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Continuity/Discontinuity in the Function and Use of LanguageAuthor(s): Larry F. Guthrie and William S. HallSource: Review of Research in Education, Vol. 10 (1983), pp. 55-77Published by: American Educational Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1167135 .Accessed: 09/02/2011 13:39

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Chapter 3

Continuity/Discontinuity in the Function and Use of Language

LARRY F. GUTHRIE Far West Laboratory

and WILLIAM S. HALL

University of Maryland

There is little question that nonmainstream students generally perform worse than their mainstream counterparts in school. One explanation for this is what has been called the home-school mismatch hypothesis: The home environment and/or socialization of nonmainstream children may not provide them with the experiences and skills necessary for success in school. This hypothesis often has been framed in terms of language, and has taken a number of forms, ranging from linguistic deficit to cultural difference. In this chapter, we will present a brief overview of the various positions on this issue, and then will describe the more recent developments in research in the area. As we will attempt to show, considerable progress, both theoretical and practical, has been made in the last decade.

VARIATIONS ON HOME-SCHOOL MISMATCH

The home-school language mismatch has been formulated in several ways, the three most prominent of which are linguistic deficit, linguistic difference, and cultural difference.

Linguistic Deficit

The home-school mismatch hypothesis was originally formulated as a linguistic deficit. This theory grew out of the notion that the speech of lower-class black children was an inferior form of English (Bereiter & Engleman, 1966). According to the deficit hypothesis, the use of a

The listing of authors is alphabetical. The editorial consultant for this chapter was John Gumperz.

55

56 Review of Research in Education, 10

nonstandard form of English, and a general lack of stimulation in the home will hinder a child's normal development (Deutsch, 1967). From this position, home life and s'ocialization in lower-class homes is actually damaging to children. As they interact with their family and community environment, they absorb information about ways of behavior, norms, values, and language, and they learn about the community and their place in it. A deficient environment, lacking in alternatives, contingencies, and systematic and predictable rewards will naturally have a negative effect on children (Hess, 1970).

One type of behavior that all children are socialized into is linguistic, and just as a "deficient" environment will have a negative effect, so will a "deficient" language. It is a popular belief, for example, that parents' use of Vernacular Black English (VBE) systematically places their children at a disadvantage in school. A mismatch between the language of the home and that of the school, then, often is cited as a possible explanation for the widespread failure of these children. From this perspective, linguistic deficit and cultural deprivation bring about lower achievement levels (Bernstein, 1972; Hess & Shipman, 1965).

Linguistic Difference

Sociolinguists (among others) met the deficit claims head on. Initial evidence to the contrary came from Labov, Cohen, Robins, and Lewis (1968), Wolfram (1969), andLabov (1972), who showed that the language of inner city blacks is phonologically and syntactically logical and rule governed. It is just as adequate for expression as any other dialect of English. As an alternative, these linguists proposed that linguistic differences, rather than deficits, might be found to explain lower scores and poorer achievement (Baratz & Baratz, 1970; Dillard, 1972; Hall & Freedle, 1975; Stewart, 1969). According to this view, minority children's speech is not inferior or deficient; it just does not coincide in every respect with the particular language used in schools, Standard English (SE).

It is suggested instead that certain aspects of VBE interfere with communication in school and with the acquisition of literacy skills in SE. Despite numerous studies directed toward dialect interference at both a phonological and syntactic level (e.g., Melmed, 1971; Rentel & Kennedy, 1972; Rystrom, 1970), taken as a whole, the findings are still equivocal (for reviews see Hall & Guthrie, 1981; Simons, 1979). Many of these studies were flawed by weaknesses in methodology. In several cases it was not even clear that the subjects were actually VBE speakers; in others, they were most likely bidialectal. In general, these studies have produced limited and variable results and remain unconvincing.

Methodological problems aside, however, we can see that their failure to achieve clear-cut results was due in part to the assumptions on which the

Guthrie and Hall: Continuity/Discontinuity 57

majority of these studies were based. One assumption was that language discontinuity would be manifest at the level of language form, rather than function or use. However, the fact that VBE speakers are less adept at repeating phonological or syntactic features of SE sentences does not necessarily mean that these children will have difficulty in communicating with their teachers, learning to read, or reading with comprehension. As has been pointed out, successful communication is possible despite clear differences in language form (Hymes, 1974; McDermott & Gospodinoff, 1981).

Another assumption was that the experience oftest-like conditions under which experiments are conducted can measure adequately the effects of dialect. Early empirical research on the discontinuity between home and school language was confined to laboratory or testlike settings. The conditions under which children's language and behavior have been studied and measured often have been contrived, unnatural, and alien both to children and their parents. The study of children's language has become, in Bronfenbrenner's (1977) words, "the science of the strange behavior of children in strange situations, with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time" (p. 513).

Because of the emphasis on language form, the effects of context generally were not taken into consideration. The variety of situations in which children use language was largely ignored. For the study of phonological and syntactic variation, one can examine how children respond to or manipulate isolated words and sentences; larger stretches of language are not needed. Nor is it necessary to sample language in natural situations.

