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This article was downloaded by: [The University of Manchester Library] On: 12 October 2014, At: 06:07 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK International Journal of Multilingualism Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmjm20 Book Reviews Maria Pilar Safont Jordà a a Departament d'Estudis Anglesos , Universitat Jaume I , Castelló, Spain E- mail: Published online: 05 Jan 2009. To cite this article: Maria Pilar Safont Jordà (2006) Book Reviews, International Journal of Multilingualism, 3:3, 226-230, DOI: 10.2167/ijm009b.0 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/ijm009b.0 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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This article was downloaded by: [The University of Manchester Library]On: 12 October 2014, At: 06:07Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of MultilingualismPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscriptioninformation:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmjm20

Book ReviewsMaria Pilar Safont Jordà aa Departament d'Estudis Anglesos , Universitat Jaume I , Castelló, Spain E-mail:Published online: 05 Jan 2009.

To cite this article: Maria Pilar Safont Jordà (2006) Book Reviews, International Journal of Multilingualism,3:3, 226-230, DOI: 10.2167/ijm009b.0

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/ijm009b.0

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and ourlicensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in thispublication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsedby Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should beindependently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liablefor any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and otherliabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, inrelation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantialor systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and usecan be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

La negazione nell’italiano degli svedesi. Sequenze acquisitionali e influssitranslinguisticiCamilla Bardel. Lund: Lunds Universitet, 2000.

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of negation by L2 learners ofItalian with a Swedish background. The analysed data stem from a long-itudinal study of seven Swedish adult second language learners who live inItaly (spontaneous interactions) and a cross-sectional study. As the position ofnegation is related to finiteness in the target system, the acquisition of Italianverb morphology is also investigated. The main result is that there is atendency in L2 acquisition to place the Italian negative marker postverbally.The postverbal position rarely hosts negative markers in the target system; it isalso a position that is rarely used for placement of negative markers in L1acquisition and L2 acquisition by learners who come from a languagebackground that does not allow postverbal negation.

The dissertation has two main parts: one theoretical and one empirical.Bardel starts with a description of the syntax and function of negation inItalian in Chapter 2. The importance of information structure and thesyntactic representation of negation are presented separately. In the vein ofRizzi (1997) and others it would have been interesting to link the syntacticstructuring of sentences containing a negative marker with informationstructure. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the presentation of thedifferent negative markers in Italian and in the intermediate grammars of L2learners from different language backgrounds, with a distinction of consti-tuent versus sentence and anaphoric negation. In view of the acquisitiondata, Bardel mentions (p. 41) that in some Italian varieties the final -n of thenegative element non is dropped, resulting in the anaphoric negative markerno. The qualitative analysis of anaphoric, constituent and sentence negationis supplemented by a quantitative analysis that shows a clear predominanceof sentence negation over constituent negation in different conversationtypes. On the quantitative basis presented on pages 41ff, Bardel concludesthat constituent negation is more frequent in more formal types ofconversation and belongs to a formal speech register. As Bardel’s L2 subjectshave acquired Swedish as their L1, and in order to be able to discuss the roleof transfer in L2 acquisition, the author devotes some pages to thepresentation of the syntax and function of the most important negativemarkers in Swedish. Chapter 2 also serves as an introduction to earlierresearch on the acquisition of negation in adult second language acquisitionwith special reference to Italian as L2. The main positions are summarisedunder the following research questions. The first question to be investigatedis whether there are invariable developmental sequences in the acquisition ofnegation in L2 acquisition. If this turns out to be incorrect, the secondquestion will be whether the differences are to be explained in terms of theL2 or/and of the L1. On the basis of the thorough presentation of L2 researchon negation, Bardel formulates the following hypotheses for her Swedish

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learners of Italian. (1) Anaphoric negation precedes sentence negation, (2) thenegative markers no/non are used interchangeably in the function ofsentence negation during early stages of development, and (3) no and nonprecede the element X to be negated, resulting in a stage where lexical(thematic) verbs are preceded by the negative element whereas nonthematicverbs are followed by it, as the element to be negated also follows thesenonthematic verbs. In order for this phenomenon to be manifested in theacquisition data as a developmental stage, the learners are expected to havepostverbal negation in their L1. The general hypothesis concerning the role ofthe L1 in the process of acquisition is that transfer becomes an importantexplanatory concept during later stages of L2 acquisition, at which the L2learners dispose of a more elaborated syntactic knowledge such as thefiniteness distinction.

