Book Reviews

147

Larsen-Freeman , D . ( 2007 ). Refl ecting on the cognitive-social debate in second language

acquisition . Modern Language Journal , 91 , 773 – 787 .

McDonough , S. H . ( 1995 ). Strategy and skill in learning a foreign language . London : Arnold .
Tseng , W.-T. , Dörnyei , Z. , & Schmitt , N . ( 2006 ). A new approach to assessing strategic

learning: The case of self-regulation in vocabulary acquisition . Applied Linguistics ,
27 , 78 – 102 .

( Received 12 April 2009 )

Luke Plonsky

Michigan State University

doi:10.1017/S0272263109990325

BILINGUALISM AND IDENTITY: SPANISH AT THE CROSSROADS
WITH OTHER LANGUAGES . Mercedes Niño-Murcia and Jason
Rothman (Eds.). Amsterdam : Benjamins , 2008 . Pp. vii + 365.

In recent years, learner identity has emerged as a central concern in SLA research
conducted from sociocultural and poststructural perspectives (e.g., Norton,
2000 ; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000 ). This volume, although not expressly concerned
with SLA, has much to offer those interested in exploring the complex interrela-
tionship between language and identity and its impact on acquisition, mainte-
nance, or loss of second and heritage languages. Taking a social approach to the
phenomenon of bilingualism, the studies collected here illuminate the processes
through which associations between language use and ethnolinguistic identity
are constructed in multilingual societies.

The thread that unifi es an otherwise eclectic collection is the focus on Spanish

in contact with other languages in Spain (where it exists alongside Basque, Galician,
and Catalan), Latin America (where it is the dominant language), and the United
States (where it is subordinate to English). Utilizing a variety of methodologies
(e.g., surveys, interviews, elicitation of oral and written data, life-history narra-
tives, and recordings of naturally occurring talk), these studies explore topics
ranging from shifting attitudes toward language and citizenship in the Basque
Country (Azurmendi, Larrañaga, and Apalategi) and Catalonia (Boix-Fuster and
Sanz) to the Spanish spoken by so-called MexiRicans (individuals with a Mexican
mother and a Puerto Rican father) in Chicago. Among the contributions, several
stand out as relevant for SLA scholars. Two studies that draw on interviews
with high school students in Galicia (Loureiro-Rodriguez) and Spanish heritage
university students in the United States (Urciuoli) explore how tensions
between standard language varieties promoted in schools and the varieties
spoken by students at home impact evaluations of language use, with potential
implications for language maintenance. The effect of nonnative varieties on
identity is taken up in Sánchez’s study of the written Spanish of Quechua-speaking
children and Boix-Fuster and Sanz’s analysis of the Catalan of Spanish-speaking
immigrants to Catalonia, both of which consider how nonnative features may
mark users as outsiders. Shenk’s study of Spanish heritage children in a dual-
immersion program in Iowa reveals the children’s tendency to speak English even
during Spanish activities and identifi es family language ideologies that promote
Spanish cultural and linguistic identity as a factor in increasing children’s Spanish

Book Reviews

148

use in the classroom. Finally, Rothman and Niño-Murcia’s account of three boys
growing up in a trilingual (Spanish, Italian, and English) household in California
provides an intriguing account of how linguistic choices are shaped by children’s
developing multilingual and multicultural identities.

A potential source of confusion is the vague and inconsistent uses of the term

identity both within and across these studies. Some researchers use the term to
refer to how individuals identify themselves and how this self-identifi cation
shapes or is shaped by language choice (e.g., Bustamante-López), whereas
others use it to refer to how certain linguistic features serve as a means for
others to identify the users as, for example, so-called Haitianized (i.e., black and
poor) speakers of Dominican Spanish (Bullock and Toribio). Moreover, although
the introductory chapters (Zentella; Niño-Murcia and Rothman) emphasize the
dynamic and performative nature of identity, this theme is taken up directly in
only a handful of studies, and, with a few exceptions (e.g., Zavala and Bariola;
Rothman and Niño-Murcia), transcripts of naturally occurring talk are not included.
This absence is particularly felt in studies such as Shenk’s, in which the children’s
use of Spanish in the classroom is noted but never actually shown. The interviews
that constitute the primary data source for many studies are usually analyzed
in terms of expressed attitudes toward a language or explicit self-identifi cation
rather than as performances of identity in and of themselves. In other words,
the focus is more on how bilinguals perceive and talk about identity rather than
on performance of identity as such.

Despite that caveat, this volume can be commended for its wide-ranging and

thoughtful examination of crucial issues such as attitudes toward nonnative,
nonstandard, or contact language varieties that have relevance beyond the
Spanish-speaking world. As such, it makes a worthy contribution to the growing
body of literature on bilingualism, language learning, and identity.

REFERENCES

Norton , B . ( 2000 ). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change .

London : Longman .

Pavlenko , A. , & Lantolf , J. P . ( 2000 ). Second language learning as participation and the (re)

construction of selves . In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language
learning (pp. 155 – 177 ). Oxford : Oxford University Press .

( Received 30 April 2009 )

Debra A. Friedman

Michigan State University

doi:10.1017/S0272263109990337

LINKING UP CONTRASTIVE AND LEARNER CORPUS RESEARCH .
Gaëtenelle Gilquin , Szilivia Papp , and María Belén Díez-Bedmar (Eds.).
Amsterdam : Rodopi , 2008 . Pp. xi + 282.

This volume is a collection of conference papers on learner language from a
learner corpus research perspective. Most learner corpus research relies on
contrastive interlanguage analysis (CIA). An extension of this model is Granger’s