SSLA, 20, 589–594. Printed in the United States of America.

REVIEWS

CLASSROOM-BASED EVALUATION IN SECOND LANGUAGE EDUCATION.Fred Genesee and John A. Upshur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996. Pp. xiv + 268. $44.95 cloth.

How transparent a title is Genesee and Upshur’s (G & U) Classroom-Based Evaluation inSecond Language Education? First, the word “evaluation.” These days “evaluation” is socommonly attached collocationally to programs and projects that when it stands aloneit is usually taken to mean evaluation of programs or projects. G & U seem to use evalu-ation in the more micro sense of the assessment of individual achievement within theclassroom context, taking into account the teacher’s purposes, plans, and practices.

Second, the word “Language” in the title suggests that the book must be about theevaluation of language teaching. Certainly G & U give lots of space to describing how tocollect information in the classroom, information presumably about language, and theydo so in ways that seem comfortably accessible to classroom teachers. The book “isintended to be useful and practical for teachers. It does not require specialised trainingin statistics, research methods, psychometrics (theory of testing), or any other techni-cal domain” (p. 7). And indeed it is. What the book does is to validate the teacher inthe exposed and isolated setting of the classroom, pointing out that “second languageevaluation relies on many different kinds of information . . . there are many kinds of deci-sions, besides passing or failing students, to be made in second language classrooms”(p. 4).

The “how” of evaluation is thoroughly dealt with, and the book raises practical issuesimportant to the teacher: how to place students in the appropriate level, how to plannew units of instruction, how to select textbooks et cetera, what homework to set, howto plan instructional objectives and plans. We are provided with detailed discussion onmethods of information gathering: conferences, interviews, journals, objectives-refer-enced tests, observation, portfolios, questionnaires, and standardized tests. There isless guidance about what to evaluate or what the data collected by the teacher meanlinguistically. True, the text is full of directives: “check student use of language” (p. 42),“what will I assess?” (p. 47), “context relevance is important when devising classroomtests” (p. 65), “How can I tell whether they are making progress in learning a secondlanguage?” (p. 98), “What can good readers (or writers) do?” (p. 112). But the emphasison the how of evaluation means that teachers are left much to their own devices andare given too few examples to give the evaluation tools local meaning.

Third, consider the scene-setting term in the title, “classroom,” that site of so muchstruggle in second language learning and the focus of attention for many SLA studies.G & U’s concern with the ongoing process of classroom language evaluation makes it acandidate for bridging the gap that Valdman commented on in SSLA 10.2: “This issue ofSSLA is an attempt to bridge the gap between SLA and language proficiency testing”(1988, p. 122). My judgment is that G & U begin the bridging with their thick description

1998 Cambridge University Press 0272-2631/98 $9.50 589

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of evaluation methods and their emphasis on the validity and reliability of measurementinstruments. These are powerful tools for SLA researchers to take up (see Bachman &Cohen, in press). But G & U’s main contribution is of course to language testing, andthere the judgment is that this is a partial success. Its accessibility to the classroomteacher, an accessibility that is long overdue in language-testing textbooks and forwhich G & U deserve praise, is two-edged. The presentation of preview and discussionquestions, the refusal to get drawn into theory—these will appeal to the teacher whoseconcern must so often be how to obtain the learner information he or she needs tomor-row. At the same time, that very eschewing of theory, that emphasis on practicality(without detailed and continued exemplification) can be frustrating. What should I lookfor? What does it mean? Why am I doing it? These are the questions that matter in edu-cation, and a book that “is intended to be useful and practical for teachers” (p. 7)should not leave them unexplored. Being practical cannot mean ignoring theory.

REFERENCES

Bachman, L. F., & Cohen, A. D. (Eds.). (in press). Interfaces between second language acquisition andlanguage testing research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Valdman, A. (1998). Introduction: The assessment of foreign language oral proficiency. Studies in Sec-ond Language Acquisition, 10, 121–128.