Chapter 3 presents the background to the data. Seven Swedish adults wererecorded during a stay in Italy. In addition to the longitudinal study, Bardelintroduces an elicited production task with 15 Swedish students who had beentaught about 50 h of Italian at the time they participated in the test. Theproduction task was necessary because the study of the longitudinal datarevealed that the second L2 ("/Italian) has an influence on the acquisitionprocess of Italian as an L2. In order to study the influence of a third languageon the acquisition of L2, information about these third languages are provided.The third languages were English and one of the following three languages:German, French and Spanish.

Chapter 4 presents the empirical data. The observations made on the basisof the longitudinal studies are discussed first. The first hypothesis isconfirmed by the data. The learners start with anaphoric negation, whichrepresents the only morphological negative marker in nearly all intermediategrammars.

The second hypothesis is also verified. Examples for the vacillating use ofthe negative markers no and non are: eeh no eh abbiamo una casa (no have1P.Pl. ahouse) and sı, ma Claudia non parla italiana ma capisce, sı (yes, but Claudia notspeaks3P.Sg. Italian but understands3P.Sg.). Whether we are dealing with anoverextension of the negative particle no in the learner’s intermediategrammars or whether the learners just adapt to the input is not clear. Bardelnotes that ‘bisogna tuttavia tener conto del fatto che anche nel target ladistinzione tra no e non e instabile [. . .]. La forma no puo essere usata infunzione di negazione di costituente in certi contesti, e la -n finale della formanon davanti al verbo puo essere quasi impercepibile.’ (p. 90f.) Of course, itwould have been interesting to study the learners’ input with respect to theno/non distinction. If the distinction is absent or blurred in the input, we donot expect the L2 learners to acquire it without difficulty. Judged on the basisof the dissertation, the importance of Bardel’s observation with respect to no/non has to remain open.

The third hypothesis is also confirmed. The presentation and comparison ofthe data by two L2 learners, Karl and Martina, reveals an interesting differencewith respect to the position of the negative markers no and non . Karl, whospeaks English and French as second languages acquired in adulthood, uses alot of postverbal negation of the type ho non molto tempo de studiare (have1P.Sg.

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not much time to study). Postverbal negation is mostly found with two typesof verbs, with essere and avere and with verbs such as fare (to make) and credere(to think). Examples of postverbal negation with these verbs are given on pages117 and 118: e no facile (is3P.Sg. not easy), ho non molto tempo (s. above), fa noingegnere (makes3P.Sg. not engineer) and credo no questa (believe1P.Sg. not that).What do these verbs have in common from a syntactic point of view? Theinstances of postverbal negation with essere are observed in copular construc-tions. In copular constructions the individual referred to by the subject isdescribed in more detail by the AP, NP or PP that follows essere . The sameholds in the examples with fare , which encode a predicational relation (cf.Jones, 1996: 68). In many languages, such as Russian, the so-called copularconstructions are formed without a verb such as essere : e.g. libro facile (bookeasy). This fact is often expressed by the analysis of copular constructions interms of a small clause (SC) in which an NP is moved into subject position: [S Øe [SC [NP il libro] [AP facile]] is the underlying representation of [S [NP il libro] e[SC � [AP facile]]. Interestingly, verbs such as credere can also be used with smallclause complements: Credevo Paolo a Roma (thought1P.Sg. Paul at Rome), trovoPaolo molto inteligente (find1P.Sg. Paul much intelligent). The interpretation ofavere in constructions such as ho molto tempo is very similar to that ofpredicational sentences that are formed with essere , with the difference that theobject of avere ‘describes a quality which is in turn associated with [the subject]by means of the verb [avere]’, the complement of essere describing the subjectentity directly (cf. Jones, 1996: 74). We may thus conclude that the L2 learnersstudied by Bardel place the negative marker in front of the small clausecomplement of the mentioned verbs. In other words, the instances ofpostverbal negation might indicate that the L2 learners have difficulty withthe proper syntactic analysis of copular verbs or verbs that involve a smallclause complement. It does not necessarily mean that the constructions arerelevant for the acquisition of syntactic properties of negation. That this view isindeed plausible is indicated by the observation that the learners use preverbalnegation with all other verbs.

