Cultural and situational variation in language function and use : methods and procedures for research

Abstract

This paper represents a report on work-in-progress.Here we attempt to lay out the issues surrounding our research project and the questions we hope to answer with it.We describe the ways in which our research is developing and the procedures we are following.Although no data is presented, the methods of collection and analysis are discussed in detail.The issue of most concern in our research is whether or not minority groups use language in ways that systematically put their children at a disadvantage at school.We want to see if cultural or social class differences in language use have cognitive, social, and/or educational consequences for children so classified.It is widely believed that these differences do, but, while this is an attractive hypothesis, solid evidence for it is lacking.We argue that an adequate test of this hypothesis must include data on naturally occurring language.To that end, our research combines ethnographic and experimental methods.Audio tapes were made of preschool children representing different combinations of ethnic group and social class membership.Our research focuses on nine specific questions which are presented here along with the approaches we are taking to answer them.In the last section of this paper, we indicate three representative ways in which data analysis might proceed.