Metalanguage in interaction: Hebrew discourse markers is in many respects the first work to present an updated sociolinguistic description of Israeli Hebrew talk-in-interaction. In this communicative-discursive study anchored in both detailed linguistic analysis and in-depth sociocultural investigation, Maschler analyzes four carefully chosen discourse markers, shedding light on the essence of “interacting as an Israeli,” as well as on the structure and flow of interactional discourse in general, on the grammaticization processes, and on the complex relations between language and culture as expressed in casual talk.

In this excellent book, discourse markers are first investigated as a system. Maschler's approach is unique in that it is focused on the process of metalanguaging (Becker Reference Becker and Tannen1988)—“using language in order to communicate about the process of using language” (1). Thus, she understands discourse markers to be linguistic elements employed to refer to the text itself (textual discourse markers), to the interaction among its speakers (interpersonal discourse markers) or to the cognitive processes taking place in their minds during verbalization (cognitive discourse markers). Drawing from the investigation of both bilingual and monolingual conversation, Maschler defines a form as a prototypical discourse marker not only because its semantic properties belong to one of these three realms, but also based on the structural property of occurring at intonation-unit initial position in certain prosodic environments. The data for the study of the grammatical category of discourse markers in spoken Modern Hebrew consist of fifty Hebrew monolingual casual conversations, comprised of 150 talks by 124 different speakers.

The first chapter offers the framework for the discussion of discourse markers as a system. Maschler outlines the theoretical basis for her study, including the notion of grammaticization (Hopper Reference Hopper, Aske, Beery, Michaelis and Filip1987), which is central for understanding the linguistic process in which a linguistic element becomes a discourse marker through ongoing use in interaction. The chapter also provides a table of ninety-two different Hebrew discourse markers and some distributional data. Another important topic discussed is the hierarchical nature of text segmentation. Assuming that moments of frame shift in discourse may be of higher or lower order, Maschler demonstrates various strategies for constructing these shifts and argues that the higher the boundary in the hierarchy of frame shifts permeating interaction, the more metalingual material is employed to construct that boundary. For example, a high-level boundary might be indicated by “heavy” marking, such as a complex metalingual utterance or a cluster of discourse markers.

Chs. 2–5 present a study of four common Hebrew discourse markers, each reflecting a different aspect of the nature of Israeli talk-in-interaction. In Ch. 2, the interpersonal realm is represented by the discourse marker nu, with an illustration of the various functions of nu, three of which concern the sequential aspects of talk. The majority of nu tokens are employed in order to urge a speaker to move ahead in the development of a discourse topic. While the use of nu in this way may be considered impolite, it seems that “the impatience exhibited by nu is often a sign of high involvement and enthusiasm” (64). Much less frequent functions are hastening a coparticipant to get on with some nonverbal action and granting permission to perform an action. Another function has to do with the notion of key. In these cases, the use of nu adds a joking or provoking tone to the utterance that follows.

Ch. 3 presents the textual realm through a discussion of the discourse marker bekitsur. While the original semantics of bekitsur (lit. ‘in short’) have to do with the function of summarizing, its most frequent function is to signal resumption of the main discourse topic. A third function of bekitsur is to introduce a new narrative. Maschler connects the grammaticization of bekitsur from an adverb meaning ‘succinctly’ or ‘in short’ to the highly appreciated and preferred characteristics of speech in Israeli culture as simple, terse, and explicit.

Ch. 4 offers a discussion of ke'ilu that represents the cognitive realm in the sense that in about half of its tokens, it indicates that the speaker has become aware of the need to rephrase. In other tokens of ke'ilu, it functions in its lexical meaning ‘as if,’ as a focus marker, hedge, or a quotative. Maschler's sociocultural analysis in this chapter is concerned with Katriel's concept of dugri, a direct, straightforward, and often blunt speaking style (Katriel Reference Katriel2004). This typical sabra interactional style would appear to be incompatible with acts of hedging and rephrasing. Diachronically, the proliferation of linguistic elements indicating softening, mitigation, tentativeness, and self-rephrasal is connected to the decline of the dugri mode of speech together with the decline of the sabra ethos during the last few decades.

Ch. 5, which addresses the discourse marker tov, exemplifies the indefinite status of the categorization into the various realms. Hebrew tov shows development from an adjective meaning ‘good’ first into an interpersonal discourse marker, and then into a textual one, while some of its tokens are ambiguous. Interpersonally, it indicates the recipient's agreement with or acceptance or finding of the state of affairs as satisfactory, often as part of a concession structure, while textually it marks the speaker's transitions in topics, episodes, and actions. In the ambiguous cases, the recipient is “accepting while shifting” (171), that is, “a recipient can simultaneously provide some acknowledgement towards accepting the state of things, while at the same time initiating a move to begin the next action (or to end the current one)” (193).

In the concluding chapter, Maschler first summarizes and emphasizes the main points. She again addresses the different grammaticization paths of the four discourse markers, focusing on the ways in which an utterance that has already become a discourse marker continues to develop additional discourse-marking functions. She also argues that they demonstrate additional directions of grammaticization other than the traditional unidirectional tendencies discussed in the literature. Nevertheless, they exhibit many of the features usually associated with grammaticization: semantic loss, phonological reduction, decategorization, bonding within the phrase, generalization of meaning, pragmatic strengthening, subjectification, and intersubjectification. An interesting point is the persistence principle of grammaticization (Hopper Reference Hopper, Traugott and Heine1991), namely the strong influence of the original lexical meaning of the word on its functional itinerary. This claim serves as an answer to some studies of Hebrew discourse markers that consider them “void pragmatic connectives” (Even-Zohar Reference Even-Zohar1990). The concluding chapter also makes a theoretical contribution tying the grammaticization of (metalingual) constructions to the phenomenon of projectablility in discourse (Hopper & Thompson Reference Hopper, Thompson and Laury2008).

The last few paragraphs of the book are dedicated to the question of how an analysis of four discourse markers can help us understand what “interacting as an Israeli” means. The study of nu shows that Israelis converse rather impatiently, but the impatience is indicative of their high degree of involvement, curiosity, and enthusiasm. The employment of nu involves culture-specific expectations that the nonprimary speaker will engage in talk, at a relatively high degree of interaction. Some tokens of nu indicate that in Israeli culture the boundary between joking and provoking is somewhat fuzzy. The analysis of tov may teach us about the high tolerance for disagreement in Israeli society, but at the same time, its pervasiveness may be viewed as compensation for the high degree of disagreement that imbues this culture.

Combined, the study of bekitsur and that of ke'ilu are particularly fascinating. They convey the change in the Israeli ethos, along with the proliferation of hedging and rephrasing via the use of ke'ilu, as a linguistic manifestation of the decline of the dugri interactional style—the tendency to speak concisely and “to the point” that is reflected through the use of bekitsur. Thus, interacting as an Israeli involves a preference for short, simple, and explicit utterances, but also has recently come to imply being aware of the multiplicity of voices, leading to the adoption of a softer, less emphatic, and self-assured mode of conduct.

In sum, this compelling, well-written and highly readable book makes a fine contribution to the study of discourse markers as well as of Israeli sociolinguistics. It will engage all who are interested in the structure and flow of interactional discourse, grammaticization, and Hebrew talk-in-interaction.