This book is the first to explore the relevance of the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas for the field of SLA research and pedagogy. Each chapter in this edited volume is framed within a Bakhtinian perspective and uses his conceptual apparatus to address some aspect of second and foreign language learning. The authors' collective aim is to challenge traditional, formalist approaches to language and demonstrate how Bakhtin's insights can enrich our understanding of second language learning and teaching.

In the introductory chapter, the editors review Bakhtin's philosophy of language, highlighting three concepts central to his theory: utterance, speech genre, and dialogism. Applied to language acquisition, these notions emphasize that “learning other languages is about seeking out different experiences for the purpose of developing new ways of understanding ourselves and others and becoming involved in our worlds” (p. 4).

Part 1, entitled “Investigations into contexts of language learning and teaching,” is comprised of seven studies. In chapter 2, “Mastering academic English: International graduate students' use of dialogue and speech genres to meet the writing demand of graduate school,” Braxley examines how international graduate students manage to acquire the genres of written academic English. She argues that engaging in dialogue with others (peers, instructors) is essential to students' development of academic voice and authority. Chapter 3, “Multimodal representations of self and meaning for second language learners in English-dominant classrooms,” by Iddings, Haught, and Devlin documents the dialogical process in which two third-graders develop “semiotic tools for meaning-making” (p. 34) in a multilingual classroom. Displaying creative agency, the students use multisemiotic resources such as drawings and nonverbal plays that (re)create conditions for language learning and intersubjective understanding. Orr's “Dialogic investigations: Cultural artifacts in ESOL composition classes” demonstrates how a well-designed writing activity—analyzing bumper stickers—allows students to discover the essence of utterances, which “are epistemologically informed, ideologically based, politically situated, culturally bound, behaviorally induced and inducing, and affectively perceived” (p. 73). Chapter 5, “Local creativity in the face of global dominations: Insights of Bakhtin for teaching English for dialogic communication,” by Lin and Luk is an interesting discussion of the linguistic and ideological domination of English in postcolonial Hong Kong schools that positions disadvantaged Cantonese students in a social space where opposition and creativity find outlet in the hybridized use of English. In addition to hybridizing English utterances with Cantonese, students resist the dominance of English in “carnival laughter” (p. 86), or parody of the hegemonic other. In chapter 6, “Metalinguistic awareness in dialogue: Bakhtinian considerations,” Dufva and Alanen explore six Finnish schoolchildren's views of language and foreign language learning. They find that children are most heavily influenced by hegemonic language ideologies learned at school, but they are also aware of heteroglossic discourses of language in the community. Platt's chapter, “ ‘Uh uh no hapana’: Intersubjectivity, meaning, and the self,” examines how two novice learners of Swahili create meaning, achieve mutual understanding, and find new “language-learning selves” (p. 126) in an information gap activity. In the collision and negotiation of individual differences—cultural, ideological, and stylistic—mutual understanding, meaning, and new selves are created as “dialogism reconciles opposites” (p. 143). In chapter 8, “Authoring the self in a non-native language: A dialogic approach to agency and subjectivity,” Vitanova draws attention to personal narratives as a site for agency, allowing immigrants to reclaim their voices as conscious, responsible subjects.

Part 2, “Implications for theory and practice,” includes three chapters that see the larger impact of Bakhtin's theory in its ability to reconceptualize second language research and pedagogy. Chapter 9, “Language, culture, and self: The Bakhtin-Vygotsky encounter,” by Marchenkova, advocates using Bakhtin's dialogic theory as a conceptual model for developing intercultural dialogue and “creative mutual understanding” (p. 185) in the multilingual classroom. In “Dialogical imagination of (inter)cultural spaces: Rethinking the semiotic ecology of second language and literacy learning,” Kostogriz offers new insights into how Bakhtin's theory of linguistic-cultural hybridity can help second language researchers and practitioners to challenge current conditions of cultural binarism and adopt an alternative, third-space approach to English as a second language education. The final chapter, by Yotsukura, “Japanese business telephone conversations as Bakhtinian speech genre: Application for second language acquisition,” calls for using classroom activities that direct learners' attention to the addressivity of genre-specific utterances and thereby enhance learners' sociocultural pragmatic competence in the second language.

Although I found some contributions more outstanding than others, the collection as a whole brings a stimulating new perspective to the field of SLA.