(Received 1 September 1997) Alan DaviesUniversity of Melbourne

PRAGMATICS. George Yule. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv +138. $10.95 paper.

and

MEANING IN INTERACTION: AN INTRODUCTION TO PRAGMATICS. JennyThomas. London: Longman, 1995. Pp. xv + 224. $26.60 paper.

These books represent two of the most recent additions to the growing number of intro-ductory texts designed to be used as main or supporting resources in academic courseson pragmatics. Although each is intended for use by readers with little or no back-ground in the field, they differ considerably.

Yule’s Pragmatics is the second in the Oxford University Press Introduction to Lan-guage Study series, a series whose purpose, according to editor Henry Widdowson, isto provide “a more general and gradual introduction to language,” with “texts which willease people into an understanding of complex ideas” (p. xi). In line with this goal, Yuletreats each of his topics succinctly, summarizing the main characteristics of the rele-vant theories—identifying important features, categories, questions—with new termshighlighted in boldface and defined in the text and in a glossary. The definitions arebrief but clear and are often accompanied by helpful examples—for the most part,short, invented illustrations.

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Yule’s view of pragmatics is a broad one. On the first page of chapter 1 (p. 3), theareas of concern to pragmatics are identified as (a) speaker meaning, (b) contextualmeaning, (c) communication of more than is said, and (d) expression of relative dis-tance. Accordingly, pragmatics (and hence the book) encompasses a wide range of top-ics. In addition to core pragmatic issues (speech acts, cooperation and implicature,politeness), Yule sees pragmatics as comprehending philosophical and linguistic con-cerns such as deixis, reference, and presupposition, along with more sociological andanthropological matters, including conversation analysis, as well as discourse and cul-ture (a chapter for each).

Yule sets forth the theories associated with each subject clearly and concisely. Thus,the eight topics mentioned above, along with the introduction and glossary, are coveredin less than 100 pages. Yule achieves this economy by sticking to major theoreticalclaims and concepts, keeping explanations short, and providing little discussion ofproblems connected with the theories he surveys. At first glance, the book is schematicto the point of outline. However, this impression passes as the reader becomes familiarwith the contents. Informed pragmatics researchers will find most of the topics coveredcarefully and well, although they will find something to wish for (for instance, morecomprehensive critiques of the theories presented, inclusion of approaches to polite-ness other than Brown and Levinson’s, more attention to cultural differences in the real-ization of some of the concepts, a more detailed discussion of levels of indirectness). Ofcourse, given the target audience and the goals of the series, such a level of detail wouldbe appropriate. In fact, the result appears to be quite successful. When I recommendedthis text to students in an introductory pragmatics class and to educators with no no-tion of pragmatics who wanted a quick introduction, all remarked on how accessible theideas were.

Although Yule does not go into detail on the history of individual topics, at somepoint in each chapter he ties the issues he is dealing with to one of his four areas ofconcern to pragmatics. He also manages to make his position on a number of controver-sial issues clear with a minimum of fuss. For instance, at one point he notes that speak-ers, not sentences, have presuppositions. And, in the discussion of reference, hecomments that expressions do not themselves have reference but rather are “ ‘invested’with referential function by a speaker or writer” (p. 19). In this way, he indicates hisopinion (not universally shared) that a wide variety of instances of language use, includ-ing presupposition and reference, are pragmatic rather than semantic concerns.

Like the other books in this series, Pragmatics also includes a section with excerptsfrom the relevant literature for each chapter, followed by provocative questions. Alsoincluded is a list of reference texts, briefly annotated and keyed as to difficulty. For abook of such brevity, Yule has managed to cover a lot of material well.

Thomas’s Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics is part of Longman’sLearning About Language series, a series designed to provide “introductions to funda-mental topics in language, linguistics and related areas” (cover). Thomas observes that,although there are already a number of introductory pragmatics texts on the market,this book is distinctive. In particular, she points to her attention to the role of bothspeaker and hearer in the construction of meaning, her detailed examination of basictheoretical claims and their problems, and her inclusion of a number of recent develop-ments in pragmatics.