Research from this perspective ignores the fact that teaching and learning do not occur in isolation, but are influenced by situation and context. The assumption has been that all children, regardless of their backgrounds, experience these situations in exactly the same way. It is now becoming apparent, however, that this assumption is unwarranted. Researchers now realize that a child's ethnic and cultural background can have a strong influence on his or her way of speaking in different situations. Whether or not the child's prior experiences include similarities in the setting, people, or events in a situation can affect his or her perception of and behavior in that situation. This recognition has had a great effect on research in the area.

Cultural Difference

Recently, more attention has focused on the levels of language function and use, and because of this shift, the effects of context and culture have become more prominent. Being suggested now is a mismatch between ways of speaking in the home and those required for success in middle-class schools. Proponents of this position argue that how minority children use language, rather than particular linguistic features of their speech, may have

58 Review of Research In Education, 10

more to do with the miscommunication, misunderstanding, and educational difficulty they encounter (Gumperz, 1981; Hall & Guthrie, 1981; Hymes, 1972). This approach is based on the premise that in the home children act and use language according to the rules of their community and culture; in the school, a different set of rules is operative. In other words, their competence in language use and their ways of speaking may not be required for success in school, or even allowed. Those that are required may be foreign to them (Hymes, 1972).

Sources for the development of the cultural mismatch position are varied. The anecdotal writings of Holt (1964), Kohl (1967), and Kozol (1967) in the 1960s suggested that more than mere language difference lay at the base of the problem. These teachers gave dramatic accounts of their experiences in inner city schools, describing the effect that prejudice and lowered expectations had on minority children.

Ethnographic works of Rist (1973) and Ward (1971) provided further evidence. A fine descriptive account of how a child's characteristics may grow into teacher oppression is found in Rist's ethnography of an inner city school. Utilizing both Smith and Geoffrey's microethnography-a sort of daily log of participant observations-and numerous interviews with teachers, administrators, counselors, and neighbors, Rist painted a vivid picture of life in the school. First, he found that seating and reading group assignments were made on the basis of children's speech, as well as criteria such as skin color, hair texture, body odor, and quality of dress. Once the minority children were classed as "losers," their fate was sealed. In subsequent grades, they were classified on the basis of their standing the year before, so that their initial placement became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rist also discovered that the kindergarten teacher employed different interaction strategies when dealing with "winners" and "losers." Though the teachers were black and well-meaning, they nevertheless collaborated in training the students to fail.

Ward (1971) conducted a community ethnography in a poor rural area of Louisiana. Among her findings was the fact that adult members of the community, in questioning children, addressed only bonafide requests for information to their children, meaning they did not ask "test" questions for which the adult already (and obviously) knew the answer. This latter behavior, of course, is typical in middle-class homes and schools. The use of language in the community clearly contrasted with that required for success in school.

Steffensen and Guthrie (1980) tested this hypothesis with a group of lower-class black preschool children from the Midwest. Using a testlike situation, and varying only whether the adult interrogator obviously knew the answer to questions or not, they found that the amount and complexity of subjects' speech differed in the two situations. In the situation in which


questions appeared to be actual requests for information, responses were longer and more complex.

As reports such as Rist's and Ward's appeared, sociolinguists were documenting the fact that VBE is logical and systematic (Labov, 1972; Labov et al., 1968; Wolfram, 1969). Further, as the general lack of success of the language form approach became evident, research began to refocus. Instead of looking at phonemes and morphemes in isolation, researchers began to examine the functions of language in its social context. They began to investigate how requests are made, turns negotiated, and commands given in one situation or another and according to what system of (implicit) rules (Hymes, 1972). In the next section, some of the theoretical foundations on which this research is based are reviewed.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

In recent years, the study of children's language use at home and at school has become an interdisciplinary endeavor engaging sociolinguists, anthropologists, psychologists, and others. While these may differ somewhat in scholarly background, perspective, and method, certain themes run through all their work. One such theme concerns the nature of social interaction. In the following pages, we present a view of social interaction which, though not necessarily identical to, is at least commensurate with that held by Erickson and Schultz (1981), Gumperz (1981), Hall and Cole (1978), Mehan (1979), and others.

A Theoretical Model of Social Interaction

Much of the research addressing the language continuity/discontinuity issue has been conducted with the view that social interaction is a multidimensional phenomenon which, like language (Halliday, 1973), can be characterized as a set of options (Gumperz, 1972). In the mutual construction of their discourse, actors select what they want to say next (semantic options), how to say it (social options), and the form it will take (linguistic options). They even exercise options about what to attend to, how to interpret their environment, and how to define what is going on. At the basis of these choices is a series of factors that can act as constraints. At the most general level, these include social and cultural facts such as social status and cultural norms. At the most narrow level are tacts within the interaction itself, such as particular prosodic and phonological variations.

