Bernstein - Restricted code and Elaborated code (1971)

Bernstein: Language and Social Class – Restricted code and Elaborated code 

–          Rather than distinguishing between Standard English and Regional Dialect, a distinction which carries an inherent bias towards the former, Bernstein wanted to look at language variation in a different way
–          Bernstein came up with the terms Restricted code and Elaborated code in order to distinguish between what he saw as two distinct ways of using language as opposed to the two distinct dialects of Standard English and the Regional Dialect
–          The Elaborated code has a more formally correct syntax, having more subordinate clauses and fewer unfinished sentences. There are also more logical connectives like “if” and “unless”, as well as more originality and more explicit reference
–          The restricted code has a looser syntax, uses more words of simple coordination like “and” and “but”, there are more clichés, and more implicit reference so there are a greater number of pronouns than the elaborated code
–          The codes should not be confused with social dialects because there is nothing in a dialect to inhibit explicit statements of individual feeling or opinion. While dialects are identified by their formal features, and by who their speakers are, codes are identified by the kinds of meaning they transmit and by what the words are used to do.
–          An elaborated code arises where there is a gap or boundary between speaker and listener which can only be crossed by explicit speech.
–          A restricted code arises when speech is exchanged against a background of shared experience and shared definitions of that experience; it realises meanings that are already shared rather than newly created, communal rather than individual. The speech is “context dependent” because participants rely on their background knowledge to supply information not carried by the actual words they use.
–          Whilst the elaborated code is used to convey facts and abstract ideas, the restricted code is used to convey attitude and feeling.
–          The elaborated code is the one which, in the adult language, would be generally associated with formal situations, the restricted code that associated with informal situations.
–          E.g. Two five-year-old children, one working-class and one middle-class, were shown a series of three pictures, which involved boys playing football and breaking a window. They described the events involved as follows:
(1) Three boys are playing football and one boy kicks the ball and it goes through the window and the bail breaks the window and the boys are looking at it and a man comes out and shouts at them because they’ve broken the window so they run away and then that lady looks out of her window and she tells the boys off.
(2) They’re playing football and he kicks it and it goes through there it breaks the window and they’re looking at it and he comes out and shouts at them because they’ve broken it so they run away and then she looks out and she tells them off.
–          In the earlier articles it was implied that middle-class children generally use the elaborated code (although they might sometimes use the restricted code), whereas working-class children have only the restricted code. But Bernstein later modified this viewpoint to say that even working-class children might sometimes use the elaborated code; the difference between the classes is said to lie rather in the occasions on which they can use the codes (e.g. working-class children certainly have difficulty in using the elaborated code in school). Moreover, all children can understand both codes when spoken to them.
–          As well as avoiding the negative and positive stereotypes associated with regional Dialect and Standard English, Bernstein wanted to understand when either code would be used as well as the advantages conferred on the speakers through using one or other of the codes.
–          In situations where you don’t know the person you are speaking to and there is little shared knowledge, most speakers, regardless of class or level of education, will default to a variety of the elaborated code, as it is necessary to getting the message across. However, where there is a lot of shared knowledge between interlocutors who are known to each other, the restricted code is far more efficient, eliding unnecessary grammatical constructions and logical connectives as well as the tiresome formulations of “polite conversation”.
–          The question is then: when to use the elaborated code? Is it that middle class children are better judges of when to use which code, or that they are trained to automatically default to the elaborated code? Or is it the case that Working Class children aren’t fully comfortable with or knowledgeable of the elaborated code?
–          This way of looking at the matter can make us look at the John Honey Standard English Debate in a new light. If its not a question of teaching one dialect over any other (Standard English over the local dialect), then who could disagree with the need to teach all children the code they need for professional/working life?
–          Might there be another issue with the elaborated code in the minds of the lower class children? Might this way of speaking, be seen as somehow “other” and not of their place or lives? Just as Standard English and Received Pronunciation might have negative connotations, and the local dialect have covert prestige, might not the restricted code be seen as distinctive of their group identity?
–          However, if both codes have a neutral value but are used without prejudice in different contexts by all levels of society and all ages, how can we account for society’s use of how people speak to label them and subjugate them?
–          Is there some kind of ‘cognitive deficit’ in an inability to use the elaborated code, and thereby to think logically? Labov (1969) has argued that young blacks in the United States, although using language which certainly seems an example of the restricted code, nevertheless display a clear ability to argue logically. One example quoted by Labov is a boy talking about what happens after death:
You know, like some people say if you’re good an’ shit, your spirit goin’ t’heaven…’n’ if you bad, your spirit goin’ to hell. Well, bullshit! Your spirit goin’ to hell anyway, good or bad. (Why?) Why! I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause, you see, doesn’t nobody really know that it’s a God, y’know, ’cause I mean I have seen black gods, pink gods, white gods, all color gods, and don’t nobody know it’s really a God. An’ when they be sayin’ if you good, you goin’ t’heaven, tha’s bullshit, ’cause you ain’t goin’ to no heaven, ’cause it ain’t no heaven for you to go to.
The speaker is here setting out ‘a complex set of interdependent propositions’; ‘he can sum up a complex argument in a few words, and the full force of his opinions comes through without qualification or reservation’.
–          In addition Labov notes the common faults of so-called middle-class speech: ‘Our work in the speech community makes it painfully obvious that in many ways working-class speakers are more effective narrators, reasoners, and debaters than many middle-class speakers who temporize, qualify, and lose their argument in a mass of irrelevant detail.’ There is no clear relationship between language and logical thought.
–          Cazden (1970) showed that lower class 10 year olds needed much more prompting to give sufficient information for the interviewer to identify a picture from among a selection. The lack of explicit speech, giving clear information, seemed to support Bernstein’s theory.
–          Bernstein says that lower working class children do not use elaborated speech at all, whereas others prefer to say that differences lie in the degree to which elaborated language is used. Also it is unclear that the ability to use elaborated speech in one type of situation guarantees its successful usage in other types.