In accord with the first of these attributes, Thomas presents two approaches to prag-matics. One, based on an “utterance interpretation definition of pragmatics” (p. 22), takes

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into account the cognitive processes involved in hearer interpretation of a speaker ut-terance. The other takes as its starting point the speaker’s perspective in producingmeaning. Speaker meaning consists of two different levels: utterance meaning, the propo-sition that the speaker meant to convey through the use of a particular set of words ina particular context; and force, the speaker’s communicative intention. In the introduc-tion, Thomas notes that, although she refers to both these approaches throughout thebook, she is working toward an account of pragmatic meaning derived from neitherspeaker meaning nor hearer interpretation alone, but rather one that involves meaningcreated in interaction. Despite this orientation toward the sociology and anthropologyend of the pragmatics spectrum, Thomas spends little time on issues connected to re-lated areas such as conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, or ethnographyof communication. Thus, although she does include a brief discussion of the linguisticsand philosophy end of the continuum, touching on sense and reference in her introduc-tory chapter, and although her concluding chapter deals with negotiation and the socialconstruction of meaning, the body of the text is dedicated primarily to mainstream prag-matic phenomena.

The style of Thomas’s book is discursive. This accords with her explanation of whatmakes it different from other introductory pragmatic texts. Thomas spends approxi-mately 200 pages on speech acts, cooperation and implicature, politeness, and indirect-ness. In addition to coverage of the main theories identified with these topics, sheintroduces some less well-known and some competing theories. Thus, in a broad over-view of politeness theories, Thomas reviews Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategiesand Leech’s politeness principles in detail, as well as providing a brief synopsis of Fra-ser’s theory of politeness as a conversational contract and Spencer-Oatey’s politenessscales. She also devotes nearly an entire chapter to questions that have been raisedregarding Grice’s and Searle’s theories and alternatives that have been proposed toremedy what are seen as the original theories’ flaws.

This inclusion of a wide variety of interesting supportive material on each of her coretopics is one of Thomas’s strengths. However, at times it is difficult to maintain a bal-ance. For instance, admitting that she finds much to fault in Searle, Thomas gives a briefexplanation of his contribution to speech-act theory and then concentrates on pointingout the problems with it. Although this is of interest to readers who are already ac-quainted with the ideas Thomas is discussing, it can be confusing to those who are newto the field. These readers have only a few pages to familiarize themselves with Searle’scharacterization of indirect speech acts and felicity conditions before becoming in-volved in a critique of a theory they may not have had the opportunity to digest. Also,Thomas’s organizing devices occasionally misfire. Thus, in an attempt to “systematize,simplify and in a few cases expand upon Austin’s original categories” of performativeverbs, she creates a set of classes that ultimately seem more confusing than illuminating(p. 33).

Thomas supports her points with a wealth of authentic examples culled from sourcesthat included radio and television programs, fiction, and her own experience. Some ofthe examples are particularly germane to discussions of cross-cultural pragmatic issues,some are hilariously funny, and many are quite helpful in clarifying difficult points. Theinclusion of real examples of pragmatic ambiguity and miscommunication in cross-cul-tural situations is especially welcome. However, occasionally the literary and culture-specific nature of the content or vocabulary can be bewildering to nonnative readers(e.g., excerpts from Shakespeare and Monty Python).

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Despite the confusion occasioned by some aspects of the text, Meaning in Interactionoffers an abundance of information and informed speculation on the nature of pragmat-ics and the issues related to it.

In sum, Yale and Thomas have managed to produce two very different introductorypragmatics texts, each of which has much to offer. Which text appeals to a particularreader will depend on the needs and background of the readers themselves. I wouldsuggest that novices and students desiring a broad overview opt for Yule; those whowould like to delve deeply into a few areas central to the field might be better servedby Thomas.

(Received 18 September 1997) Noel HouckTemple University Japan

BREAKING TRADITION: AN EXPLORATION OF THE HISTORICALRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SECOND LANGUAGETEACHING. Diane Musumeci. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. Pp. xiii + 142.$24.07 paper.

