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The article presents a review of the book "Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera IV: Lexicography. Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Mérida, Yucatán, 14–17 March 2007," edited by Otto Zwartjes, Ramón Arzápalo Marín and Thomas C. Smith-Stark.

Reviews the book "Language Variation in Europe: Papers From the Second International Conference on Language Variation in Europe, ICLaVE 2, Uppsala University, Sweden, June 12-14, 2003," edited by Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, Lena Bergström, Gerd Eklund, Staffan Fridell, Lise H. Hansen, Angela Karstadt, Bengt Nordberg, Eva Sundgren and Mats Thelander.

Reviews the book "Papers de Sociolingüistica," by Lluís V. Aracil.

Reviews the book "The Greeks and Their Legacy: Collected Papers," vol. 2, "Prose, Literature, History, Society, Transmission, Influence," by K.J. Dover.

Reviews the book "Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic Issues," edited by John J. Bergen.

The article reviews the book "From Poets to Padonki: Linguistic Authority of Norm Negotiation in Modern Russian Culture," edited by Ingunn Lunde and Martin Paulsen.

Reviews the book "Papers in Indian Sociolinguistics," edited by D.P. Pattanayak.

The article reviews the book "Languages in Contact 2010," edited by Piotr P. Chruszczewski and Zdzisław Wąsik.

Gareth Price's book, "Language, Society, and the State: From Colonization to Globalization in Taiwan," aims to develop a theoretical framework of a political sociology of language in Taiwan. The book partially succeeds in achieving its goals, with the first two chapters outlining definitions of language, society, and the state, and describing the political sociology of language. The remaining chapters discuss different periods of language hegemony in Taiwan's history, but do not offer much new information for expert researchers. The book fills a gap in Taiwan studies by providing easily accessible yet comprehensive information on the topic. [Extracted from the article]

Reviews the book "Arabic Sociolinguistics: Issues & Perspectives," edited by Yasir Suleiman.

The book "Self- and Other-Reference in Social Contexts: From global to local discourses" explores the use of pronouns in discourse to understand how individuals construct and negotiate their identities in various social situations. The book takes a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from fields such as linguistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. It examines the power dynamics between in-groups and out-groups and explores the effects of group categorization. The book also analyzes how pronouns are used to build and maintain relationships, shape individual and group identities, and convey characteristics of in-groups and out-groups. Overall, the book provides valuable insights into the complex nature of self- and other-reference in social contexts. [Extracted from the article]

Yael Reshef's book "Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew" explores the development of Modern Hebrew, tracing its unique journey from a dormant language to a fully functional vernacular after 1700 years. Through a diachronic analysis, Reshef examines linguistic issues in Early Modern Hebrew, comparing it to Classical Hebrew and Present-Day Hebrew to shed light on standardization processes and continuity from Classical Hebrew. The book delves into various linguistic phenomena in Early Modern Hebrew, such as honorifics, adjective grading, and action nouns, showcasing the evolution and preservation of Hebrew across different historical phases. Reshef's work offers a significant contribution to the study of Modern Hebrew, emphasizing the intricate connections between the language's past and present forms. [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews the book "Sociolinguistic Variation in Contemporary French," edited by Kate Beeching, Nigel Armstrong, and Françoise Gadet, part of the IMPACT Series.

Reviews the book "Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and its Social Significance," by J.K. Chambers.

Reviews the book "Zur Soziologie der Sprache," edited by Rolf Kjolseth and Fritz Sack.

Reviews the book "Arabic Sociolinguistics: Issues and Perspectives," edited by Yasir Suleiman.

Reviews the book "When East Met West: Sociolinguistics in the Former Socialist Bloc," edited by Jeffrey Harling and Csaba Pleh.

Reviews the book "Sprachenvielfalt und Demokratie in Deutschland," edited by Alastair Walker.

Reviews the book "Readings in the Sociology of Language," edited by Joshua A. Fishman.

Reviews the book "The Celtic Roots of English," by Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola and Heli Pitkänen.

