Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms - Hardcover

Heath, Shirley Brice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521253349 ISBN 13: 9780521253345

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1983

Synopsis

Ways with Words, first published in 1983, is a classic study of children learning to use language at home and at school in two communities only a few miles apart in the south-eastern United States. 'Roadville' is a white working-class community of families steeped for generations in the life of textile mills; 'Trackton' is an African-American working-class community whose older generations grew up farming the land, but whose existent members work in the mills. In tracing the children's language development the author shows the deep cultural differences between the two communities, whose ways with words differ as strikingly from each other as either does from the pattern of the townspeople, the 'mainstream' blacks and whites who hold power in the schools and workplaces of the region. Employing the combined skills of ethnographer, social historian, and teacher, the author raises fundamental questions about the nature of language development, the effects of literacy on oral language habits, and the sources of communication problems in schools and workplaces.

About this title

Book Description

This unique social document records the intricate processes of language learning and language interaction in two working-class communities of the Piedmont Carolinas, one white and one black.

From the Back Cover

Ways with Words is a classic study of children learning to use language at home and at school in two communities only a few miles apart in the southeastern United States. 'Roadville' is a white working-class community of families steeped for generations in the life of textile mills; 'Trackton' is a black working-class community whose older generations grew up farming the land but whose current members work in the mills. In tracing the children's language development the author shows the deep cultural differences between the two communities, whose ways with words differ as strikingly from each other as either does from the pattern of the townspeople, the 'mainstream' blacks and whites who hold power in the schools and workplaces of the region.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1983
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521253349
• ISBN 13: 9780521253345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 434