This volume is one of those workhorses that could easily be overlooked. However, it represents one of the most detailed and extensive of the very few longitudinal studies of the pragmatic development of a child learning English as a second language. The learner, Yao (the author's daughter), is a native speaker of Japanese. At the age of 7, with only brief prior exposure to English, she moved with her mother to Australia, where she was immediately enrolled in a local school. Shortly after their arrival, Yao's mother began collecting audio and videotaped data of Yao playing with peers, a teenager, and two adults (a babysitter and a neighbor). Transcripts of these interactions—collected every 6 weeks over 17 months by Achiba, who was present as an observer—form the basis of the analysis. Despite the fact that Achiba continued to use Japanese with her daughter, Yao began early on to address her mother in English. Achiba was thus able to supplement the play data with a diary of additional requests by Yao to her mother as well as Yao's metalinguistic comments. Yao's requests were analyzed to determine the development of request strategies—linguistic realizations and modifications as well as variation according to goal or addressee.

Although heavy reading, this volume is full of valuable information for interlanguage pragmatics researchers interested in the details of pragmatic development. Achiba builds on the work of the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (see Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989), modifying categories when necessary to capture the actions of her subject. Some readers may object to the author's broad definition of requests, which incorporates utterances such as “it's your (my) turn,” and her recategorization of direct and conventionally indirect requests. However, breakdowns of the results according to category are offered for those who would like to propose an alternative analysis.

Achiba's results support the findings of earlier studies: Request realizations develop from formulaic requests and imperatives to greater indirectness, and development involves an increasing ability to tailor the request to the situation. One of Achiba's main findings is the importance of context for the emergence of different request forms. This observation was partially a result of her dual system of data collection, which enabled her to include not only Yao's requests in the play data but also, through the diary, those that occurred in other contexts with her mother. These latter requests involved acts that did not occur during play; for these requests, Yao employed forms not used with her peers, the teenager, or the adults—a point that has important implications for researchers embarking on studies of pragmatic interlanguage development. Additionally, the diary provides insights into Yao's awareness of her own development through her metalinguistic comments and language play.

The book contains a wealth of information, with ample examples and meticulous reporting of findings as well as thoughtful discussion of the complexities involved in collecting and coding speech act data. Anyone considering undertaking a longitudinal case study or interested in the intricacies of interlanguage pragmatics data will find this volume essential reading.