Language ideologies: Practice and theory. Ed. by Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics 16.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 338.

Language ideologies refers to the representation, whether explicit or implicit, of the intersection of language and human beings in a social world. This collection of essays examines definitions and conceptions of language in a wide range of settings, focusing on how such defining activity organizes individuals, institutions, and the relationships between them. The contributors look at language and its role in such fundamental social institutions as religious ritual, child socialization, gender relations, the nation-state, schooling and the law, and in doing so, link language to larger issues of identity, aesthetics, morality, and epistemology. This will be the first collection of work in this rapidly growing field.