ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents the phenomenon of a specific language that was spoken within the walls of a maximum security prison in the south-east of England between 2006 and 2007. Examining the social structures that the language enforced, he examines his own role within and outside the prisoners language, and explores what the prisoners learned from him and from his language, and vice versa. The author explores the nature of learning a language inside a prison, and examines the need for a homogeneity of language and the social adhesive in the language used. He looks at his experience of one-to-one teaching vs. group teaching: specifically, the differences in the language used by the prisoners in these different scenarios, and tried to determine to what extent language comes from outside influences and to what extent it forms and permutates inside.
