 As a sociocultural linguist, Bucholtz has focused on researching how language is used in interactional contexts to create identity and culture and contribute to issues of social power.In the late 1990s, Bucholtz began ethnographic work on the ways adolescents and pre-adolescents construct identity.Her research extended the work of Penelope Eckert, who identified three adolescent social categories (Jocks, Burnouts, and In-betweens) concerned with pursuing "coolness."