Based on a collection of papers given at the international seminar on “Deaf identity and culture in European integration: The role of interpretation, translation and teaching English as a foreign language,” held in October 2006 at the University of Trieste, this book is a fascinating work and includes a number of important contributions by some of the most well-known researchers on sign languages. Moreover, this work is the product of a deliberate effort to engage “the research domains under parallel investigation by researchers prioritizing sign languages as well as by researchers dealing with the English language” (p. 10), which is significant because, although research on sign languages has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years, both in quality and quantity, linguists who work on sign languages are generally a fairly self-contained community. Thus, many of the important issues discussed and addressed in sign language linguistics, which have clear implications for other areas of linguistics, are not widely recognized outside of the field. At the same time, of course, as the editors of this book note, “linguists specializing in sign languages tend to deal with the challenges of their own field in specialized teams rather than jointly in research teams which ‘mix’ the linguistics of sign languages with the linguistics of other natural languages” (p. 10).

This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 includes the introduction, co-authored by the editors, and three other chapters. These chapters, written by internationally recognized and respected scholars, are in many ways the strongest component of this work. Included here are chapters from Woll and Sharma on the way in which the brain processes languages in different modes (i.e., signed vs. spoken language), a chapter by Cokely on the role of sign language interpreters in the North American context, and a chapter by Skutnabb-Kangas on sign languages and language endangerment, sign language and language rights, and bilingual education and sign language as the native language of deaf children. Although none of these chapters really seems to meet this book’s stated goal of producing a vision that combines linguistic research on sign languages with linguistic research on other natural languages, each chapter is an outstanding contribution to the literature in the field.

Part 2 contains seven chapters clustered around the theme of teaching or learning English as a foreign language through sign. These are the chapters that appear to provide the rationale for the title, as English plays a relatively secondary role in the chapters in the rest of this book. Although practical in their foci, these chapters as a whole are something of a disappointment. The notable exception to this is the chapter by Dotter, entitled “English for Deaf Sign Language Users: Still a Challenge,” which does a good job of laying out the issues and challenges in the field, especially in the European context.

Finally, Part 3 contains seven chapters that deal with issues of translation and interpretation for the Deaf. These chapters are all characterized by both a concern for the real-world challenges of interpreting and translating for the Deaf and for the conceptual and theoretical issues and debates that underlie these challenges. Included are chapters on a variety of timely and important issues, such as the training of interpreters (Haesenne, Huvelle, and Kerres), interpreting between a sign language and a third language (Scholl), the process of interpreting between two completely different sign languages (Lerose), and interpreting television and film (Eugeni; Allsop and Kyle; Kellett Bidoli).

In short, this is an interesting and valuable work. It is also, however, a bit of a paradox, as its title does not really accurately reflect much of its content, and, moreover, this book does not in fact achieve its articulated purpose of combining different research traditions (i.e., sign language and spoken language research). In spite of these limitations, this work is a worthwhile contribution to the literature.