Tell Grandma what you did

Middle-class parents are much more likely to ask their children to display their knowledge (“Tell Grandma what you did on Sunday”) than working-class children. The child is used to being asked questions to which the questioner obviously knows the answer. This kind of question is used in language tests as well. As a consequence, middle-class children can manage them much better. In addition, an interviewer speaking with a middle-class accent is more likely to remind the middle-class child of a relative or acquaintance, whereas working-class children associate this accent with welfare workers and government officials – and keep a low profile, responding largely with monosyllabic words. The testing conditions are not the same for all children. (Holmes, Janet: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Harlow, England: Pearson Longman, ³2008: 423)