9-03 ?s

· What patterns did you see among the Language Investigations you wrote and read?
A pattern that I saw was that many of us reflected on words or phrases that were used to connote an affectionate meaning to other family members. Also, the blogs that I read discussed how food and language intersected in her family, which was an intersection I also wrote about.

· What do these patterns reveal about language and its conventions in family contexts?
I think these patterns reveal that in the blogs I read, all three of us have words that are used to build togetherness and unity in our family ranks. Also, I think they showed that people like food.

· Thinking about these Language Investigations in conjunction with what you’ve read so far in Lives on the Boundary, what does it mean to be an “insider” in terms of language? What questions and issues do your conclusions raise for you as a future teacher?
If you know the jargon of a certain discourse, then you are "in". If you have no knowledge of the jargon of a certain discourse, then you may feel dumb or left out, when really all that is going on is that certain words (unfamiliar words) may just be standing in for other words (which are familiar to you). I think what sometimes can happen is that people are led to feel stupid when they can't understand what someone is saying, when in reality they just need to study the vocabulary. It is not that they can't learn it, so much as it is a matter of not having been exposed to it.