As W. Labov has passed away, I came across a comment reposting this screenshotted request, along with the paper in question:
https://betsysneller.github.io/pdfs/Labov1966-Rabbit.pdf
The paper is quite a rollercoaster, ranging from describing of disturbingly racist ideas about native Hawaiian and Black children that some scientists still pushed at the time (1970!*), to Labov’s own disarmingly cute and humane solution to the issue of testing children’s language abilities.
Edit: *1970 - according to the article itself, which is apparently based on Labov’s 1970 talk; however, the URL suggests that the article was published in 1966, which is contradictory. I’ll try to find out where and when this was actually published…
Edit 2: It looks like it is from 1970, from Working Papers in Communication, vol. 1 (Honolulu: Pacific Speech Association). It is surprising that a recently published book also claims that it’s from 1966, probably the authors got the file from the same URL with the wrong year.
Edit 3: The original Twitter thread: https://xcancel.com/betsysneller/status/1516848959284678656
Reminds me too much of “children are like fig trees, they grow during times of (heat) stress”. Unfortunately that leads to a lot of parents being unnecessarily strict with their children.
When in reality, kids (really people of all ages) grow when challenged. It doesn’t have to be through trauma.
Well I can tell from my own experience that’s not the case; the times i was unnecessarily “challenged” are the worst times in my life that have inflicted the gravest of emotional damages that i still have to deal with. i prefer peace over challenges, but unfortunately my parents didn’t seem to care about what i want.