Craig,

Here is what I find so frustrating with your claims. 

Here is the initial comment I responded to.  

>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 2/3/2009 1:38 PM >>>
           
>    Are we to assume that children in an inner city neighborhood will
> develop language in the same way as the suburban kids, even though it's
> quite apparent that the cultural context and the languages themselves
> might differ remarkably? If we believe there's a "natural order", a
> "universal order", we may end up with deficit models that are
> misleading.

And, I responding with the following:

> ****
> What  is the cultural context and the language that might make them differ
> in remarkable ways?
>
> I have no idea what cultural context would result in a kind of English
> that would be remarkably different.
>
> Could someone provide examples?

Now you tell us.  

I don't think we should reduce this to a discussion of forms. At what point does the child learn copula deletion? The same time a suburban kid is learning something else? At what points is it appropriate and at what points is it not?  If  we simply code switch (something some kids never have to learn to do), are they really adequate translations or is something very different being conveyed? Would code switching get in the way of other development? Does it take longer to learn the language patterns in two worlds than it would for one? 

**
If not forms, then what are you writing about?

I find this observation really interesting:

Lisa Delpit gives as an example of miscommunication the suburban teacher telling a child "Jimmy, would you like to put your crayons away now?" When the kid goes on using them, the teacher sees him as a discipline problem. At what point do we learn that a polite request is really an order? Delpit, by the way, makes a strong case for explicit teaching of language to inner city children for exactly these reasons, though she says African-American parents and educators aren't taken seriously when they try to have a role in these decisions. What seems natural to one group won't be natural to another. 

****
Is the claim here that ONLY kids from the inner city don't know that a question can be a polite request?  

Are you sure about that?  I just don't believe it.  Of course, if the kid didn't put the crayon away, the kid answered the real question: NO, I would not like to put the crayon away. 

Is Delpit making the claim that from this ONE example that suburban kids always recognize the question as an indirect request? Are you drawing a conclusion about a difference between suburban kids and inner city kids from ONE example?

Wow!

By the way, all of your examples deal with FORMS.  

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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