Martina, who speaks English, German and French as second languagesacquired in adulthood, does not use postverbal negation. Independently ofthe verbs, she uses preverbal negation as required by the target system.Bardel wants to exclude the possibility that Martina is a more advancedlearner than Karl and therefore does not use postverbal negation. She relieson a general impression about the linguistic development of the twolearners, based on the lexicon and fluency in Italian. If Karl and Martinarepresent two different types of learners, it would have been necessary toexclude the possibility that they have reached quite different levels ofproficiency and knowledge of Italian. Different criteria have been discussedin the literature on bilingual children, e.g. Mean Length of Utterance (MLU),absolute number of utterances used in recordings of the same length, verbtypes and tokens, amount of codemixing/codeswitching, and qualitativecriteria such as the development of functional categories (cf. Muller et al .,2002; Muller & Kupisch, 2003). Bardel studies the verb system of the L2learners (TMA system and subject�verb agreement morphology) and comesto the conclusion that her learners do not show important differences in

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development if compared to other L2 learners in the literature. Interestingly,Karl mainly uses the present tense, whereas Martina uses both the presenttense and the passato prossimo . Furthermore, Karl seems to develop finitenessonly a little later (after 9 months in Italy) than Martina (after 7.5 months inItaly). Subject�verb agreement seems to remain a problematic grammaticalarea, especially for Martina. The question is what these observationsmean with respect to the level of proficiency/knowledge of Italian of thetwo learners.

The discussion of finiteness and the placement of negation in Chapter 5reveals no clear relation between the two. The target-like preverbal negation isacquired at very different points of development of finiteness in the differentL2 learners. Furthermore, target-deviant postverbal placement of negationprevails even when the learners have acquired some of the criteria of finiteness.Both observations conform to other studies reported in the literature. Chapter5 also discusses the placement of negation in relation to the structuring ofinformation and presents the conclusion that ‘negation is often placed directlybefore the element upon which it operates semantically’ (p. 239). Postverbalnegation is then explained by the tendency in L2 acquisition to negate thelexical item it operates on: in the case of a lexical verb a NEG�/V order results;in the case of copula constructions, a COP�/NEG�/NP/AP/PP order isobtained. Finally, the role of L1 transfer is discussed and it is argued that totaltransfer from Swedish is not very plausible, due to the very early target-likepreverbal placement of negation. The intermediate grammars resemble theEnglish system, ‘where a distinction is made between lexical and non-lexicalverbs’ (p. 239). Bardel argues that it might be the case that the knowledge ofEnglish favours the use of postverbal negation in Italian copula constructions.

With respect to the first result, namely that finiteness and placement ofnegation are not related in L2 acquisition, it would have been interesting tostudy other verbs where finiteness and the syntactic property to allow for asmall clause complement do not correlate in the acquisition data. These areverbs like considerare (to consider) and trovare (to find). Furthermore, Italianhas other copula verbs like rimanere (to remain), divenire (to become),sembrare (to seem), apparire (to appear) � as in Piero rimane/diventa/sembra/appare triste (Piero remains, becomes, seems, appears sad) � which shouldappear as finite verbs with postverbal negation. Assuming that it is withthese verbs that postverbal negation is allowed in the learner’s interlanguageand that preverbal negation in the target system is syntactically representedas neg-movement (cliticisation) to the node where the finite verb moves insyntax, one may also formulate the following research question. Why is itthat the negative markers no/non do not cliticise onto the finite verb oncethis verb has a small clause complement? It may be explained by theassumption that finite verbs with a small clause complement do not movefrom within VP into a higher functional position. This view is plausible astheta-role assignment of the NP(s) within the small clause is not regulated bythe finite verb. The reasons for postverbal negation lie in the analysis ofcopula verbs and have nothing to do with the presence/absence of finitenessfeatures. This approach would make a prediction, which has to be verified ona larger database: the learners should not pass through a developmental

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stage during which they use postverbal negation in sentences with passato

prossimo , i.e. in constructions in which the forms avere and essere function as(nonthematic, but finite) temporal auxiliary verbs. Sentences such as ho no(n)letto il libro (have1P.Sg. not read the book) are excluded as the temporalauxiliaries do not take a small clause complement. Bardel mentions oneexample in the longitudinal database, namely ma eeh ho no fatto (have1P.Sg. notdone) by Stina. The near absence of such examples shows that preverbalnegation cannot be described without recourse to finiteness features and thatpostverbal negation in Italian interlanguage does not have to be explained interms of a negator mostly being placed in front of the lexical element itoperates on.

