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| Date: | Fri, 2 Feb 2001 20:38:41 -0500 |
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What research is this statistic based on? And how is "working vocabulary"
defined? How was the research conducted?
How did researches determine what a "working vocabulary" was 50 years ago,
and which population of 14 year olds did they look at? Middle class white?
Working class white? Working class blacks? A large number of 14 year olds
dropped out of school 50 years ago to work the family farm. And compulsory
education laws were not in effect in many southern states 50 years ago.
Could this be just another instance of the older generation thinking the
younger generation is going to hell in a handbasket? Seems to me
Plato/Socrates complained about his students being dimwitted and unable to
express themselves. And could this be a case of not privileging or
acknowledging new additions to the 14 year old's lexicon that displace some
of the more staid expressions of a previous generation?
Nancy
At 06:15 PM 2/1/01 -0600, you wrote:
>
>David Orr, "Verbicide"
>American Educator,
>Winter 2000-2001
>p. 26
>
>"In the past fifty years...the working vocabulary of the average 14 year
old has declined from some 25,000 words to 10,000 word."
><HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV><BR>David Orr,
"Verbicide"<BR><U>American</U> <U>Educator</U>,</DIV> <DIV>Winter
2000-2001</DIV> <DIV>p. 26</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"In the past fifty
years...the working vocabulary of the average 14 year old has declined from
some 25,000 words to 10,000 word."</DIV> <DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
>
Nancy G. Patterson
Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
Portland, MI 48875
"The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumberable centers of
culture."
--Roland Barthes
[log in to unmask]
http://www.msu.edu/user/patter90/opening.htm
http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html
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