" . . . carefully researched and clearly written . . . Goodwin makes a major step in redefining the enterprise of studying language use in context and across contexts." -American Ethnologist
"I recommend the book highly." -John Haviland, American Anthropologist
"Goodwin's thoughtful interpretation of these examples [of children's conversation] is replete with wise insights, challenging critical darts, and well-referenced links to a wide literature." -Child Development Abstracts undefined she didn't just take field notes. She hung around with the children in her neighborhood until they trusted her, then tape-recorded their natural conversations as they played together. This is Goodwin's long-awaited compilation of years of painstaking analysis of the transcripts of those tapes. It is not only one of the best sources, if not the best source, for anyone interested in how boys and girls use language in their daily lives-indeed, to constitute their daily lives; it is also a model ethnographic study of language in its natural setting." -Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
This groundbreaking study describes in detail the complexities of children's communication. By integrating the analysis of conversation with ethnography, Marjorie Harness Goodwin systematically and empirically reveals how a group of urban black children constitute their social world through talk.
