Author's Acknowledgements Publisher's Acknowledgements PART I: DISCOURSES OF CHILDHOOD Introduction to Part I 1. Children in the news (1): threatened, protected, active 2. Children in the news (2): the idea of the child 3. Children in the English language PART II: PERSPECTIVES ON CHILDREN, LANGUAGE AND THE SOCIAL WORLD Introduction to Part II 4. Perpectives on researching cihldren and language 5. Perspectives on language, identity and the social world PART III: CHILDREN'S TALK Introduction to Part III 6. The social status of 'child' in informal talk 7. Blurred boundaries: speaking to children, speaking as a child 8.

Children's negotiations of the social world PART IV 9. Conclusions and implications References Index.