In her engrossing account of the historical relationship between theory and practice insecond language teaching, Diane Musumeci observes that in the often contentious dis-cussions about this relationship “the one point on which almost everyone agrees is thatscant evidence exists to support any single, unified theory of language learning” (p. 3).In Breaking Tradition: An Exploration of the Historical Relationship Between Theory andPractice in Second Language Teaching, Musumeci convincingly argues that the claim thatthere has been no consistent theory of second language teaching is not only ahistoricalbut has also discouraged critical investigation of the ideas of tradition and innovationin the field.

Musumeci’s careful examination of the beliefs of three of the most influential figuresin the history of Western education—Guarino Guarini (1374–1460), Ignatius of Loyola(1491–1556), and Johannes Amos Comenius (1592–1670)—reveals a surprisingly consis-tent tradition in second language teaching theory. The book’s central chapters (1, 2, and3) illustrate that through the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, educationalreformers, concerned with such issues as the role of explicit instruction in rules, theplace of error in second language learning, and the role of instruction in promoting com-prehension, developed an educational theory of language learning that was remarkablyconstant.

The theory these innovators advocated is recognizable as what is now known as“communicative language teaching.” At the core of their theory was the view that lan-guage is a system of communication; Guarino, Ignatius, and Comenius regarded learn-ers’ development of functional language abilities as the central goal of second languageinstruction. The teaching innovations they advocated, “exclusive use of the second lan-guage, extensive use of authentic texts, and language study that proceeds hand-in-handwith instruction in content” (p. 114), reflect this central goal. These reformers were also

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careful to explain those features of second language development that were the basis oftheir pedagogical programs. As Musumeci summarizes:

They described second language acquisition as a gradual, developmental processthrough which individual learners move at varying rates . . . not . . . according to somepre-established, institutionally-set timetable . . . they remind teachers . . . that native-like levels of competence are attained only after years of engagement with the secondlanguage. . . . [They] recognized that . . . language competence steadily improves withtime, exposure to good models, and motivating circumstances. (p. 114)

Musumeci also explores the reasons that the instructional innovations of Guarino, Ig-natius, and Comenius failed to become institutionalized; for example, the pedagogicalwritings of his son Battista subverted Guarino’s theory of language development andintroduced practices clearly at odds with his ideas. In the sixteenth century, the declineof the importance of Latin, coupled with the strict pedagogical plan focusing heavily onrule learning and error correction in the Jesuits’ Ratio Studiorum, served to undermineIgnatius’s theory of second language teaching. And, in the case of Comenius, his ownfailure to identify teaching practices consistent with his theoretical stance rendered hismethodological suggestions incoherent. As these examples illustrate, the translationinto practice of language teaching theory, even when clearly and consistently articu-lated, has a long and difficult history.

In her final chapter, Musumeci challenges readers to consider the current situation oflanguage theory and practice in light of the history she has chronicled. Anyone inter-ested in the current tension between theory and practice in second language teachingwill find much of interest in Musumeci’s thoughtful discussion of the history of this trou-bled relationship. Failure to consider this history, the author warns, makes it appearthat changes in curriculum, administration, and materials occur in a theoretical vacuum.Furthermore, it encourages the reliance on the so-called traditional methods of Battista,the Ratio, and Comenius—methods that are very often ineffectual and, as the authordemonstrates, not truly traditional.

Musumeci’s historical treatment of the relationship of theory and practice in secondlanguage teaching makes it abundantly clear that “innovation in second language teach-ing that is currently labeled ‘communicative’ is not new in the absolute sense: It is onlynew to the institutional setting that has repeatedly failed to implement its original in-tent” (p. 133). Revision of materials and methods alone has not resulted in a coherentrelationship between theory and practice; future revisions are also doomed to failure.What is needed is a historical understanding of tradition in second language teachingtheory and an appreciation of the difficulties of translating that theory into practice.Breaking Tradition by Diane Musumeci is an invaluable resource for understanding thehistorical tradition in language teaching theory, and thus perhaps a first step in resolv-ing the perennial tension between theory and practice in second language teaching.

(Received 20 September 1997) Joanne DevineSkidmore College