Language: Contexts and consequences. By Howard Giles and Nikolas Coupland. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1991. Pp. xvi, 244. Paper 21. 00.

Part 1 Language in context: the builds upon context approach the reflects context approach - Brown and Fraser's taxonomy, perceived structure of social situations, intergroup relations a model of speech as a reflection of situational representations the languge determines context approach further complexities and directions. Part 2 Language attitudes: the matched-guise technique (MGT) the empirical avalanche which followed - standard versus nonstandard speaker evaluations, the role of context, other intervening and mediating variables theoretical developments future developments - the MGT from a discursive perspective, language attitudes and linguistic action. Part 3 Accommodating language: basic concepts and strategies - convergence and divergence, some important distinctions accommodative motives and consequences - convergence and integration, caveats, divergence and intergroup processes further distinctions - psychological versus linguistic accommodation, cognitive organization and identity maintenance functions discourse attuning future rapprochements. Part 4 Language, ethnicity and intergroup communication: the salience and language approaches and problems ethnolinguistic identity strategies of language change - individual mobility and group assimilation, psycholinguistic distinctiveness intergroup communication breakdown models of breakdown - the stereotype process framework. Part 5 Bilingualism and the survival of languages: the field and its importance influential frameworks - Gardner's model, Clement's model the intergroup model (IGM) - ethnolinguistic vitality, the IGM revised the IGM revisited the very survival of languages integrating models of language survival. Part 6 Language, ageing and health: intergenerational differences - beliefs about talk, over and underaccommodation, other features of discursive style, telling age towards a lifespan communicative framework language, health and social support a language perspective on health and social support. Part 7 Epilogue: future priorities - the status of miscommunication, units of analysis, epistemological dilemmas.