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For her study of the in-code of the Edinburgh MSc programme 1992/93 Cutting chooses an eclectic approach, by combining pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis (Chapter 1). It is thus primarily a linguistic analysis but one that is based on a functional understanding of context, which is reflected in the approach to the macro-functions of talk (politeness principles).Cutting attempts to fill a gap in the research on the language of groups, which is neither longitudinal nor developmental (p. 10). This is indeed a gap. Even Swales' definition of discourse communities only mentions the acquisition of specific lexis as an integral criterion without, however, outlining how this acquisition process might happen (Swales, 1990: 26). A cursory overview of more recent literature, such as Lyne (1998), seems to back up the view that productoriented accounts of in-code usage predominate.The basic unit for Cutting's analysis of the recorded material (7 hours) is the 'discourse unit', which is demarcated by falling intonation. Although prosodic features have been explicitly excluded from the scope of the study (p. 6) they are implicitly reintroduced by this definition of the discourse unit, which shows the connection to Coulthard (1992). Coulthard's definition of the 'referring tone' (falling intonation) allows a speaker to call on shared knowledge not yet verbalized in the conversation (1992: 40), with shared knowledge also being one of the key concepts of Cutting's study.The review of major psychology contributions to the study of in-groups in Chapter 2 reveals that these definitions are not sufficient. They assume a longlasting relationship as constitutive of a group, which is not the case with this group of students who are aware of the short-lived nature of their community. Cutting then goes on to demonstrate how several layers and areas of knowledge are linked to various in-group markers (e.g. informality and humour) and how 565Book reviews

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