There exists another alternative to explain the acquisition data, whichhinges on the underlying syntactic structure of negation in the target system.If one assumes that Italian instantiates two Neg-phrases, one for the negativeelement non , the other, lower in the tree for the negative elements like piu ,mai , etc., and if it is plausible that Swedish has only the lower Neg-phrase,the L2 learners might falsely assume for the class of verbs which involve asmall clause complement that the negative element non is located in thelower Neg-phrase in Italian, comparable to inte in Swedish (p. 201).Although one would have to give reasons for why the negative element isplaced wrongly only with a particular class of verbs, this approach wouldopen the possibility for transfer to play a role. Bardel rejects the full transferhypothesis, but she shows that the results of the elicited production task maybe interpreted in the following way: ‘[. . .] those informants who had studiedFrench before Italian had less difficulty in placing the negator preverbally(i.e. before the verb that functioned as a finite verb) than those who hadstudied German.’ (p. 240). In other words, the previous knowledge of Frenchmight be the reason Martina does not use postverbal negation. Notwith-standing, Karl also knows French and uses postverbal negation to a non-neglectful degree. We are thus dealing with a further factor, namely anindividual one. It seems to be the case that some learners make use of theirknowledge of previous languages and others don’t. It would be interesting toinvestigate whether this only holds for other L2s or also for the L1, inthe sense that some learners show traces of L1 transfer in the interlanguageand others don’t.

The dissertation is well structured and the presented data are surely ofinterest to theoretical linguists and psycholinguists. Neither the notion oftransfer nor the link of information structure and syntactic representationcan be discussed in more depth here due to lack of space. The point of view ofthe dissertation and its interesting analyses are very stimulating andprovocative; coming up with a pure syntactic analysis of the data seems tobe a real challenge.

doi: 10.2167/ijm008b.0 Natascha MullerBergische Universitat Wuppertal

([email protected])

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References

Jones, M.A. (1996) Foundations of French Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Muller, N., Cantone, K., Kupisch, T. and Schmitz, K. (2002) Zum Spracheneinfluss imbilingualen Erstspracherwerb: Italienisch-Deutsch. Linguistische Berichte 190,157�206.

Muller, N. and Kupisch, T. (2003) Zum simultanen Erwerb des Deutschen und desFranzosischen bei (un)ausgeglichen bilingualen Kindern. Vox Romanica , 62, 145�169.

Rizzi, L. (1997) The fine structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (ed.) Elements ofGrammar (pp. 281�337). Amsterdam: Kluwer.

Trilinguismo en la ensenanza. Actitudes hacia la lengua minoritaria, lamayoritaria y la extranjeraDavid Lasagabaster. Lleida, Spain: Editorial Milenio, 2003. Pp. 648. ISBN84-9743-099-9 (pbk): t28.

As the title suggests, this book deals with trilingualism from an educationalperspective, and it particularly focuses on language attitudes involvingminority, majority and foreign languages. The issue of language attitudesin education has received a great deal of attention for the last 30 years(Ajzen, 1988; Baker, 1992; Lasagabaster, 2001; Oskamp, 1991). As stated byLasagabaster (this volume), existing studies on language attitudes may besubdivided into five groups concerning (1) attitudes towards minority ethnicgroups and their languages, (2) attitudes towards foreign languages and theirinfluence in foreign language learning, (3) attitudes towards English asa lingua franca, (4) attitudes towards languages in contact and their effecton borrowings and (5) attitudes towards specific social classes and theirlinguistic varieties.

This book deals with attitudes towards minority, majority and foreignlanguages, thus, it integrates aspects that have been tackled separately inprevious research. In addition to that, Trilinguismo en la ensenanza. Actitudeshacia la lengua minoritaria, la mayoritaria y la extranjera illustrates the increasinginterest of scholars in language learning in multilingual contexts. This aspect isbest illustrated by those studies described in the second chapter of the volume.Here, the author presents a thorough account of research on language attitudesconducted in the five continents with a special emphasis in Europe. This partthen provides the reader with the global sociolinguistic framework of thestudy described in the third chapter.

The third and final part of the book presents a detailed description of acomprehensive empirical study on the attitudes of EFL learners towards thoseminority and majority languages that coexist in their own speech community.In addition to that, this last chapter includes an exhaustive analysis of theselearners’ attitudes towards the foreign language, English in this particularcase.