The levels of constraints do not operate in isolation; however, all are interdependent and mutually interacting. The influence of broader constraints, like culture, in a sense filters through every other level and is experienced simultaneously in terms of situation, social context, and task. Similarly, more local constraints such as the task always operate in a context


of society, culture, and situation, for one cannot be engaged in a task outside his or her culture, society, or some situation.

Nor do constraints, either singly or in combination, affect interaction automatically. The influence of any constraint ultimately depends on the actor's consciousness, which lies at the center of all social interaction. Without this consciousness, interaction could never take place. Although not necessarily at a level of awareness, the actor must perceive and interpret each constraint before its effect is realized. So, while a variety of constraints do bear on social interaction, it is at the same time emergent, growing out of the interpretations participants give to their surroundings, social relations, mental states, and language.

People in interaction, as in all human behavior, selectively attend to their environment. Likewise, they selectively attend to their own knowledge, including the knowledge of facts (about culture, the actor's personal history) and rules or strategies (of interpretation, interaction, language use). The actor constantly interprets and defines his total environment, including not only the social and situational constraints, but his own knowledge as well. This level of interpretation and definition constitutes a sort of sieve through which constraints must pass before their effect is felt at the level of discourse. In this way actors first choose, from a set of options, the makeup of a unique array of constraints. Then within these constraints, and based on their definitions of the ongoing environment, they negotiate the rules for and mutually construct their particular interactional discourse (Cook-Gumperz & Gumperz, 1976; Erickson & Schultz, 1981; McDermott, 1981).

Within this perspective, in addressing questions of home-school mismatch, much of the research has naturally focused on the nature of situation and context.

Situation and Context

The possible effects of situation and context on human speech and performance have long been suggested (e.g., Cazden, 1970; Goffman, 1964). However, it is only more recently that serious consideration has been given to their investigation.

Researchers have given considerable attention to the "situation" as a variable which affects interactional discourse. Labov (1972), for example, called it "the most powerful determinant of verbal behavior" (p. 212). In addition, there is some general agreement as to what factors make up a situation: It is usually defined as some combination of setting, participant's characteristics, topic, task, and time span. Blom and Gumperz (1972) define a social situation as those "activities carried on by a particular constellation of personnel, gathered in particular settings during a particular span of time" (p. 423). According to Ervin-Tripp (1964), "social situations may be


restricted by cultural norms which specify the appropriate participants, the physical setting, the topics, the functions of discourse, and the style" (p. 86). Cole, Dore, Hall, and Dawley (1978), on the other hand, mention only setting, participants, and task. Cazden (1970), in her review of studies of situational variation in children's language, includes the variables topic, task, listener(s), and interaction.

The importance of situational constraints on language use has been clearly demonstrated. For example, Labov (1972) has shown that aspects of a typical interview situation can inhibit children to such a degree that they appear to be nonverbal. With a change in situation, the speech of his 8-year-old informant, Leon, moved from monosyllabic to animated language. A change was effected by the interviewer's moving to the floor, at the child's level, and by introducing potato chips into the interview. Likewise, the testing situation can lower not only verbal performance, but measured IQ as well. In the study referred to earlier, Steffensen and Guthrie (1980) provide evidence that the mere fact that the interviewer does or does not obviously know the answers to questions can affect children's verbal performance. Many have insisted, therefore, that explanations for lower achievement levels for minority children must take into consideration situational variables (Cazden, 1979; Hall & Freedle, 1975; Hall & Guthrie, 1981; Labov, 1972).

Hall, Cole, and their associates (Hall & Cole, 1978; Cole et al., 1978) have sought to experimentally manipulate factors in the situation to (1) find ways to more fairly assess the abilities of children, and (2) begin to identify and delineate those social factors contributing to variability in speech and school performance. By varying certain situational factors, they produced very different language performance from their preschool subjects.

However, while it may be agreed that situational factors make a difference in children's language performance, it is not altogether clear in what way they affect language. While it may be obvious that something about the testing or interview situation is particularly inhibiting to minority children, the question of exactly which aspects and how they operate is open to investigation. In Labov's demonstration, Leon's speech seemed to shift along with the formality of the two situations, but the exact nature of the formality and how it affected Leon's speech remains unclear.

A factor closely related to the situation is that of context. The social context of interaction has taken on significance in the work of ethnomethodologists (Cole et al., 1978) and sociologists (Cook-Gumperz & Gumperz, 1976; Green & Wallat, 1979). Whereas the situation represents the rather stable background for interaction ( the physical setting and the activity), the social context may be thought of as the immediate environment of interaction, as another more intimate and dynamic level of situation. The social context is that "emergent, context-sensitive informational environ-


ment" in which everyday exchanges are embedded (Cicourel, 1974, p. 141). As actors engage in interaction, they mutually and continuously construct the social context from (1) the individual and shared characteristics they bring to the meeting, and (2) their ongoing verbal and nonverbal behavior.

