Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School

by Ben Rampton

Overview

The study of teenagers in the classroom, and how they interact with one another and their teachers, can tell us a great deal about late-modern society. In this revealing account, Ben Rampton presents the extensive sociolinguistic research he carried out in an inner-city high school. Through his vivid analysis of classroom talk, he offers answers to some important questions: does social class still count for young people, or is it in demise? Are traditional authority relationships in schools being undermined? How is this affected by popular media culture? His study, which provides numerous transcripts and three extensive case studies, introduces a way of perceiving established ideas in sociolinguistics, such as identity, insecurity, the orderliness of classroom talk, and the experience of learning at school. In doing so, Rampton shows how work in sociolinguistics can contribute to some major debates in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521011976
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/26/2008
Series:	Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics , #22
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ben Rampton is Professor of Applied and Sociolinguistics at Kings College London.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; Part I. Urban Classroom Discourse: 2. Talk in class at Central High; 3. Popular culture in the classroom; Part II. Performances of Deutsch: 4. Deutsch in improvised performance; 5. Ritual in the instruction and inversion of German; Part III. The Stylization of Social Class: 6. Language and class I: theoretical orientations; 7. Language and class II: empirical preliminaries; 8. Schooling, class and stylization; 9. Classed subjectives in interaction; Part IV. Methodological Reflections: 10. Reflections on generalization, theory and knowledge construction.

Editorial Reviews

"a beautifully-realized work of mature scholarship and highly readable...One could hand the book to a student and say, without much exaggeration, 'Read this, and then follow up the sources, and you will be a fully formed socio linguist'. It is a spectacular book, and the ambition proclaimed in its title, that the work will be relevant far beyond the world of classroom ethnography in which it is centered, is very much justified in its content"
The Journal of Sociolinguistics

"It is difficult to do justice to this book in one review. It is complex, lucidly written ... a major contribution to the field"
British Journal of Sociology of Education

"Combining interactional analysis with capacious theoretical argument, it exemplifies the best tradition of ethnography sociolinguistics..."
Journal of Anthropological Research

From the Publisher