finds that many do not contain Japanese, and those that do
often display it in a subordinate position. Backhaus also discovers that many non-official signs pre-
suppose a Japanese-English multilingual readership (evinced by the fact that the two languages com-
plement each other rather than provide a translation).
Jasone Cenoz & Durk Gorter compare the LL of one street each in two cities, Ljouwert-
Leeuwarden (Friesland, Netherlands) and Donostia-San Sebastian (Basque Country, Spain), which
have a minority (Frisian, Basque) and a state (Dutch, Spanish) official language. They find that in
Ljouwert, where Frisian is spoken much more often than it is written, Dutch is the most prevalent
language on signs, English appears often, and Frisian hardly at all. In Donostia, where the govern-
ment promotes a language-conservation agenda for Basque, Spanish dominates the LL, but Basque
appears often, and the two languages often convey the same information.
This collection, which includes diverse approaches and findings, will be of interest to scholars
who investigate multilingualism and processes of globalization reflected by the spread of English.
Similar studies in the future could be interestingly enhanced by supplementing the findings with data
on linguistic soundscape, the languages one hears while experiencing a city.

(Received 5 March 2007)

Language in Society 37 (2008). Printed in the United States of America


doi: 10.10170S0047404508080482
Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham, Key terms in semiotics. London & New York: Con-
tinuum, 2006. Pp. 288. Pb $19.95.

Reviewed by Nathan S. Atkinson


Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
[email protected]

In Key terms in semiotics, Martin & Ringham more than deliver on their title’s promise, situating a
well-chosen glossary of key terms and concepts between a brief introduction to semiotic theory and

Language in Society 37:2 (2008) 313


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