Also of critical importance in this research and closely related to situation and context is the notion of participant ( or participation) structure (Philips, 1972). These structures within an interaction determine the local rules by which people speak, listen, get a turn, hold the floor, and so on (Erickson & Schultz, 1981). Philips (1972) speaks of participant structures as the ways in which interaction may be arranged. Within a classroom, for example, one may find whole-group instruction, small-group instruction, or seatwork. With each of these, the participant structure will differ in terms of ways of speaking, getting to speak, and so forth.

From a different perspective, the context is created by the ways in which people organize their interaction, the framework that interaction has, and the rules under which participants operate. As McDermott (1976b) suggests, "People in interaction become environments for each other" (p. 37). In fact, everything they say and do in the course of the interaction will potentially signal a change in the context. These signals have been called contextualization cues or conventions (Gumperz, 1981), and may take any number of forms: linguistic, paralinguistic, nonverbal, or sequential (Erickson & Schultz, 1977). They inform interactants of the momentary status of and changes in the context. For example, the intonation one places on a word can indicate whether the interaction is embedded in a friendly or hostile context (Gumperz, 1977, 1981).

Then, on the basis of these cues, people in interaction develop an idea of what the context is at that moment; in a sense, they define the context. Because in the course of the ongoing interaction the context may change from moment to moment, their definition of context may change also. It is partly because of these momentary definitions that people are able to know and decide what is going on (Erickson & Schultz, 1981).

Social interaction, then, is multidimensional and subject to constraints on several levels (social, cultural, situational). At the same time, interaction emerges from the interpretations and definitions that participants give to their surroundings, social relations, mental states, and language. In this way, actors engaged in interaction determine to a degree the makeup of a unique array of constraints for each particular interactional encounter.

Given this notion of social interaction, the difficulty for the analyst will lie in specifying exactly how this is accomplished and what the array of constraints is on any one occasion. Because of the predominant role of the actor's consciousness in this process, even decisions as to what objects and events are being attended to must to a certain extent be suspect (Cook-Gumperz & Gumperz, 1976). Whether one attempts to control


particular constraints beforehand, or relies on a post hoc analysis of discourse, how one can be certain which constraints are operating is not altogether clear. Because people in interaction only selectively attend to features of their environment, and because they interpret or define their surroundings and each other's actions, a determination of situational influences is problematical. Without some indication of the particular aspects of the environment attended to or of the interpretations actors give to contextual factors, an observer is not justified in attributing significance to any. The observer must assume that he or she shares the participants' common perceptions, interpretations, ways of behaving, and so on. Given the wide diversity of experiences that make up the backgrounds of all people, and minority children and researchers in particular, this is an asumption one must be cautious about making. At this level, then, the question of language continuity/discontinuity and schooling becomes one of research methodology: From the totality of relevant (or irrelevant) constraints on interaction, how can those that are significant be determined? From the range of situations, contexts, and participant structures, how can those that are comparable be selected for study? Finally, how can the relationship between context and communication be investigated?

To be convincing, research must do more than recognize that social and situational factors can have a profound effect on language use and performance. To draw valid conclusions about language use in different contexts (e.g., home and school), research must focus on the actual process of social interaction and sample naturally occurring language in situations critical to the child. Analysis should be in terms of language use in context, taking into consideration the attendant variables in the particular situation. This research must also take notice of the fact that, while descriptions of variations of language use in context are possible, the complexities of human interaction are so great that one cannot, with confidence, point to independent variables within a particular situation as having caused any observed differences. It is one thing to describe language use and another to explain it.

Our knowledge of children's language and its continuity/discontinuity has greatly increased in the last decade. It is evident that our notions of how language and social interaction operate are far more accurate than they were even 15 years ago.

However, greater knowledge is in a way a double-edged sword. Although we have learned, research has become more difficult. In the past, it was enough to ask children to perform repetition tasks or calculate their mean length of utterance (MLU). To answer questions about children's language today this is not enough. The difficulties just described must be considered and dealt with. Fortunately, many have faced the challenge undaunted. In the next section we will describe the ways in which they have done this.


RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE CONTINUITY/DISCONTINUITY AND SCHOOLING

We now turn to a discussion and review of ways in which some of the recent work done within this general framework has dealt with the problems discussed above. We will discuss studies representative of three of the most prominent approaches: microethnography, the conversational inference approach, and speech-act analysis.

Microethnography

One approach to the study of children's language use in and out of classrooms has been known variously as microethnography (Erickson & Schultz, 1977, 1981), constitutive ethnography (Mehan, 1979), or ethnographic monitoring (Hymes, 1981). There are other types of research labeled microethnography, notably the method devised and employed by Smith and Geoffrey (1968), and Rist (1973). However, here we are concerned with that system of microethnography incorporating a sociolinguistic perspective and focus.

