MOTHERS’ “MUSEUM-TALK”: SOCIALIZATION THROUGH FAMILIAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ART

Abstract

In this study, we observe the language behavior of parents as they accompany their young children (approximately ages 7-10 years) on a visit to the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Cross-cultural study of language socialization practices – those practices that are see within a community as providing children with knowledge of how to be competent communicators in that community – has revealed important patterns of variation between different communities of speakers. And here we hope to investigate language socialization practices in a particular context: the museum. The context of the Art Museum has strong and specific cultural meaning in the US, and is a site of very powerful but often-implied expectations for appropriate behavior, and speech type, whether that is in volume, action, or in vocabulary/subject matter. Specifically the investigation aims to identify the role that a parent assumes within this institutional context with their young school-aged child, and how these roles are reflected via language solidifying a type of ‘museum-talk’. For example, the role of a bystander might be possible, but parents may alternatively take on the role of an educator, or translator.