The study reported in this monograph represents two years of data collection designed to explore the social meaning of language in naturalistic classroom settings. The first part of the book presents the framework within which the study was carried out. The first chapter explicates the framework provided by prior research on classroom language, while the second describes the design of the study as it took shape within that framework. The second part of the book presents both additional information on procedures used for data collection and analysis in each separate piece of the study and the findings. Among the topics discussed in these chapters are the meaning of language at home, at play, and at school; classroom differences in language use and language meaning; the interpretation of student attention and participation in discussions; the relationships of student status variables and classroom language factors to success; and student language in play settings. The final part of the book considers possible meanings of the study's results for researchers and for classroom teachers. (HOD)