& --- - = 5 5 > # +& + )* , ? & - "! ) - . & ( 8 ) 1I F> , 2 A = In his book The Language Impact Alwin Fill, Professor Emeritus of English Linguistics at the University of Graz, takes his readers on an enlightening journey through time and space: He sets himself the ambitious task of giving a survey of the impact, i.e. “the sum of all the effects language has ‘on the world’” (2) at three levels: (a.) the evolutionary level, (b.) the level of the language system, and (c.) the level of discourse (2-3). This is reflected in the tripartite structure of the book. Each of the parts is a very concise overview and summary of the state of the art of linguistic research, often enriched by findings from other disciplines and with comprehensive accounts of what philosophers and thinkers have written about language. The book contains two appendices: a glossary of terms (Appendix I) and a commented list of thinkers on language impact (229) (Appendix II), from “Agricola, Rudolph (1443-1485)” (229) to “Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951)” (248). It provides readers with an excellent short overview of great thinkers’ views on language. In the first part of his book, Fill compares the impact of speech on the earth to the effects of a meteorite with regard to the scope of its influence: When language evolved, humans had a unique “device usable for at least three macro-purposes: (1) exchanging information; (2) recording achievements […] and passing them on to other groups; and (3) resolving conflicts” (7). This is explored further in three chapters: In the first, Fill discusses various theories of the origins of language and language evolution and closes with a summary and brief assessment. “[T]he needs to be fulfilled which caused language to emerge” (20) leads the author to introduce functional models of language in chapter 2: Ogden and Richards, Bühler, Jakobson and Halliday. The following chapter 3 discusses “Religion, Philosophy and Language Impact Theories” (28), starting with the biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9) and ending with a reference to the important role language played in the New Testament. After that, views on language by well-known philosophers and scholars are introduced, from Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle to Humboldt, Wittgenstein and Chomsky. Fill closes with the remark that the study of “the uses and effects of language […] is increasingly becoming one of the central tasks of linguistics” (35). And at this point the author clearly deliminates “Impact Linguistics” from Pragmatics: “While Pragmatics studies the uses and effects of language mainly on the discourse level, the present book has a much wider perspective: it looks at the ‘impact’ of language, i.e. its long-term and short-term effects on the levels of evolution, system and discourse.” (35-36). The second part of the book is devoted to “The Impact of Language as a System” (37). It contains six chapters and the major focus of the outline here is an overview and discussion of the relations between language, thought and & reality in the widest sense: Chapter four introduces Humboldt’s ideas on language as energeia (39), chapter five “Language, Thought, Reality” (49) closes with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, chapter six (64) deals with harmful impacts of language. Here, mainly critical views on language by thinkers such as Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mauthner and Kainz are discussed. The chapter closes with a critical assessment of language criticism (80). Chapter seven is a summary of major debates in the field of general semantics with a major focus on the positions of Korzybski, Hayakawa and Stuart Chase (82). Chapter eight is about linguistic constructivism (88): Its roots in philosophy and art are introduced (88), before the general role of language in the construction of our world(s) is explained (89). In the final part (95), the construction of gender and sexuality through language is discussed, highlighting some of the major classic approaches in the field of linguistic gender studies like the deficit, dominance, difference and social constructionist approaches (95). The second part of the book closes with a chapter (9., 102) on cognitive linguistics, focusing on metaphor and framing, and a short summary (10., 110), in which the author points out: Representatives of the ‘construing force’ approach see in language a power strong enough to effect certain changes in our society. The position taken in this book concerning this is that we have to imagine a bidirectional interaction between language and society, in which it is impossible to say whether language mirrors social changes or triggers them. (110) The third and most extensive part of the book deals with the impact of discourse on the world. First, language as discourse is introduced (ch. 11, 113), then precursors of pragmatics are presented (ch. 12, 115) before the author provides a short overview of the field of pragmatics (ch. 13, 120), concentrating mainly