<DIV>Because there have been few attempts to specify precisely what fluency is, Heidi Riggenbach has culled an impressive list of linguistic scholars and researchers representing the disciplines of psycholinguistics, socio-linguistics, and speech communication, for example, to write original papers for <i>Perspectives on Fluency</i>. This volume offers a historical overview of fluency and, in seeking to better define the term, focuses on both native speaker and nonnative speaker fluency.<br>Section 1, What Is Fluency? presents papers that all describe fluency, but in different ways.<br>The articles in Section 2, Essential Components of Fluency, consider features or components that contribute to impressions of fluency.<br>Section 3, Cognitive Processes Underlying Fluency, is devoted to an exploration of the psycholinguistic factors underlying fluency.<br>Three studies are presented in Section 4, Empirical Studies on Nonnative Fluency, and they exemplify the range of approaches to characterizing learners as fluent or nonfluent in their target language.<br>One objective of <i>Perspectives on Fluency</i> is to provide a starting point for language researchers interested in exploring the concept of fluency, a foundation that, until the arrival of this volume, did not exist. The book can be useful to those approaching fluency from a language assessment perspective, and those interested in the relationship of fluency to oral proficiency.<br><br></DIV>