Influence of Social Class/Groups on how we speak: Bernstein Flashcards
What did Bernstein ask his students to describe?
An image of 3 boys kicking a football through a window and a man coming out to investigate
Which social class of students were not doing as well in Bernsteins lessons?
Working class
Which social class of students were doing well in his lessons?
Middle class
How did the working class students describe the image around their friends?
They used a more basic and context dependent description
How did the working class students describe the image when by themselves?
They used a more basic and context dependent description
How did the middle class students describe the image around their friends?
They used relatively simple language which was context based with the image
How did the middle class students describe the image when by themselves?
They used more complex language
What concept did Bernstein create from his study?
Codes of language
What code did the middle class students speak in?
Elaborated code
What code did the working class students only speak in?
Restricted code
What code did the middle class students speak in when they were describing the image to their friends
Restricted code
What do middle class students have the ability to do which working class students do not with their way of speaking?
Code-switch
What is code-switching?
Where you’re able to go from one dialect code to another
Why were middle class students more likely to succeed due to how they spoke?
Because the elaborated code was also required in answering exam questions
When did Bernstein do his study?
1971