The research technique employed in microethnography involves the use of videotape and observers' field notes. In general, through observation, researchers identify classroom situations in which children are interacting with the teacher. Examples of these episodes are then videotaped and subjected to careful analysis, focusing on verbal, and sometimes nonverbal aspects of communication. A detailed account of this method is provided in Erickson and Schultz (1977, 1981).

To date, microethnographies have been performed on various student populations, including Native Americans (Mohatt & Erickson, 1981; Philips, 1972), blacks (McDermott, 1976a, 1976b, 1978), Hispanics (Mehan, 1979), and Hawaiians (Au, 1980; Boggs, 1972).

According to Erickson and Schultz (1981), this research moves from the molar to the molecular. More specifically, research begins with whole events (lessons), moves to episodes within the event (presentation, review) and then to the communicative functions (getting a turn) and how they are accomplished (raising one's hand). Basic to this approach is the notion of the participant structure discussed earlier, that is, a situationally defined set of rules for interacting (Erickson & Schultz, 1981). The procedure usually involves the identification of the participant structures operating within an event.

While the details of this process cannot be given here, it is accomplished in part through repeated viewing of the videotaped segment. With each viewing, finer attention to detail is given in an effort to determine within what participant structure the actors are operating. Particularly salient are the junctures between the parts of events, when people restructure their


interaction either verbally or nonverbally. Eventually these are analyzed in great detail because they contain information on the ways in which people change participant structures, a process that is usually below the level of consciousness when it occurs (Erickson & Schultz, 1981).

A recent example of the microethnographic approach can be found in Mohatt and Erickson's (1981) study of an Odawa Indian School. Two experienced and competent teachers were studied. One teacher was Indian and the other non-Indian. As Mohatt and Erickson are careful to point out:

The differences that were observed did not reside in the teachers' good intent or technical ability as professionals, but in the relative "cultural congruence" of their teaching styles with the children's experience of social life outside the s,,hool. (p. 110)

Both teachers were videotaped on three occasions throughout the school year for a total of about 12 hours each. Children from each class were also videotaped in their homes with their families.

By following these procedures, the investigators found clear differences between the two teachers in how they conducted their classes. The basic classroom procedures such as grouping, monitoring, and giving directions were carried out in very different ways.

The Indian teacher's approach was slower and more deliberate, and individuals were not singled out before the whole group. The non-Indian teacher, however, took more active control over the class, often conducting management and control from across the room. Mohatt and Erickson report evidence that shows the first teacher's manner to be more compatible with the cultural style of the Odawa (Mohatt & Erickson, 1981). They also point out that the second teacher, by the end of the year, had begun to modify his procedures to be more in keeping with the style of his students.

This study shows not only how cultural incongruity can be uncovered, but also how a sensitive and aware teacher may begin to modify his or her teaching style. For inner city blacks, for instance, Piestrup (1973) found the "Black artful" approach (an instructional style reflecting an integration of knowledge of the language spoken by black children with an understanding of their broad cultural background) of teachers the most sensitive to the children's ways of speaking and to be the most effective in facilitating their learning.

In a study more directly relevant to the education of lower-class blacks, McDermott (1976b; 1978) did a microethnography of high and low reading groups in a successful middle-class school. He found that those children who came to school without reading skills received differential treatment from the admittedly well-meaning teacher.

For one thing, there were differential turn-taking procedures in the two groups, a situation described before (Gumperz & Herasimchuck, 1972; Rist, 1973). The top group took turns in an orderly round-robin fashion; in


the bottom group, students had to bid for every turn, a less efficient process. McDermott (1976b), however, wanted to go beyond this initial description and see if he could find some indication for why that was the case.

McDermott spent an entire year in the classroom, observing and taking field notes 2 or 3 days per week. He also did periodic videotaping. As part of his analysis, two 30-minute tape segments were analyzed carefully, with the focus on nonverbal aspects of communication.

McDermott found that not only were the allocation of turns procedures different in the two groups, so was the context for learning. During the taped lesson, the bottom group was interrupted 20 times as often as the top group. Most of these interruptions were initiated by advanced-group students. With the low group, the teacher sat facing the room so that she could monitor the behavior of the rest of the class. She often interrupted the group to discipline other children. McDermott (1976b) also provides poignant case studies of individual children in the low group struggling for a turn, or struggling to avoid one. The initial result is, of course, that the children in the low group spend only one-third as much time on task; the final result is that they do not learn how to read (McDermott, 1976b ). For children, reading (and learning to read) is more than the solitary, cognitive process it is for adults. Reading is a social interactional activity, done in groups led by a teacher (Cazden, 1979; Guthrie & Hall, in press).

Because it did not include data on students' home and community ways of interacting, McDermott's study does not constitute a test of the home-school mismatch hypothesis. His work is relevant, however, on at least two levels. First, in terms of methodology, McDermott demonstrates the usefulness of microethnographic techniques for the study of classrooms. A similar analytic technique could be applied to interactional patterns both in and out of school. Second, his study has theoretical implications. McDermott interprets his findings (1976b, 1978; McDermott & Gospodinoff, 1981) as evidence that the situational context mandates that certain groups succeed and others fail. Because the minority children start out behind their peers, it becomes their lot to fail, and this is ensured by the organizational system of the classroom. Cultural mismatch is one vehicle through which this is accomplished. A related argument is given by Ogbu (1979, 1981).

