Hard-science linguistics (also occasionally referred to here as human linguistics) is the brainchild of Yngve, and its stated goal is to reconstitute the field of linguistics as a hard science, continuous with physics, chemistry, biology, and the other physical sciences. In the view of Yngve and the other contributors, this involves a reorientation toward study of the real world, identified as the physical world, excluding “nonphysical entities such as signs, conventions, language, customs, opinions, ideas, and the like” (p. 2). This volume is partially the outcome of a meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, held in Poznań in 2000; it has been supplemented with eight other chapters by Yngve (two co-authored with the volume co-editor), and other chapters apparently submitted directly to the editors (not all of the chapters' sources are identified). There are a total of 22 chapters in all, organized into seven sections: “Orientation to Hard-Science Linguistics,” “Reconstituting Phonetics-Phonology,” “In Search of Context,” “Variational and Historical Linguistics,” “Social and Psychological Issues,” “Practical Applications,” and “Disciplinary Considerations.” Like the overall topic areas, the individual discussions are unusual and wide-ranging: Yngve's chapter “An Outline of Hard-Science Phonetics-Phonology” moves from the physics of sound through speculations on the role of outer hair cells in the ear to the structure of expectations as illustrated in a business meeting (one of Yngve's favorite examples). The tone of the contributions often tends to be polemical: Coleman's contribution, “Moving a Classic Applied Linguistics Study into the Real World,” an attempt to improve the scientific basis of Labov's (Reference Labov and Labov1972) classic study of the social stratification of [r] in New York City, concludes with the thought that “a major effort of early twenty-first century applied linguistics should be to review past work, to determine which aspects of it can be moved fully into the real world, and to leave behind the baggage of that which cannot” (p. 211). However, for an approach that touts the scientific, there is a disappointing lack of hard data and physically testable predictions.