Briefly Noted

Referential Communication Tasks offers, in a small format (125 pages), a general survey of experimental settings and scientific background on communication studies centered on specific activities in which the speakers are observed for their ability to achieve tasks rather than solely for their linguistic productions. It thus offers a basic and introductory insight to research and experiments that put the notion of reference at the core of their interest. Here the focus is generally on experiments in the broad field of L2 studies. Though the author does not really insist on the theoretical backgrounds of the different studies being presented, it is made very clear that the language that is being described is that spoken spontaneously in situations (especially in L2 contexts) in which speakers might not even be able to correctly designate the objects they want to refer to and therefore need to develop linguistic and other communicative strategies to circumvent their difficulties. It is thus important to remember that reference is not simply "some kind of connection between words and things" but rather, as stated in the first chapter of the book ("Overview"), "an action through which a speaker (or writer) uses linguistic forms to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something." Apart from the second chapter ("The development of (L1) referential communication"), which is too short to be really informative, the book is centered on three main sections, dedicated respectively to the main trends, the experimental settings, and the study viewpoints associated with referential communication tasks. First, Chapter 3 ("Principles and distinctions") lists the main parameters--from the point of view of what is to be elicited as well as the task format-that are to lead an experimenter towards the design of a specific experimental setting adapted to his research interest. The author then presents (Chapter 4, "Materials and procedures") in a rather exhaustive way the different kinds of situations that have been used in the literature to conduct referential task studies, ranging from object identification to instructional map tasks (which are well known in the computational linguistics community). Finally, Chapter 5 ("Analytic frameworks") quickly surveys the possible viewpoints that the researcher may take to consider the linguistic productions resulting from the different experimental frameworks presented in the book, insisting on communication strategies, interactive repair mechanisms, and communicative outcomes. Even though the book is far from presenting a theoretical insight into the field, as a whole it provides a wide and extensive overview of experimental materials and principles that, considered from the point of view of computational linguistics, would be of interest to anyone interested in dialogue studies in which reference plays a central role. Since the book seems to be intended to provide the basics of some research methodology, one may regret that the literature that is mentioned contains so few associated basic readings, which could have been most valuable for young researchers starting in the field of communication research. Still, its small format makes it worth reading and even to have within reach for those of us who at some point or another have to deal with, or even produce, experimental data. --Laurent Romary, Loria-CNRS