A 25-year teacher of Italian as a second language, Danesi (education, U. of Toronto) proposes that the challenges posed by classroom language learning could be studied much more profitably from the particular perspective of semiotic theory than from that of other sciences. Based on a series of research projects, the results of which he describes as showing how powerful semiotics is as a framework for that purpose, he introduces teachers, educators, applied linguists, and others to its application. He assumes readers to have a solid grounding in semiotics itself, and suggest works to read first for people who do not. He includes an extensive glossary of technical terms, but does not indicate how to pronounce them. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
