Ways with Words

Everything in Its Right Place

Charlin Bailey, Nicholas Magliato, Martha Romero

The community of Roadville is deeply rooted in traditional values, gender roles, and ways of learning.  Its people are white, working class miners who strongly believe in the way and word of God, as well as passing His teachings on to the next generation.  Even before the birth of a baby, parents prepare for the arrival with a baby shower – a longstanding tradition that has remained unchanged for nearly half a century.  Close friends and family members, or a few select “kin folk”, bring gifts depending on the sex of the baby – dolls for girls, toy trucks for boys.  From the earliest stages of infancy, a sharp distinction between the sexes is drawn to distinguish their role in society. 

Community members value routine and “rightness” in their daily lives.  At the early stages of infancy, mothers use “baby-talk” with their children to help them begin to name their world and recognize their surroundings.  By age two, mothers typically abandon this type of speech and begin to correct their children when they mispronounce a word, or use one incorrectly.  This corrective behavior is a type of direct learning in which the mothers help direct their children’s learning and language development.  The motivation behind the mothers’ teachings is to let their children know what is “right”, and further, how to adjust to life outside the home in the larger community. 

As children begin to age and enter the larger community, they continue their language learning through The Bible.  In the community, teaching language is consistent with the church.  Children memorize passages or psalms to recite and transcribe, testing their knowledge.  Those who can recite a passage verbatim are praised for their “rightness”, while those whom cannot are scorned for their failure.  Children learn not only how to talk, but how to learn – for instance, if a child accidently throws a ball through a neighbor’s window, breaking the glass, the child knows he/she should apologize, for it is the right thing to do, even though the child might not feel any sorrow for his/her actions.  Above all, there is a great sense of having everything in its right place and helping children sort and categorize all the parts of their community, society, and world. 

QUOTES

Charlin Bailey, Nicholas Magliato, Martha Romero

Family

“Roadville parents see themselves as responsible for “training” their preschool children, and they plan ways and means to provide what they regard as appropriate experiences before their children go to school.” (pg. 145) 

“For Roadville parents, there is no substitute for their role; children need parents to train them. Extended family and trusted friends may reinforce the teachings of parents, but the critical functions rest with parents.” (pg. 146)

Religion

“The rightness of their behaviors and beliefs is, in their minds, in line with their religious teachings and the precepts of the Bible.” (pg. 139)

“These memorizing tasks are graded in difficulty, so that the youngest children learn the names of Bible characters, words of songs such as “Jesus loves me”, and move on to short verses, books of the Bible, short passages, and whole chapters or psalms by the time they reach junior high age.” (pg. 140)

“For many of the practices and precepts the church holds for language, a parallel ideal is expressed by parents. The church insists on verbatim performance as a prime way of showing off knowledge; parents demand verbatim performance from their children at home as a way of showing their learning.” (pgs. 143-144)

Society

“Children who are too young to engage in cooperative play are often put together in playpens, and there they babble and monologue to themselves in parallel play. Their mothers often intervene and try to get the two children to talk to each other, for example, to talk about the sharing of a toy rather than to squeal and tug.” (pg. 124)

“They have learned to use language to acquire the knowledge their community has judged they should know at their age and they have learned appropriate ways of expressing that knowledge.” (pg. 145) – Trackton and Roadville

*Right

“Children come to know they must be careful about following directions on the links between words and behavior; if they “say it right,” they show they’ve “got it right,” and they themselves are, in turn, “right.” (pg. 144)

Other Concepts

·         traditional baby shower - representing the community values

·         baby talk to relay instructions and advice to new mothers - secondary message

·         word association that connects to their environment; applying a learned word to relatable objects (pg. 122)

·         word and sentence expansion - guided and controlled by adult (pg.124)

·         questions as directives to discipline

·         everything in its place - spaces having purpose (pg. 137)

·         memorization skills to demonstrate knowledge

·         expectations of language reinforce values (pg. 144)

Discussion Questions

1)      What is a parent’s role in the early stages of learning?

2)      What is the place of religion in learning? And how does it help or hinder learning and literacy?

3)      How does each community’s independent use of language affect their children?

- The community of Roadville is deeply rooted in traditional values, gender roles, and ways of learning. It provides a good example of how young children are able to learn what is and what is not culturally acceptable in their community.