Conversational Inference Approach

The approach developed by Gumperz (1977, 1981) is based on the notion of conversational inference: "The situational process by which participants in a conversation assess other participants' intentions and on which they base their responses" (Gumperz, 1981, p. 12). Through the use of contextualization cues or conventions (features of language neither lexical nor grammatical), participants signal their intentions and define the context of


interaction. Conversational inference is the process through which these signals are received and interpreted. It is closely tied to the notion of situated meaning, the meaning created in context by participants (Cook-Gumperz & Gumperz, 1976).

The research methods through which the conversational inference approach is applied are in many ways similar to those employed by the microethnographer. For example, there is the use of participant observation and recording of events followed by detailed analysis. It is in the analysis stage that the major distinctions lie.

The basic procedure, as employed by Gumperz and his associates at Berkeley (Cook-Gumperz, Gumperz, & Simons, 1981), is conducted in the following manner. First, ethnographic evidence is collected by participant observers in the classroom. Their task is to become familiar with the classroom from the teacher's and students' perspectives. They attend to organization schedules, rules, classroom interaction, and also compile background information on the students.

Particular attention is given to the way in which the day is organized, and "key situations" such as reading lessons are identified. These are situations in which access to educational opportunity is controlled. The communicative means through which teachers organize the class are documented also. These ethnographic data then inform the researcher as to which episodes or events within the school day are significant. These are sampled through audio- and videotaping (Gumperz, 1981).

Finally, the key episodes are analyzed based on the notion of conversational inference. Gumperz outlined two goals of this analysis: (1) to identify different strategies along social or developmental lines for accomplishing the same communicative functions, and (2) to examine teachers' judgments based on these differences.

One of the key situations identified in their study was "sharing time" or "show and tell," as it is sometimes called (Michaels, in press; Michaels & Cook-Gumperz, 1979). In their observations of the class, the research team identified these episodes as settings for "oral preparation for literacy." As the teacher guided students through their presentations it became evident what the teacher's own notions of narrative structure were, and they did not coincide with those of the lower-class black children.

Based on the recorded data from over 50 sharing lessons, Michaels found children's discourse styles to be of two basic types: topic centered and topic chaining. Topic-centered narratives appeared to fit the teacher's scheme of a narrative, while thosf; that employed topic chaining did not. This was evident not only in the teacher's instructions ("tell about one thing"), but in his or her understanding of the discourse. With the white children in the class, there was a match between their oral discourse styles and that of the teacher, so that they and the teacher produced the narratives collaborative-


ly. In the case of the black children who employed topic-chaining techniques the teacher often was unable to follow the topic; his or her comments and questions often were timed so that they interrupted the child.

Another example from the same project shows even more clearly how the notion of conversational inference can be applied to school research. Early in their study, Gumperz and his associates noticed that lower-class black children seemed to take little interest in the activities of the class. They repeatedly told the teacher and the aide that they could not do the task or did not know how. But, in fact, all the children, who were then in first grade, had been exposed to similar tasks in kindergarten. However, an examination of all recorded instances of such comments produced some interesting results. They were similar in terms of intonation, register, and other paralinguistic features. When samples of these recordings were played for black judges, they responded that the children's statements actually were requests for help, that the children did not like to work alone. According to the judges, the children's behavior reflected a contextualization convention present in the black community, which said statements of that type did not mean the children could not do the task. Further observation in the class corroborated this interpretation (Cook-Gumperz, Gumperz, & Simons, 1981; Gumperz, 1981). The implications for these findings should be obvious. If the teachers

. jn these two instances were sensitive to the contextualization conventions of the children involved, if they were familiar with topic-chaining, for instance, then their task as educators would be clarified.

Speech Act Analysis

The study of children's language through the analysis of speech acts grows out of the work of Austin (1962), Searle (1969, 1975) and Grice (1975). According to Searle (1969), words and sentences are not the basic units of linguistic communication, but the use of words and sentences, the performance of a speech act. When people ask questions, make statements, or give commands, they are performing speech acts.

Speech act theory is closely related to and compatible with the theory of interaction described earlier. It is in the performance of speech acts, combined with their nonverbal cues, that participants construct their social context (Streek, 1980).

In terms of the model of social interaction discussed earlier, the actor makes lexical, grammatical, phonological and prosodic selections for each instance of a speech act. All these together are made within the confines of the interaction as established by the actor's own interpretations and definitions of the ongoing environment. Actors have at their disposal a wide variety of ways to say what they mean, and thereby carry out their purposes. In the performance of speech acts the effects of these selections are realized and meaning is conveyed.


