37.574, Reviews: Referring in Language: Lise Fontaine, Katy Jones and David Schönthal (2025)

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Subject: 37.574, Reviews: Referring in Language: Lise Fontaine, Katy Jones and David Schönthal (2025)

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Date: 19-Dec-2025
From: Paola Xadani Peña Bolaños [ppenabol at uni-koeln.de]
Subject: Lise Fontaine, Katy Jones and David Schönthal (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/36-2518

Title: Referring in Language
Subtitle: An Integrated Approach
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
           http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics
Book URL:
https://www.cambridge.org/universitypress/subjects/languages-linguistics/grammar-and-syntax/referring-language-integrated-approach?format=PB&isbn=9781316507797

Author(s): Lise Fontaine, Katy Jones and David Schönthal

Reviewer: Paola Xadani Peña Bolaños

Review: Referring in Language. An Integrated Approach
Summary
In 1959, Jorge Luis Borges wrote “If, as the Greek maintains in the
Cratylus, a name is the archetype of the thing,/ the rose is in the
letters that spell rose / and the Nile entire resounds in its name's
ring” (Borges-The-Golem.pdf). The beginning of the poem The Golem
addresses the ancient problem of reference, a problem that Lise
Fontaine, Katy Jones, and David Schöntal take over in their book
Referring in Language, published by Cambridge University Press.
The main goal of the book is to analyse atypical referring expressions
in the English language from a functional perspective. In this
publication, the authors offer, in their words, an integrated approach
to the issue that has captivated both philosophers and linguists,
intertwining cognitive linguistics theories with the systemic
functional linguistics framework.
This book is divided into three sections. The first one settles the
theoretical basis that the authors will use in their further analysis.
Chapter 1, The Multidisciplinary Field of Referring, defines the
concept of reference in language and showcases the development of the
understanding of the concept from philosophical, computational, and
psycholinguistic perspectives. It is this chapter where the authors
begin to connect the cognitive and functional perspectives and
establish that they will observe reference as a multidimensional
phenomenon that is “addressee orientated, collaborative, and context
dependent.” (Fontaine et al. 2023: 21).
Chapter 2, The Great Debate, offers a literature review on
definiteness and reference. This chapter establishes relevant
conceptual differences for the rest of the book, e.g.,  textual vs.
discourse and definiteness vs. indefiniteness. Alongside the
literature review, the authors highlight certain cases in discourse
where definite or indefinite noun phrases (NP) do not behave as the
theory would expect; in this way, the main problems that the book
addresses are introduced.
Chapter 3, A Functional Grammar for Referring Expressions, considers
Langacker’s postulates on grounding and type specification and moves
forward to the dissection of the constituents of a NP. In this
chapter, we are shown various perspectives on the analysis of an NP
from a functional approach, and the authors take this as an
opportunity to reconcile a wide variety of concepts within one model
of analysis: the one proposed by Ghesquière (2014). Using this model,
a cognitive functional description is tested with atypical NPs taken
from the English TenTen corpus.
The second section focuses on typical cases of referring expressions
and their behaviour in spontaneous and prepared discourse. Chapter 4,
Typicality and Atypicality, begins with a discussion of categories and
establishes that the categories of typicality and atypicality should
not be closed sets. The next subsection is built around linguistic
concepts related to (a)typicality, such as frequency, convention,
markedness, and prototype theory. The third subsection reviews various
cognitive models relevant to reference and anaphora, such as the
accessibility scale and the givenness hierarchy. The chapter ends with
a discussion of the identifiability function of referring expressions.
Chapter 5, Referring in Spontaneous Speech, discusses typical
referring expressions in a discourse context. Since the chapter
focuses on spontaneous speech, it begins with defining what is
understood to be spontaneous language, departing from Halliday’s
characterization of register. The authors go further than the usual
idea of colloquial conversations as the one realization of spontaneous
speech, although they acknowledge that human interaction is required.
To finish the chapter, the authors use data from previous studies and
apply the classification of person reference by Halliday and Hassan
(1976), underlining the importance of highly accessible referents in
both endo and exophoric instances to enhance mutual intelligibility.
Chapter 6, Referring in Prepared Discourse, follows the discussion
opened in the previous chapter about what constitutes prepared and
spontaneous speech, offering a contrast by analysing referring in
institutional writing. This type of discourse is characterized in
terms of mode, focus, and register. It adds to the equation the
consideration of how challenging a writing task and the correction
process are in terms of a presupposed interaction between the writer
and their potential readers. Following this, a description of the
types of referring expressions is provided, highlighting the behaviour
of pronominal usage and anaphora, and the importance of these two for
endophoric reference.
Finally, the third section shows an empirical account of atypical
referring expressions. Chapter 7, Referring in Non-collaborative
Contexts, departs from the idea that for successful reference, there
must be a collaboration between interlocutors. It summarises the key
