Social Class Differences in Language Development: A Study of Some Samples of Written Work

Abstract

In earlier studies of social class and speech systems Bernstein (1958, 1960, 1961, 1962 a, b) has suggested three main areas of linguistic difference between middle-class and lower working-class boys: (1) In working-class samples particular relationships were found to exist between verbal and non-verbal I.Q. scores: the verbal scores tended to be grossly depressed in relation to the scores obtained at the higher ranges of the non-verbal test. (2) Class differences in modes of verbal expression are not only lexical but also grammatical, in the sense that working-class speech is selected from a narrower range of alternative structures. (3) The two different speech systems were considered to be generated through the use of different verbal planning procedures. These procedures differed not only in syntactic selection but also in the mean pause duration per word. The theoretical basis of these studies is the postulated existence of two linguistic codes: Restricted and Elaborated, the lower working-class tending to be confined to a Restricted Code whereas the middle-class switch from one to another according to the context. The purpose of the following experiment was to test the theory that use of the Restricted and Elaborated Codes would be associated with social class; to discover whether the indices of these codes would be found in samples of written work; and to see whether these linguistic indices changed during the first four years at a secondary school.