It should not be assumed, however, that there is any regular one-to-one correspondence between particular constraints (situational, contextual) and speech act performance. Constraints can operate singly or in combination and across the various discourse and linguistic levels. Factors of social status, for example, can just as well influence code choice as phonological variation; a contextualization cue as subtle as a rise in intonation can result in a change in code, definition of the situation, or phonological choice. It is not possible to specify exactly how these factors constrain interaction, primarily because they are all filtered through the perception and interpretation of interactants and, in addition, are not within conscious awareness. As mentioned earlier, one can never be absolutely certain which factor constrained a particular interaction in a particular way, though an educated guess or approximation may be possible.

Some recent research with the speech act framework has been based on the notion of the task in interaction (Cole et al., 1978; Dore, Gearhart, & Newman, 1978; Guthrie, 1981). In this research the argument has been made that the shape of an interaction, in this case the particular set of speech acts, is a key to what the actors understand is going on (i.e., the task).

The emphasis is on the actor's interpretation rather than a specification of constraints beforehand. Variation in the construction of discourse is ultimately determined by what actors are thinking, and not any particular constraints, or even constellation of constraints.

Constraints exist only as a set of potential influences on the construction of discourse. Whether or not this influence is realized depends on their selection or nonselection by the actors. All constraints are subject to interpretation; they are filtered through the actor's perceptions. In other words, discourse is actually shaped at a cognitive level, and the effect of constraints on discourse is indirect, having passed through the actor's interpretations. Any specification of those variables beforehand must be suspect. As Gumperz (1981) said,

What is important is what is communicated in the classroom as a result of complex processes of interaction among educational goals, background knowledge, and what various participants perceive over time as taking place. (p. 5)

To analyze variations in discourse then, one must find some indicator of what actors are thinking about the interaction, what their understanding of it is. The position taken in these studies is that actors' understanding of the task they are engaged in meets this requirement, and that this understanding is reflected in their discourse. If the ways in which people negotiate and produce their discourse is partly determined by what they understand is taking place, then the shape of the discourse, its constituents and their organization, will index this understanding.

On the surface, it may appear that the determination of the task is a simple


matter. Participants know, for example, that they are "discussing politics" or "having dinner," and it may also seem perfectly obvious to an observer that that is what they are doing.

Actors engaged in interaction may even "formulate" the task occasionally: "We're discussing your future." However, it is by no means clear that even these formulations are always adequate, or accurate, with regard to task and situation as defined here (Garfinkel & Sacks, 1970). While actors may say they are engaged in one task, the shape of their discourse, for example, may indicate they are actually doing something quite different. Of course, they will have some understanding of what is going on, but their ability to accurately formulate it is another matter. The task, like the participant structure, is for the most part below the level of consciousness; as has been pointed out, "No one ever knows exactly what the answer to this question is at any given moment" (McDermott, Gospodinoff, & Aron, 1978, p. 2). General task labels such as "talking about the weather" or "having dinner" are descriptions that may contribute to an actor's notion of the task, but do not necessarily coincide with it. In other words, it's what you do, and not what you say you do. How actors shape their discourse shows what they really understand the task to be; what they do shows what they understand is going on (Guthrie, 1981).

The research on interactional tasks has been conducted using the conversational act system of coding (Dore, 1977). Conversational acts (C-acts) represent a taxonomy of speech act types which code utterances according to (1) . the grammatical structure of the utterance, (2) its illocutionary properties, and (3) its general semantic or propositional content. This coding system has been employed in several studies (Cole et al., 1978; Dore et al., 1978; Guthrie, 1981; Hall & Cole, 1978).

The C-act taxonomy is divided into six broad function types: requestives, assertives, performatives, responsives, organizational devices, and expressives. Each function type is further divided into particular C-acts. Under requestives, for example, are "action requests," "choice questions," "process questions," "permission requests," "product questions," and "suggestions."

In the process of coding, the grammatical form with a literal semantic meaning is determined. Then a judgment is made as to the conventional illocutionary force to the utterance's position in sequence and conversational cues are considered as well. In this way, all the utterances in a stretch of discourse are coded. With the exception of nonverbal cues, and perhaps lexical choice, all elements of interactional discourse are included in this system.

Because conversational acts are sensitive to grammatical form, semantic content, and illocutionary force, and not just one of these, they provide a link between form and function. As Cole et al. (1978) put it, the


conversational act mediates the grammatical and the social, the "grammatical forms ... and the interactional purposes for which they are used" (p. 74). In other words, they integrate speakers' interests and purposes. Further, in coding the data, consideration is made of the speakers' utterances in context. What is said before, after, and in other contexts is brought to bear on the coding decision, reflecting the situated nature of discourse. This system also allows for multiple coding, so that important meanings and intentions are not lost.

While at Rockefeller University during the late 1970s, Hall collected a body of data on the natural language of 40 preschool children. The sample of children was balanced on ethnicity and socioeconomic status. He recorded the children using wireless microphones in 10 different temporal situations over a period of 2 days.

