The handbook of language and globalization is an extensive edited volume with a clear linguistic focus in the study of globalization, covering various sociocultural domains and topics. It has thirty chapters, many by leading experts in sociolinguistics, divided into four parts: Part 1, “Global multilingualism, world languages, and language systems” (29–200); Part 2, “Global discourse in key domains and genres” (201–345); Part 3, “Language, values, and markets under globalization” (347–492); and Part 4, “Language, distance, and identities” (493–662). It is a demanding task to review a volume with so much information covering such a wide scope. As it is difficult to give equal attention to each chapter in a massive edited volume, some chapters are highlighted more than others in what follows, mainly for innovativeness in their research focus, findings, and empirical data.

Nikolas Coupland's lucid introduction helps readers understand the visions and objectives of this important and timely academic endeavor. The editor's summary of major research findings of each chapter is outstanding and his explanation how each chapter contributes to the project is clearly presented. As Coupland notes, many chapters argue that “the tensions between sameness and difference, between centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, and between consensus and fragmentation” need to be addressed in sociolinguistic research on globalization (5).

Part 1 features eight chapters. Positions articulated by Salikoko Mufwene (Ch. 1, “Globalization, global English, and world English(es): Myths and facts”) and Abram DeSwaan (Ch. 2, “Language systems”) regarding languages in the world and their historical and contemporary importance are fairly neutral. By contrast, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas & Robert Phillipson's (Ch. 3, “The global politics of language: Markets, maintenance, marginalization, or murder?”) stance is more critical and political. Ulrich Ammon's discussion in Ch. 4, “World languages: Trends and futures,” is mainly concerned with indicators of “internationality” of language status: numerical strength, economic strength, and official status. In discussing language policy and globalization, Thomas Ricento (Ch. 5, “Language policy and globalization”) considers English and its roles and notes that “the value of any language depends on who is using it, for what purpose, and in what context” (134), a somewhat predictable observation but worth being reiterated. Jonathan Pool (Ch. 6, “Panlingual globalization”) explores some strategies for dealing with the “low-density language dilemma”: marketing multilingualism, ecolinguistic compensation, linguistic subsidiary, and panlingual transparency, which enables “users to get efficient translation without spending time personally choosing and using tools” online (158). Clare Mar-Molinero (Ch. 7, “The spread of global Spanish: From Cervantes to reggaetón”) focuses on the spread of Spanish. Although her paper is a brief overview with a broad focus and without any empirical data, the topic is refreshing as most research on globalization so far has focused primarily on the spread of English. As a case study of national language policies in Eastern Europe, Brigitta Busch (Ch. 8, “New national languages in Eastern Europe”) discusses the example of the former Yugoslavia.

In Part 2, Jannis Androutsopoulos, in “Localizing the global on the participatory web” (Ch. 9), provides a study of web 2.0 environments, focusing on “spectacles,” by which he means “multi-modal content that is uploaded by users on media-sharing sites and often embedded in other web pages” (209). Among the ways in which the participatory web contributes to a sociolinguistics of globalization that Androutsopoulos describes, the observation that “spectacles don't simply feature spoken language, but language that is digitally edited, generically diverse, and often a hybrid drawing on different sources” seems most convincing. Theo van Leeuwen & Usama Suleiman's co-authored paper (Ch. 10, “Globalizing the local: The case of an Egyptian superhero comic”) has intriguing data—an Egyptian superhero comic. In comparing the Arabic and English versions, they observe that “the West can remain an enemy” in the Arabic version but in the English version “West and East co-exist peacefully, with the East ‘learning’ from the West” (240). Adam Jaworski & Crispin Thurlow (Ch. 11, “Language and the globalizing habitus of tourism: Toward a sociolinguistics of fleeting relationships”) offer a data driven analysis of another under-researched topic: tourism. In their analysis of tourist-host interactions in Whakarewarewa and PheZulu, Jaworski & Thurlow note that “language games” and “playful moments” in tourism discourse are “specifically situated and locally meaningful” but have “a transposable, generic significance” (277, emphasis in the original). David Block's contribution (Ch. 12, “Globalization and language teaching”) is primarily concerned with teaching English. He observes that communicative language teaching and task based language teaching have become “global methods” in English language pedagogy (288). Adam Hodges (Ch. 13, “Discursive constructions of global war and terror”) examines “the fluidity and malleability” of the “war on terror” discourse (319). Annabelle Mooney (Ch. 14, “Has God gone global? Religion, language, and globalization”) notes that English serves both pedagogic and religious purposes. Her discussion of a British evangelical Christian group magazine and its attempt to cater to ESL learners' needs provides a noteworthy case demonstrating the interplay between religion and language.

I find the topics covered in Part 2 noteworthy and particularly contemporary, but a common thread qualifying these chapters to be placed in the same part may not be immediately clear. However, the title is “Global discourse in key domains and genres,” and the internet, pop culture, tourism, education, media, and religion are certainly sociolinguistically significant domains involving important discourses on globalization.