The three main parts that comprise this book are strictly related to oneanother and they constitute a coherent, interesting, new and well documentedresource for applied linguists and language acquisition researchers. The firstpart includes the theoretical framework underlying the study conducted by

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the author and described in the third chapter of the volume. In this firstchapter, David Lasagabaster describes the concept of attitude in general bydrawing on three main components (Hewstone et al ., 1997), namely those ofcognition, affection and action. The author also presents the concept oflanguage attitudes as it relates to social psychology. In fact, the relationshipbetween ethnolinguistic vitality and language attitudes may be illustrated bythe influence of social, historical and economic factors (Bourhis, 2001) on thelinguistic perception of a given speech community.

Language attitudes may be defined as the expression of one’s positive ornegative feelings with respect to a language (Richards et al ., 1997). Attitudes‘may be formed from haphazard experience, or they may be the resultof deliberate thought. They may exert considerable control over learners’behaviour in numerous ways, and therefore may be related directlyor indirectly to levels of achievement’ (Johnson & Johnson, 1998: 14). However,this is not the only definition of the term, as, according to Lasagabaster,there exist about 500 definitions of the term attitude. Furthermore, asargued by the author, it may be easier to measure language attitudes than todefine them.

Yet, measurement of language attitudes is not a simple matter, as shown in aspecific subsection devoted to the issue. Here, Lasagabaster points out theadvantages and disadvantages attributed to existing data collection methodsand measurement procedures, like the closed or open questionnaire, and healso describes and comments on the use of Likert, Thurstone, Bogardus andGuttman methods. In addition to these methods, the author presents those thathave been created bearing the issue of language attitudes in mind, such as theAttitude/Motivation Test Battery (Gardner, 1985) and the test created by Baker(1992) to measure linguistic attitudes towards Welsh and English in Wales. Themethods described have been widely employed in the field of second-languageacquisition.

The interaction of language attitudes with other variables characteristic ofthe language-learning process, like the age factor or the issue of gender ormotivation, is tackled in other subsections of this first chapter. At the end ofthis theoretical overview, Lasagabaster focuses on the issue of attitudestowards minority, majority and foreign languages, both in Spain and theBasque Country. In so doing, the author describes in detail the sociolinguisticcontext where his research was conducted. That description introduces amultilingual perspective that is present throughout the volume, and it mightbe best exemplified in the second chapter.

In an attempt to present a comprehensive view of studies conducted with afocus on language attitudes, Lasagabaster devotes the second chapter of thepresent volume to a description of worldwide research. Studies are subdividedinto five subsections that correspond to the five continents. As stated byLasagabaster, this chapter will provide the author with data to compare resultsfrom his own study with those findings derived from research conducted inother contexts. Furthermore, the consideration of results obtained in verydifferent sociocultural and sociolinguistic contexts will help him interpret hisown findings as illustrated in Chapter 3. In this compendious overview of

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studies on attitudes, a special emphasis is drawn on research conducted inSpain, particularly in the Basque Country.

The multilingual perspective displayed in this second chapter raises one’sawareness of the ethnocentric view adopted in most SLA research, at least forthe last 20 years, and as far as the study of language attitudes is concerned.Also, as stated by the author in the introduction to this chapter, the quantity ofstudies on language attitudes conducted in each continent or country seems tobe inversely related to the number of languages spoken in that geographicalarea. Interestingly, most studies have been conducted in Western countries anda special focus has been drawn to the English language, a fact that mayillustrate the status of the English language in our society. Additionally, wemay notice that no more than two languages are implied in the studiespresented by the author in this second part, although the reality in mostcountries mentioned relates to the use of more than two or three languages. Wemay then assume that further studies on language attitudes dealing with theactual sociolinguistic situation of most countries is needed. Taking the aboveassumptions into account, we may point to Lasagabaster’s study as anexceptional case for including attitudes towards various languages, and asan attempt to meet one potential need in the field of language attitudes, that ofacknowledging multilingualism as a fact.

Lasagabaster’s study shows reality in most parts of the world, that is, anarea where one minority language is spoken together with a majority one andwhere a foreign language is learnt, English in the case of most Westerncountries. On that account, we believe that findings from this study are avaluable source for contrast. Results could be compared with future researchthat could be conducted in similar areas, especially in other areas of Spainwhere other minority languages are employed and the same foreign language,English, is learnt.

