Code-switching is examined in oral narratives of 30 African-American women as they switched from Standard English to Black English Vernacular. A little over half of the speakers assign positive values to their code switches. Examples are given from interviews with two subjects. (SLD)

Investigation of commonalities in children's language across tasks showed that children with literate and oral speech styles made both contrastive and similar types of adaptations when portraying events through play and oral narration. As they moved from playing to narrating, both groups edited more carefully and employed more explicit language.…

Provides a detailed linguistic-stylistic analysis of a seven-year-old black child's "sharing time" narrative, a narrative clearly in the oral rather than the literate style. Discusses the danger of oral style children (often minorities) appearing incoherent to the teacher and being given less (and poorer quality) instructional time and…

Two instances of teacher response, shaping, and evaluation of students' texts are analyzed. Although one text is oral, the other written, striking parallels in teacher-assigned task, text structure, and teacher-student interaction are noted. Explanations focus on schools as institutions and on the complex interpretive processes operating in urban,…

Examines class and ethnic differences in narrative style. Reviews recent research and outlines the basic differences between White middle-class narrative and the styles of various cultural groups. Explicates some of the uses of narrative in educational research and deals specifically with the educational implications of narrative differences. (CMG)