In Part 3, Monica Heller (Ch. 15, “Language as resource in the globalized new economy”) focuses on the management of language resources in the globalized new economy and tensions between standardization and appropriation of language practices coping with different markets and consumers. Jan Blommaert & Jie Dong (Ch. 16, “Language and movement in space”) discuss multilingual repertories and super-diversity in a highly mobilized world and analyze examples of what they call “truncated” language repertories from various countries. Barbara Johnstone's discussion in Ch. 17, “Indexing the local,” centers on dialect leveling and dialect awareness resulting from increasing mobility and social contact in the context of globalization. Arran Stibbe's discussion (Ch. 18, “Ecolinguistics and globalization”) is mostly concerned with three waves of ecolinguistically significant globalization: movement of peoples, movement of written text, and movement of discourses. Shi-Xu (Ch. 19, “The Chinese discourse of human rights and glocalization”) provides a historical and cultural overview of the concept of human rights in China and how it is discussed there. In Ch. 20 (“Meanings of ‘globalization’: East and West”), Peter Garrett's comparative discussion of Eastern versus Western meanings of globalization presents various perspectives of young adults (college students) from Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Despite their different foci, both Shi-Xu's and Garrett's chapters offer insights into the differences and commonalities between Eastern and Western views. Finally, Helen Kelly-Holmes (Ch. 21, “Languages and global marketing”) investigates variable linguistic strategies in global marketing and advertising.

Part 4 includes eight chapters. Analyzing meetings to promote environmental enterprise between American NGO representatives and Tanzanian NGO members, Clare Kramsch & Elizabeth Boner (Ch. 22, “Shadows of discourse: Intercultural communication in global contexts”) indentify discourse features of global communication and show that “shadows of discourse” can lead to disputes and misunderstandings. Rakesh Bhatt (Ch. 23, “Unraveling post-colonial identity through language”) examines abrogation and appropriation of the English language in postcolonial discourses from Africa and South Asia, mainly India. He concludes that contact between two cultures leads to “a cross-fertilization of languages” and “a linguistic hybridity of form and function” (534). Two chapters in Part 4 deal with gender issues: Ingrid Piller & Kimie Takahashi (Ch. 24, “At the intersection of gender, language, and transnationalism”) and William Leap (Ch. 25, “Globalization and gay language”). Piller & Takahashi discuss linguistic challenges and inequalities migrant reproductive workers are subject to. Their paper is also concerned with the eroticization of English and language learning in the sex industry and English for relationship purposes (ERP). Leap presents examples of gay language from Bolivia, France, Hong Kong, Miami, Nigeria, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the US. He notes that “the globalization of gay language is broadening the linguistic resources through which references to same sex desires, practices, and subjectivities are becoming territorialized” (570, emphasis in the original). John C. Maher (Ch. 26, “Metroethnicities and metrolanguages”) proposes the notion of metroethnic and metrolingusitic style as a framework to study linguistic and cultural performance. He argues that “metroethnicities are here and now, portable and temporal, built from identity ambiguity, from different contexts of meaning, and from the heterogeneity of emotion” (579). Alastair Pennycook's contribution (Ch. 27, “Popular cultures, popular languages, and global identities”) is concerned with borrowing, shifting, and sampling of languages and ideas in popular cultures. Lilie Chouliaraki (Ch. 28, “Global representations of distant suffering”) analyzes how suffering stories from other countries are presented in the news, drawing on media sociology. Using interviews, newspaper articles, and magazines, David Machin & Theo van Leeuwen (Ch. 29, “Global media and the regime of lifestyle”) delve into the concept of “lifestyle” identity. They note that two “regimes” of identity are in operation simultaneously: nation-states and global corporations (641).

Since globalization emerged as a major topic in linguistics, many articles have been published but only a few books on globalization and language are available (see e.g. Block & Cameron Reference Block and Cameron2002; Tam & Weiss Reference Tam and Weiss2004; Lin & Martin 2005; Fairclough Reference Fairclough2006; Kumaravadivelu Reference Kumaravadivelu2007; Vigouroux & Mufwene 2008; and Blommaert Reference Blommaert2010). Some publications specifically focus on a particular region (e.g. Hong and China in Tam & Weiss Reference Tam and Weiss2004, Africa in Vigouroux & Mufwene 2008) or on a particular topic (e.g. education in Block & Cameron Reference Block and Cameron2002, Kumaravadivelu 2007), while Fairclough (Reference Fairclough2006) and Blommaert (Reference Blommaert2010) provide more general discussions. As far as I know, The handbook of language and globalization is the most comprehensive collection to date. It makes a noteworthy contribution to both sociolinguistics and global studies. The scope of the book is impressive and a variety of analytical methods are presented. Many chapters are empirically driven and several papers deal with contemporary data and under-researched topics. The volume offers interdisciplinary approaches to the study of globalization and will be a helpful resource book for both seasoned and in-training scholars in linguistics as well as in other fields of academic inquiry.