TY - BOOK ID - 33235259 TI - Gifted tongues PY - 2001 SN - 0691074496 069107450X 140081409X 9786613133298 1283133296 1400824192 9781400814091 9781400824199 9780691074504 9781283133296 PB - Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press DB - UniCat KW - Developmental psychology KW - Age group sociology KW - Higher education KW - United States KW - Debates and debating. KW - Argumentation KW - Speaking KW - Elocution KW - Forensics (Public speaking) KW - Public speaking KW - Rhetoric KW - Discussion KW - Oratory KW - United States of America UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:33235259 AB - Learning to argue and persuade in a highly competitive environment is only one aspect of life on a high-school debate team. Teenage debaters also participate in a distinct cultural world--complete with its own jargon and status system--in which they must negotiate complicated relationships with teammates, competitors, coaches, and parents as well as classmates outside the debating circuit. In Gifted Tongues, Gary Alan Fine offers a rich description of this world as a testing ground for both intellectual and emotional development, while seeking to understand adolescents as social actors. Considering the benefits and drawbacks of the debating experience, he also recommends ways of reshaping programs so that more high schools can use them to boost academic performance and foster specific skills in citizenship. Fine analyzes the training of debaters in rapid-fire speech, rules of logical argumentation, and the strategic use of evidence, and how this training instills the core values of such American institutions as law and politics. Debates, however, sometimes veer quickly from fine displays of logic to acts of immaturity--a reflection of the tensions experienced by young people learning to think as adults. Fine contributes to our understanding of teenage years by encouraging us not to view them as a distinct stage of development but rather a time in which young people draw from a toolkit of both childlike and adult behaviors. A well-designed debate program, he concludes, nurtures the intellect while providing a setting in which teens learn to make better behavioral choices, ones that will shape relationships in their personal, professional, and civic lives. ER -