In this study, described in the third chapter of the volume, the authorexamines the attitudes of university students towards the Basque, the Spanishand the English languages. According to the author, this empirical studyis subject to five main objectives, namely those of (1) examining the useof Basque and Spanish by university students in the Basque Country,(2) comparing attitudes of these learners towards Basque, Spanish andEnglish, (3) identifying those variables that may affect language attitudes, (4)analysing the effect of the data collection method employed, and(5) examining the effect of attitudes towards the English language in thesestudents’ proficiency level.

In order to meet the goals mentioned above, the analysis was carried out bymeans of two questionnaires that measured participants’ language attitudesand their level in the three languages implied. Data collection methodsemployed in this empirical study are included at the end of the volume.Results from the study point to the influence of other variables, such as thelearners’ personal experiences during the learning process, individual vari-ables like gender or age, or contextual variables, among others. In all casesattitudes towards the three languages implied in this study are positive.Nevertheless, the degree of support provided to a given language variesdepending on the linguistic background of participants. In this respect it is

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also worth pointing out the attitudes shown by younger learners, whichappear to be most positive, although this is not directly related with the use ofthat language.

In addition to that, learners’ linguistic competence in the three languagesseems to have influenced their perceptions about them. The sociolinguisticcontext where the study has been conducted appears as an important variableinfluencing attitudes towards the two languages employed in the BasqueCountry. The attitudes may illustrate a political view of that society, as arguedby the author.

Finally, the author refers to the relationship between attitudes andglobalisation, particularly regarding the use of English as a lingua franca.We agree with the author in stating that the study of language attitudes isfundamental, as it may help us understand behaviour and processes under-lying language acquisition and use. This idea may be illustrated by findingspresented in the final part of the book, which connected attitudes to othervariables characteristic of the learning process.

Another idea we share, and which is present in this third part of the volume,is the importance of education in fostering positive attitudes towardslanguages that may be both known and unknown to the students. Wecannot ignore the fact that politicians and governments have traditionallyshown various interests for the presence and use of specific languages intheir regions. These political ideas may also illustrate specific attitudestowards languages that may then be adopted in those curricula presentedby these governments. It is fundamental that attitudinal aspects are tackledand become part of contents implied in language study, as Lasagabasterpoints out.

In our view, a focus on the sociocultural aspects of languages that arecurrently taught, and an understanding of communicative competence as aglobal construct made up of linguistic, pragmatic, discourse and interculturalcompetences may enable curriculum planners, teachers and educationalauthorities to promote positive attitudes towards languages. In so doing,learners would not only be exposed to the grammatical difficulties or lexicalambiguities of target languages, but also to the cultural richness andsubsequent widening of tolerance levels implied in language teaching andlearning processes which adopt a multilingual perspective.

Trilinguismo en la ensenanza. Actitudes hacia la lengua minoritaria, la

mayoritaria y la extranjera is an extremely useful and most valuable resourcefor second and third language acquisition researchers, language-teachingpractitioners, graduate and postgraduate students of language studies andsociolinguistics, and anyone concerned with current tendencies in the studyand analysis of languages, which necessarily involve the multilingual reality ofour society.

doi: 10.2167/ijm009b.0 Maria Pilar Safont JordaDepartament d’Estudis Anglesos, Universitat Jaume I,

Castello, Spain ([email protected])

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Page 11: Book Reviews

References

Ajzen, I. (1988) Attitudes, Personality and Behaviour. London: Open University Press.Baker, C. (1992) Attitudes and Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Bourhis, R.Y. (2001) Reversing language shift in Quebec. In J.A. Fishman (ed.) Can

Threatened Languages Be Saved? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Gardner, R.C. (1985) Social Psychology and Second Language Learning: The Role of Attitudes

and Motivation. London: Edward Arnold.Hewstone, M., Manstead, A.S.R. and Stroebe, W. (1997) The Blackwell Reader in Social

Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Johnson, K. and Johnson, H. (1998) Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. A

Handbook for Language Teaching . Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Lasagabaster, D. (2001) University students’ attitudes towards English as a L3. In J.

Cenoz, B. Hufeisen and U. Jessner (eds) Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition:Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism. Tubingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.

Oskamp, S. (1991) Attitudes and Opinions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Richards, J.C., Platt, J. and Platt, C. (1997) Diccionario de linguıstica aplicada y ensenanza de

lenguas , Spanish version adapted by Carmen Munoz and Carmen Perez. Barcelona:Ariel.

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