Reviews the book "Black Linguistics: Language, Society, and Politics in Africa and the Americas," edited by Sinfree Makoni, Geneva Smitherman, Arnetha F. Ball and Arthur K. Spears.

Reviews the book "Language and Society in the Middle East and North Africa: Studies in Variation and Identity," edited by Yasir Suleiman.

Reviews the book "Style and Sociolinguistic Variation," edited by Penelope Eckert and John R. Rickford.

ABSTRACT: In recent years, interest in Hong Kong poetry in English has grown remarkably. Amidst all the excitement, the question has arisen as to how to define Hong Kong poetry in English. This paper is an attempt to provide an answer from linguistics. Subsumed under this controversy are three questions: What is poetry? What is good poetry? What is Hong Kong poetry? The first question has to take into account the revived interest in relating literary English to the general use of English. The second one relates to literary standards, which are inevitably tied to cultural norms of interaction and interpretation. The last one can be answered with reference to sociolinguistic concepts of speech communities. The paper deals briefly with the first two questions and focuses on the last. It affirms the existence of Hong Kong poetry in English. Each poet writing in or for Hong Kong may identify with more than one poetic community just as many users of English in Hong Kong may communicate with more than one group of English speakers. The application of linguistics to the task of defining Hong Kong poetry should offer insights towards a framework for identifying literary communities elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Rytualny Chaos: Studium dyskursu publicznego," edited by Marek Czyzewski, Sergiusz Kowalski and Andrzej Piotrowski.

The article presents the review of books on sociolinguistics. The books are: "Communication, Language and Sex: Proceedings of the First Annual Conference," edited by Cynthia L. Berryman and Virginia A. Eman; "The Voices and Words of Women and Men," edited by Cheris Kramarae; "Women and Men Speaking: Frameworks for Analysis, " by Cheris Kramrae; "Women and Language in Literature and Society," edited by Sally Mcconnell-Ginet, Ruth Borker and Nelly Furman; "Man Made Language," by Dale Spender; "Sexist Language: A Modern Philosophical Analysis," edited by Mary Vetterling-Braggin. Vetterling-Braggin's anthology offers a pointed, well-focused philosophical analysis of relationships between sexism and language structure. As she states, the notion that our language is sexist is hardly earth-shattering news. Man Made Language by Dale Spender and Women and Men Speaking by Cheris Kramarae are two delightful examples of the new crop of texts on language and gender, making them especially useful for teaching.

The article reviews the book "Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics: The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan," Vol. 2, by Ruqaiya Hasan, edited by J. Webster.

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This paper focuses on the birth of Yongming 永明 Style poetry in the Southern Qi 南齊 Dynasty, drawing on cultural background to re-examine its significance in the history of Chinese poetry. The Yongming Style heralded a revolution in poetry circles and is a model example of the birth of a new poetics. Yongming poetics is grounded in a profound awareness of the sound of the language that cuts across the boundaries of language and literature. Its prosody developed in step with traditional Chinese phonology, its leading figures guiding the construction of systems of phonological knowledge. By comparing Chinese and Sanskrit, Yongming poets established the principles for determining pronunciation by phonological segmentation, and by chanting and reading aloud, they made observations about the musicality of the language itself. The decomposability of phonology allowed them to grasp how to manipulate phonology in poetry, establishing verifiable rules. Poets repositioned the human voice as the starting point for the laws of phonology, emphasizing the fundamental place of language; through 'inner listening,' they made connections between spoken sounds and one's inner voice. They believed that the ideal tonal prosody would be the outward manifestation of the inner voice and so advocated an aesthetics of prosody that took the sound of the inner voice as its starting point. In practice, Yongming poetics shaped an aesthetic in the sound-environment of the thenpopular five-character line form that stressed the use of alliteration and rhyme, particularly between the last characters of each line and the first two and final three characters of a line. It sparked a significant, irresistible movement for innovation in form in later poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Explorations in Sociolinguistics," edited by Stanley Liberson.

Reviews the book "Language and Social Context: Selected Readings," by Pier Paolo Giglioli.

The article reviews the book "Language and Society: Vol. 10: In the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday," edited by Jonathan J. Webster.