This data sample and the ways in which it is being analyzed are described in Hall and Guthrie (1981). One piece of that analysis, using conversational acts, was conducted by Guthrie (1981). Guthrie did a C-act analysis of a portion of Hall's data body. Half the original subjects were selected randomly for analysis, five each from the following ethnic/cultural groups: middle-class white, middle-class black, lower-class white, and lower-class black. The children and their interactants (parents, teachers, peers) had been recorded in two comparable situations, one at home and one at school. The situations chosen for study were "directed activity" at school and "dinner" at home, and the time of recording in each was approximately 20 minutes.

Language samples for the study were collected with stereo tape recorders and wireless microphones worn by both the target student and a field worker. The field workers entered contextual information into one channel while the subjects' speech was recorded on the other channel. Following the recording, written transcripts were made and then coded using the conversational act system.

Analyses were both quantitative and qual;tative. First, frequencies and proportions of C-acts were compared across home and school data in terms of the ethnic/social class groups and speakers (target child, mother, teacher). Then, based on the frequencies, representative samples of discourse were subjected to a more qualitative analysis.

Guthrie found that the lower-class black mothers produced a much smaller proportion of C-acts in their conversations with children than did the other mothers. This finding would seem to be fairly consistent with the hypothesis of language discontinuity. Apparently, the lower-class black children were not being exposed to the same interactional training as the children in the other three groups.

Another finding was that the teachers and mothers of the lower-class black group used a much higher proportion of control acts (commands,


requests for action) than did the other caretakers. For the teachers, at least, this finding is consistent with that of Leacock (1969) who found the educational experience for lower-class black children to be quite different. This group was expected to learn less and was given much less encouragement by the teacher.

In the qualitative analysis, it was found that the middle-class black and lower-class white teachers and children were engaged in "examination" tasks. The task of the middle-class white group was generally one of "directions" for adults and "following the directions" for children. The lower-class black teachers and mothers, however, both seemed to see their task as one of "control."

These results did not provide clear-cut support for the discontinuity hypothesis as originally conceived. While the language use of the lower-class black group overall was different from that of the other three groups, the tasks of the mothers and teachers within that group were quite similar.

These results were interpreted as evidence that, at least up to preschool age, lower-class black children were socialized both at home and at school to use language in certain similar ways. It appeared that parents, teachers, and other adults actually cooperated in providing those children with only one kind of experience, an experience which leads not to success, but perpetuates the patterns of failure in the educational system.

It was suggested that at the preschool stages, minority children may experience no real mismatch between their practiced ways of interacting and the ways of the preschool. However, their experience is different from that of middle-class children, and because of this, when they enter school they will most likely be streamed into low-ability groups where they receive further training in how not to succeed. Based on the evidence from Leacock (1969) and Rist (1973) Guthrie suggests a scenario in which the children are gradually forced to confront more varied sets of rules and ways of interacting. Eventually, all children, regardless of their social class or ethnicity, are expected to perform according to the same criteria. They start out behind and stay behind.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

This chapter's focus has been the supposed discontinuity between the language of minority children and that required for success in school. Three versions of this hypothesis were presented. The first, based on deficit, has been rejected as untenable on theoretical and factual grounds. The second, framed in terms of linguistic mismatch, though attractive, has been found unconvincing. The assumptions on which research was based were in many ways false. It is within the third version, cultural mismatch, that the discussion has taken place, with reference to the theoretical underpinnings


of this position and representative work reviewed using three different methods.

Clearly, research within this area is still in its infancy. Even the deficit hypothesis is barely 15 years old. Most of the work within the cultural mismatch framework has taken place in the last 10 years. At this point, we pause to ask what we now know that we did not before. We began this chapter with the comment that considerable gains had been made. We now want to state briefly what we think those are.

Perhaps the greatest progress has been made in the areas of theory and method. We have learned much in the last decade about interaction and language use and how to examine and describe these two topics. Two common features in the research considered here point to the advance and interplay of theory and method. First, all the studies looked at language in context. They have sampled natural language in context, examining natural language as it occurs. In addition, all their sampling procedures have involved the use of some recording device, either audiotape, videotape, or film. In this way, a permanent record of interactions and language use is available for repeated record viewing or listening. For instance, in Erickson and Schultz's (1981) method, analysts mayvfewvideotapes scores of times in the course of an analysis. Second, by using more than one microphone, camera, or a combination, different perspectives on the same interaction are included. Consider the field worker's entries in the Hall and Guthrie studies (Guthrie, 1981; Hall & Guthrie, 1981).

As for the question of language discontinuity on a cultural level, much of the recent research points in the direction of the cultural mismatch hypothesis. The work described here suggests that cultural differences in language use do exist; the difficulty lies in identifying them. Because these differences are subtle and largely unconscious they are not available to the casual, or even interested, observer. The complexities of human language and interaction are such that sophisticated ways of examining these phenomena must be employed. We feel that the research reviewed here has taken significant strides toward that goal.

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