This article, which focuses on speech differences of age groups, is part of a larger study of occupational jargon, its characteristics and underlying features and the part it plays in reflecting the workers' knowledge of their jobs and their attitudes toward jobs in general. The project incorporated a case method of research in a china factory. The plant was examined as a speech community using personal and participant observations as well as interviews. Informants were selected by seniority category and departmental affiliation; then their social characteristics and the background of the factory and community were explored. A specially structured reading isolated the regional dialect of the informants and a questionnaire, presented in a conversational manner, probed the workers' environments and their definitions of them. Photographs were used to help the workers identify work-related material and to promote free narrative during the interview. The above techniques were used to observe the linguistic and social behavior of people at work and to help formulate operational procedures for future studies of this kind. (Author/CHK)