SSLA, 14,217-233. Printed in the United States of America.

REVIEWS

CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS: REQUESTS AND APOLOGIES. ShoshanaBlum-Kulka, Miane House, and Gabriele Kasper (Eds.). Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989.Pp. ix + 300. $45.00.

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, edited by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, MianeHouse, and Gabriele Kasper, is a collection of articles based on research carried out by theCross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), an international team of 10 research-ers studying requests and apologies in different cultures.

The result is a volume whose coherence derives not so much from the similarity in researchquestions (which range from investigations into the universality of speech acts to analyses ofsocial factors that affect speech act form) as from their reliance on cross-linguistic data from thesame written discourse completion test (DCT), coded according to the same set of instructions.

Because of its reliance on a common pool of data and a single classification system, thevolume offers readers an excellent opportunity to focus on a number of issues in cross-culturalspeech acts without having to acquaint themselves with a new methodology for each article.At the same time, it requires that they familiarize themselves with CCSARP methods, becausethe details are not always spelled out in each paper.

The editors have attempted to address this need by including a comprehensive introductorychapter, which contains not only theoretical discussions of the value of speech act studies andof the variables that may affect the form and distribution of speech acts, but also a practicalexplanation of the motivation, goals, and methods of CCSARP researchers. This chapter pro-vides an excellent overview of cross-cultural speech act studies in general and of this project inparticular. Additional methodological information can be found in the CCSARP Coding Manual,located in the appendix.

The book is divided into three sections, according to the type of research question posed.However, I found it more convenient as a reader to pull together those articles, often by thesame author, that focus on similar CCSARP phenomenarequest strategies, modification ofrequest strategies, apology strategies, and methodology.

Three articles deal with the use of different levels of directness in requesting. In "Cross-Cultural and Situational Variation in Requesting Behavior," Blum-Kulka and House correlateuse of three request strategies based on directnessdirect conventional, conventional indirect,and nonconventional indirect requestswith contextual and cultural factors. Focusing on onelevel of indirectness, Blum-Kulka finds evidence in Hebrew, English, and Spanish that con-ventional indirectness may represent a universal request strategy. In her investigation ofnonconventional indirect requests, Weizman identifies degrees of transparency among re-questive hints and charts their distribution across Australian English, Canadian French, andHebrew. The article includes an interesting discussion of the motivation behind use of reques-tive hints.

CCSARP researchers also consider the modification of request strategies. In a comparison ofthe use of request modifiers in English and German, House finds that the distribution of please/

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218 Reviews

bitte is affected by factors such as situation type and choice of request strategy. Faerch andKasper investigate the tendency of Danish learners of English and German to use longer, morecomplex procedures in modifying conventional indirect requests than do native speakers.

Two articles examine apologies in Hebrew, Canadian French, Australian English, and Ger-man. Olshtain's "Apologies Across Languages" looks at cross-cultural variability in apologydirectness level and the role of cultural and situational factors in determining level of directness.In a separate paper, Vollmer and Olshtain focus on two frequent apology strategies acrosslanguages, identifying the social and situational factors behind the choice of one or the other inGerman.

"Problems in the Comparison of Speech Acts Across Cultures," by Nessa Wolfson, ThomasMarmor, and Steve Jones, is one of two articles in this volume that tackle the validity of writtenquestionnaires such as the DCT. In it, the authors consider the representativeness of writtenquestionnaires in general, focusing particularly on the problem of finding contexts that willelicit the same type of response (e.g., apology) in each culture. Rintell and Mitchell investigatehow written responses differ from oral responses to DCT request and apology situations. Thisconcern with the CCSARP instrument is welcome, because there are serious questions aboutthe possible biases introduced by a written elicitation instrument. The absence of any versionof the DCT in the volume only fuels such concerns. While the two methodology articles do notput all reservations to rest, they demonstrate an acute awareness by the researchers of thedisadvantages (and advantages) of their instrument.

The CCSARP is clearly in the forefront of cross-cultural speech act research. It has a well-defined methodology, which its contributors are not averse to scrutinizing; it involves experi-enced, prolific researchers; and it represents one of the first attempts to compare speech actsacross more than two cultures at a time. Through their consistent, integrated efforts,the members of the CCSARP have made a significant contribution to defining the field ofcross-cultural pragmatics. This book includes not only a fine introductory statement of thegroup's goals and methods, but also a substantial, representative body of their work as well.It is an important addition to the library of anyone interested in the field of cross-culturalpragmatics.

(Received 20 April 1991) Noel HouckTemple University, Japan

SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING: RESEARCH INSIGHTS FOR THE CLASS-ROOM. Barbara Kroll (Ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. ix+ 246. $13.95.

This volume, aimed at investigators and teachers alike, contributes significantly to the progressrecently made in second language (L2) writing research. Barbara Kroll's concise introductionoffers a survey of major concerns in writing research. Section I addresses questions about theevolution and substance of English as a second language (ESL) writing instruction, feedback,and assessment; section II contains empirical studies, each treating a specific issue in L2 writingacquisition.

Chapter 1, by Tony Silva, assesses the methods that have, for better or worse, taken hold in