on speech act theory and Grice’s maxims. In the following chapter 14 (124), further prominent topics in pragmatics are introduced like interactional patterns and language pathologies (123), humorous effects of language (125) and forensic linguistics (127). An interesting hypothesis brought forward here is that the “movement of Political Correctness has led to the avoidance of jokes about groups and of […] ‘tendentious jokes’ […]” (127) and that because of this “verbal humour played a greater role in the past than it does now […]” (127). The impact of the internet in general (e.g. “Making ideas known globally” (130), “Providing dictionary information for everyone” (130)) and the impact of literary texts in terms of for example their aesthetic (“pleasure and entertainment”, 133), social (“anger, aggression, sympathy, solidarity with underprivileged groups”, 133) and sexual effects (“arousal”, 133) are discussed in chapter 15. Chapter 16 is on discourse ethics and dialogue. Discourse strategies and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) are introduced in chapters 17 and 18. CDA is considered to be “an important contribution to showing the impact of language (as discourse) on human societies” (164). Chapter 19 (165) deals with the discourse of women and men: Typical features, discourse and miscommunication between the sexes and discourses about them are discussed and the impact of gender-biased language is revealed. Ecological linguistics or the interaction between language and the & world is critically assessed in chapter 20 (176). Language is described as a “buffer-zone” (179), i.e. it “positions itself between anger and aggression on the one hand and physical violence on the other” (179), but also as a potential trigger for conflict escalation. In the following section (20.2, 181), the author draws the reader’s attention to ecological and unecological elements of language: Languages “represent reality ‘unecologically’, i.e. with a twovalued logic, but also in terms of subject/ predicate/ object” (182). This “fragmented” thinking (182) leads us to believe, according to this view, that the resources of the earth are limitless and thus is seen to be at least partly responsible for our ecological problems. In the following section (20.3) the anthropocentrism of language is criticized, i.e. representing the world only from humans’ point of view (cf. 184): Calling land which ‘yields’ wood or water ‘a resource’ stresses the fact that it is there only to be used by humans. The alternatives (a forest, land, people, a river, water, etc.) name nature as nature, not as things usable for humans. (184) Section 20.4 (186) then contains a major criticism of eco-criticism. The last four sections of chapter 20 deal with discourse on the environment (20.5), the functions of linguistic diversity (20.6), diversity as a resource and prerequisite for creativity (20.7) and the revival of small languages (20.7). In the last chapter (21., 196), the combination of language with other modes and media is shortly discussed in terms of intermodality and intermediality. The book closes with a summary of its major purposes and an important caveat: While the book […] starts from the assumption that language is an all encompassing, extremely powerful tool (and process), the author has taken care not to overrate this power. He has, at various points, given space to voices which warn of overestimating the impact of language […]. Making students of language avoid the fallacy of blaming on language all the problems of the world […] is an important concern of the book. (201) The strengths of Fill’s book are numerous: the impressively wide range of topics being covered, combined with many thought provoking discussions. The author manages to provide concise and reader-friendly overviews and introductions to major fields and discussions in linguistics, stimulating the interest of the reader to further investigate and look into them. In addition, Fill provides a nicely compiled and condensed account of what major thinkers of past and present times have said about language. The book is thus a valuable resource book for students, experts and all people interested in language alike. Fill has an agreeable way of presenting both sides of an argument when it comes to controversial debates in linguistics so that readers will be able to make up their own minds. He thus provides the best example of a dialogue into which he enters with his readers and which he characterizes himself as follows at one point in his book: Dialogue welds people together and makes the free flowing of opinions and a new understanding possible […]. Dialogue is open and leisurely, people sit in a circle and do not have to come to a ‘result’. The give and take of opinions is & the important thing, there is no ‘dialogue leader’, only someone who guides and accompanies the dialogue. (138) And Fill has done an excellent job in guiding and accompanying the linguistic dialogue with his readers, who will certainly be stimulated to continue and extend it. 2 A = . ' D