problems encountered when referring and their resolutions. Later, it
examines the mechanisms of ratifying and producing a referring
expression in these non-collaborative discursive contexts. This is
analysed with data taken from legal contexts.
Chapter 8, Indefinite Expressions for Referring Definitely, focuses on
“other types of referential selection which (…) appear to override
normal accessibility considerations” (Fontaine et al. 2023: 150). This
chapter is a new version of a paper published by one of the authors
(Jones 2018). The main question of this chapter is why an indefinite
modified NP is chosen in a referential chain when the referent has
already been established (hence, a definite expression would be
expected), and, most importantly, they explain the different functions
that this kind of indefinite NP will have in these cases.
Chapter 9, Child’s Play, shows how reference and its odd uses can be
used for fun,  in both adult and child speech. This chapter covers the
management of under- and overspecification in discourse. First, we are
shown a literature review on language acquisition focusing on the
development of reference; this section is complemented by examples of
child speech dealing with under- and overspecified expressions. To
finish the chapter, certain extracts of children’s literature are
analysed, showing how children are expected, not only to understand
different types of specification but to find these expressions
amusing.
The final chapter, Reference and Metonymy, examines certain uses of
metonymy as a type of reference. As in the other chapters, a thorough
review of the literature on metonymy is provided and discussed,
highlighting the reference potential of certain metonymic expressions.
The final section discusses the function of reference metonymy in
healthcare, showing its perks as a communication enhancer, but also
its downsides in patient-healthcare provider relationships.
Evaluation
One of the main strengths of the book is its thorough literature
review and the depth of its discussion. The authors successfully bring
together cognitive and functional approaches, a combination that is
both ambitious and effective, and which allows for a multifaceted
treatment of referentiality.  The discussion of atypical reference is
particularly striking, offering a nuanced account of how context, and
especially the collaborative engagement of discourse participants, is
woven into referential interpretation.
The chapter on unplanned speech results in a particularly strong
section, as it offers insightful observations and convincingly
integrates theory and examples. Likewise, the discussion on typicality
and atypicality is especially valuable, as it convincingly challenges
the assumption that atypical forms necessarily correlate with low
frequency in speech. Finally, the second chapter on definiteness
stands out as an excellent pedagogical resource and could be used
without hesitation in specialized seminars on semantics or
referentiality.
Despite its many strengths, the book is more successful as a
theoretical discussion grounded in previous literature with selected
examples from English than as a systematic analysis of atypical uses
of referentiality. Although the authors include several case studies,
these are largely qualitative and remain illustrative rather than
explanatory. The absence of quantitative data—such as percentages or
frequency counts—makes it difficult for the reader to assess how
widespread or representative these atypical uses actually are. This
limitation is particularly evident in the chapter on referentiality in
child speech and the so-called “fun” uses. While the authors draw on
well-established studies of reference acquisition, they mainly
reiterate stages that align with existing literature rather than
offering new generalizations. Nevertheless, this chapter does open
promising avenues for future research, especially regarding playful
and non-canonical uses of referentiality.
As mentioned before, this book could be suitable for less experienced
readers on the subject, such as students in advanced classes, because
the main strength of the monograph lies in its wide literature
overview and discussion. Nevertheless, I would consider it also to be
suitable and useful for experienced researchers who are looking for
new insights into the analysis of referentiality and the wide variety
of phenomena that are related to it.
References
Clark, Herbert H. & Wilkes-Gibbs, Deanna. 1986. Referring as a
collaborative process. Cognition 22(1). 1–39.
(doi:10.1016/0010-0277(86)90010-7)
Fontaine, Lise & Jones, Katy & Schönthal, David. 2023. Referring in
Language: An Integrated Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. (doi:10.1017/9781316534625)
(https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/referring-in-language/C5C853DB0481D7FB1976977EE0B9AB9A)
Ghesquière, Lobke. 2014. The Directionality of (Inter)subjectification
in the English Noun Phrase. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
(https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110338751)
Halliday, Michael A. K. & Hasan, Ruqaiya. 1976. Cohesion in English.
London: Longman.
(https://digitale-objekte.hbz-nrw.de/storage/2012/07/08/file_5/4584696.pdf)
Jones, Katy. 2018. ‘A man who revels in his own ignorance, racism and
misogyny’: Identifiable referents trump indefinite grammar. Functional
Linguistics 5(1). 11. (doi:10.1186/s40554-018-0063-y)
Winslow, Aaron. 2022. Jorge Luis Borges. Air/Light.
(https://airlightmagazine.org/gmedia/borges-author-jpg/)
About the reviewer
Xadani Peña is a PhD candidate at the University of Cologne, where she
is part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1252 “Prominence in
Language”. She is currently studying the relationship between
Differential Object Marking and Indexing and their effect on Discourse
Prominence in Spanish, employing corpus and experimental methods.



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