In recent years, many researchers have been studying the spread of English in our globalized world, while others have focused on multilingualism. For Stępkowska the question of multilingualism in Europe is intimately linked with English, and Switzerland represents the perfect place for understanding how these relationships evolve. Her book treats sociolinguistic questions at a macro-level and provides the reader with three main elements: a broad consideration of English (Chapter 1), a discussion about language contact (Chapter 2), and new data on the Swiss language use obtained in the canton of Zurich in 2011, which leads to the development of a ‘Swiss paradigm’ conceptualizing the role of English in Switzerland (Chapter 3).

In a brief introduction, Stępkowska lists thematically a number of studies on language, multilingualism and Switzerland, putting her study into context. The first chapter describes the circumstances that allowed English to become such a widely used language around the world and, when presenting the ideological dichotomy between those who celebrate this spread of English as a world language and those who see it as a threat, the author clearly favours English as an intercultural communicative tool that has no identity or community function. Stępkowska is quite careful throughout her study to provide a deep reflection on the concepts she presents, including many definitions by different scholars and a systematic presentation of opposing arguments before giving her own point of view. Concepts such as linguicism, diglossia and even the names given to ‘global English’ are extensively discussed, and help the reader to build his/her own understanding of the complexity of the question.

Chapter 2 presents the study's theoretical background. It begins with macro-sociolinguistic aspects of contact linguistics that underlie the social aspect of speech. On the basis of Weinreich's ([1953] Reference Weinreich1968) studies on Switzerland, she emphasises the role of extra-linguistic factors in language contact situations. Questions related to language ecology, language endangerment, minority language, language legislation and language ideologies are also discussed in order to provide a theoretical foundation to the reader before presenting the Swiss situation. According to Stępkowska, Switzerland presents a ‘unity in diversity’ (of language, religions and cultures). Whereas it is officially a multilingual country, very few of its citizens are multilingual, and the situation is more of an individual/territorial unilingualism under federal multilingualism. As far as English is concerned, besides the evident advantages for citizens who master it, this language represents a political conundrum for the authorities, who wonder what position it should assume among the hierarchy of the national languages in the education system.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to the actual empirical study, introduced by a description of the methodology. Six research hypotheses are presented. 400 computer-assisted telephone interviews in the Canton of Zurich comprise a list of 30 questions about language behaviour, language attitudes and opinions on language (questionnaire available in an appendix). The results are then detailed synthetically to either confirm or reject the initial hypotheses.

On the basis of her survey, Stępkowska infers that:

• – Languages issues in general are regarded as important to the Swiss;

• – The language attitudes of the Swiss toward English are strong and favourable;

• – English is preferred in the German-speaking canton of Zurich before any other national Swiss language;

• – Proficiency in English among the Swiss increases proportionally with education level;

and rejects that:

• – Multilingual practice in personal contact by the German-speaking Swiss has resulted in their incorporation of English as a lingua franca;

• – Integrative motivation toward the study of English prevails over instrumental motivation.

From these results Stępkowska builds a ‘Swiss paradigm’ at different levels: ethnicity and nationhood, identity, the status of English, the role of English, language repertoire, attitudes toward English and, finally, language policy. She argues that ‘the Swiss paradigm features the role of English as an intra-national language […] different from the status of a “second” or “foreign” language’ (p. 274) and concludes that the Swiss, ‘simultaneously becoming capable of using a language of global range without the fear of losing their own identity and language’ (p. 278), see the expansion of English worldwide in a positive way. Therefore, ‘the assumption that a language assuming the function of lingua franca always has to be in destructive opposition to the national languages would not only reveal a fallacious line of reasoning, but also misrepresent the essence of multilingualism’ (p. 279).

The generalizations from cantonal to national level may raise some eyebrows since one of the motivations for the choice of using the canton of Zurich for the survey was the fact that it holds a ‘leading position with regard to regulating the status of English, especially by endowing this (non-national) language with an L2 position at schools' (p. 233), which is a specific attitude in relation to English in Switzerland. Cross-checking germanophone results with francophone results would have been welcome before applying the results to the entire country, but such shortcomings do not seriously undermine the study's global relevance.

This book provides ELF researchers interested in the impact English has on multilingual environments with a good case study and recent data. Beside readers simply interested in Switzerland, young researchers looking for a thorough study on macro-sociolinguistics (e.g. the ‘state of the art’ of the language contact question) will probably enjoy this very didactic book. It might also stimulate future research. The ‘Swiss paradigm’ would make an interesting model to test longitudinally in parallel multilingual frameworks.