Gender, Neoliberalism and Distinction through Linguistic Capital by Seilhamer presents a longitudinal study of four young Taiwanese women, all studying English and French at the same prestigious college in Taiwan. Using the method of narratives, he describes the struggles and strategies of these four women, providing striking insights into private life choices intertwined with language learning motivations and identity issues. Drawing on the notions of distinction (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu1984), gender, and neoliberalism, Seilhamer provides a timely contribution to qualitative research, by joining the ranks of the most recent bottom-up approaches in the field of sociolinguistics: using introspective data, he gives the reader the opportunity to obtain a unique and tangible insider's view of his study participants. Notably, the book is one of very few pieces of research dealing with English in Taiwan.

The monograph consists of ten chapters. It includes an introductory and two brief theoretical chapters, one addressing the concepts of distinction, linguistic capital, and gender, laying the theoretical framework against which the narrative data is discussed later. The other describes neoliberalist Taiwan and the status of English and its teaching in Taiwan: learning English is mandatory from the first grade on, in addition to Mandarin Chinese and a Taiwanese language (i.e. Tai-yü, Hakka, or an aboriginal language). Since Mandarin Chinese, Tai-yü, and Hakka are associated with the political regime in Beijing, the independence movement, and separatism respectively, English is often deemed a neutral choice, e.g. for government officials and politicians (p. 39–40). However, Seilhamer states that ‘[m]astery of English remains only a distant goal in the perpetual self-development projects of most Taiwanese, and the use of English in Taiwan has definitely not become ‘a part of daily life’’ (p. 42).

Chapter 4 deals with the methodology of narratives briefly – the author here reports an intention to replicate the design of Kanno's (Reference Kanno2003) study on Japanese returnees’ identities, strongly wishing to get to know and to care about the study participants (p. 50). Most of the data stems from interviews the author conducted with the four focal participants in two subsequent years, but he also includes other formats, such as field notes, email communication between the participants and himself, and posts on social media. Also, Seilhamer mentions his personal background, e.g. his own upbringing in the US state of Virginia and his own investment in language learning activities. A researcher's own story seems to be of importance for narrative interviews and introspective data, as Block (Reference Block, Omoniyi and White2006: 47) also remarks: ‘In a sense, identity making is negotiated between the informant and the researcher and is not something that the latter must dig out of the former.’ The relationship between Seilhamer and his study participants is a friendly one – being his former students, they seem to have built a bond of trust with him that allows them to share very private information, such as their vocational aspirations or details of their romantic relationships.

Chapters 5–8 present the case studies, or, in Seilhamer's words, the ‘stories’ of his participants, each in chronological order, combining many quotes from the interviews with explanations by the author. All stories feature an introduction into each woman's life before attending the prestigious college, their motives for applying there, life after graduation, and a conclusion to each participant's story.

In Chapter 5, Gigi's story is presented. The author labels this participant ‘the intellectual’; her mother owns a buxiban, a Taiwanese cram school, and she enabled Gigi to obtain a high degree of English proficiency as a young girl, which seems to make her feel special and distinct from classmates with lower proficiency. Later, Gigi has an Italian boyfriend, with whom she speaks English and travels to Europe. According to Seilhamer's analysis, she had constructed her identity around being a proficient speaker of English at first but then shifted towards ‘an identity as an international non-superficial individual who strives for creativity and an examined life’ (p. 89).

Chapter 6 portrays Audrey, termed ‘the social butterfly’, who socialises with international people at the bar/nightclub she works at. She is afraid of losing her (Mandarin) Chinese when code-mixing, and she uses like as a discourse marker. For her, English is a tool for engaging with diverse communities within Taiwan. According to Seilhamer, she also uses English in order to differentiate herself from other Taiwanese speakers with less proficiency in English. She was also sent to a buxiban from the age of 12 years onwards.

In Chapter 7, Rachel's story is told. Her parents were working-class, so attending buxiban lessons during childhood was not as self-evident to her as to the other participants. Seilhamer labels her ‘the ideal neoliberal subject’, as she shows ‘perseverance and an unwavering dedication to her neoliberal self-improvement project’ (p. 116). She has a French boyfriend, with whom she speaks English and travels to Europe. There, she wants to differentiate herself from being Chinese, and she specifically presents herself as a Taiwanese speaking Tai-yü, not a Chinese speaking Chinese. According to the author, she speaks English with a French accent.

Chapter 8 depicts Shannon – ‘the competitor’: she seems extremely ambitious in terms of language learning and achieves distinction by striving to be the best in class. Her language learning motivation is inspired by the USA and a teacher who had lived there and from whom she took private English group lessons as a child. The author reports that she also uses like as a discourse marker and that her English has an American accent.

In Chapter 9, Seilhamer presents his cross-participant analysis and conclusions. He finds, for instance, that French is used ‘to performatively index multilingual identities of distinction’ (p. 178), and that all four women ‘were remarkably successful in befriending foreigners, some of whom would become their boyfriends’, which led to increased English speaking practice (p. 178–179) and might result from a desire of pursuing transnational identities – which according to Seilhamer several Taiwanese women seem to have (p. 182). He also presents a few quotes from non-focal study participants to confirm the reliability of the conclusions he draws from his four focal participants.

As a pleasant add-on, a brief postscript section, ‘Where are they now?’, is included in Chapter 10. Seilhamer met again with the participants a few years later, in order to complete the picture of the four women and what has become of their aspirations. Gigi, for instance, has split with her Italian boyfriend and now teaches English at her own buxiban in Southern Taiwan.

The method of narratives as well as the storytelling performed by Seilhamer himself renders this book an enjoyable read. Its readers certainly obtain an exclusive in-depth understanding of the mindset of the young Taiwanese women studying English at the prestigious college around the years 2009/2010 and find themselves transported into the world of buxibans, the struggles of language learning, and those of identification with and differentiation from various speech communities. The way the author links his results to the concepts of gender, neoliberalism, and distinction throughout the chapters allows a categorisation into current research trends in the field of sociolinguistics. Seilhamer's objective of really getting to know the participants feels as if it is likewise achieved by the reader, which is the main benefit of looking at such a small-sized sample.

There are, however, a few missed opportunities in the book. In the interest of data triangulation, an assessment of actual language use – e.g. a systematic analysis of the linguistic features mentioned, such as Rachel's French accent in English, Shannon's US accent, and the use of like as a discourse marker by Audrey and Shannon – would have been a valuable addition to the study. Moreover, even though Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein1922) definitely had a point in declaring that the world is everything that is the case, a study with a broader sample could have given more weight to Seilhamer's conclusions. Additionally, a reference to the concept of imagined communities in language learning (cf. e.g. Norton Reference Norton2013: 8: ‘Imagined communities refer to groups of people, not immediately tangible and accessible, with whom we connect through the power of the imagination’) would have been noteworthy.

Apart from that, the book can be recommended as a valuable read to sociolinguists interested in narratives, introspective data, and case studies as well as the topics of identity, distinction, multilingualism, and language learning, particularly in the context of Expanding Circle Englishes in East Asia.