Professor ELINOR OCHS on

‘THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF FAMILIES: A VIEW FROM LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY’.

Date: Friday 26 June 2009, 10.30-5.00

Venue: King’s College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building

Room 1/1, Waterloo Bridge Wing, Waterloo Road, London SE1 9NH

ELINOR OCHS is UCLA Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Applied Linguistics, and Director of the UCLA Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families, a cross-disciplinary centre which examines how members of middle class working families create a home life through culturally and situationally organized social interactions.  Among a range of foundational contributions to research on language and culture, Ochs co-pioneered the field of language socialization, drawing on fieldwork in the US, Samoa, Italy and Madagascar to understand how novices are apprenticed through and into socio-culturally organized communicative practices.

In this Masterclass, Professor Ochs will address some fundamental principles in the analyses that she has pioneered, primarily focusing on the middle class family unit in 21st Century USA.

Professor PIA CHRISTENSEN, Professor of Anthropology and Childhood Studies at Warwick University, will act as discussant.

Places are limited, and so if you would like to attend, please apply asap on this form, posting it with a cheque for £30 (£15 for students) to

Christina Leong

ELC Administrator, Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication

King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building

Room 1/1, Waterloo Bridge Wing

Waterloo Road, London SE1 9NH

Professor RAY McDERMOTT on

'INTERACTION, CULTURE & INEQUALITY: SEEING THE UNIVERSE IN A GRAIN OF SAND'

Date: 14 March 2009

Venue: Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAL Committee Room 1, 10.30-5.00

Ray McDermott is Professor of Education and Anthropology at Stanford University.  He takes a broad interest in the analysis of human communication and the organization of culture and ideology, including school success and failure.

In this data-focused masterclass, he will outline fundamental principles of the kind of analysis he has pioneered, and lead a data-focused workshop. Among other works, Professor McDermott is author of classic texts such as 'Inarticulateness' (1988), 'On the necessity of collusion in conversation' (with H. Tylbor, 1983), 'Social contexts for ethnic borders and school failure' (with K Gospodinoff 1979), and 'Successful Failure: The School America Builds'
(with H. Varenne 1998).  The workshop will focus on data from an adult literacy class, marriage therapy session, and/or an afterschool club.

Places are limited, and so if you would like to attend, please apply asap using the registration form, posting it with a cheque for £30 (£15 for students) to

Izna Haider, ELC Administrator

Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication

King's College London

Franklin-Wilkins Building, Room 1/1

Waterloo Bridge Wing Waterloo Road

London SE1 9NH