Basil Bernstein - Restricted and elaborated codes

Basil Bernstein was a British sociologist known for his work in the sociology of education.
His theory was that the working class speak a 'restricted code' in comparison to middle class who speak in the 'elaborated code'
In the case of an elaborated code, the speaker will select from a relatively extensive range of alternatives … In the case of a restricted code the number of these alternatives is often severely limited … On a psychological level the codes may be distinguished by the extent to which each facilitates (elaborated code) or inhibits (restricted code) an orientation to symbolize intent in a verbally explicit form.

Pragmatic Development - Jess and Dad conversation response.

In this piece, the father misinterprets instrumental language for representation according to Halliday. When Jess says "book" dad thinks she is labelling when she is in fact requesting to be read to. During the conversation she is answering, responding and labelling.

If Jess had full adult abilities of speech she would say:

"Dad I want you to read me the book"
"No dad, READ me the book, I know that's a book!"
"Yes read me the god damn book please dad."
"Yes there are some horses, and a dog, we saw Jim's dog in the shop."
"Yeah that's like Jim's dog, the one we saw in the shop."
"A sheep says baa, yes"

Jess, if had adult ability of speech, would be becoming frustrated with her dad for misinterpreting what she says, and his current repetition. The father is consistently reinforcing her knowledge of words and places.

Analysing Child Language Acquisition

As soon as a child is born, he/she is introduced to spoken language and gestures. Although crying is universal, it is still a use of immediate communication, and the child quickly learns that crying receives attention and response from their caregiver. Through hearing speech and being interacted with, a child will learn sounds. 

15 months:

• Bye Mummy
• Isee
• Allgone

 At 15 months, a child is over a year old, and becoming very familiar with phonemes and words. The use of "Bye Mummy" is interactional and personal; the child is beginning to make relationships through speech. During the process of a 15 month old child experimenting with sounds and words, they learn how to imitate sounds they hear others making. 
"Isee" and "Allgone" are examples of Packaging as identified by Jean Aitchison in 1987 - where children are beginning to understand a range of meaning, but making errors, they are network building and making connections between words, but have not yet identified that the two words are separate.

20 months:

• All fall down
• Teddy tired
• Gone, where Mummy gone?
• More juice

At 20 months, children are beginning to understand syntactical development, they order words into phrases and use words for different functions. "More juice" and "teddy tired" are examples of the two word stage, usually used around 18-24 months, developing on the holophrastic stage to make a phrase out of a word, they are using two words in the correct order to gain a response. The child is beginning to understand the use of interrogative sentence, they are associating the term "where" with a question phrase.


28 months

• Teddy's hat came off
• Harry's got a big, big green truck

At 28 months, a child is over 2 years old, and developing their speech rapidly. The phrase "Teddy's hat came off" makes sense and is a main clause sentence. The use of the inflection "s" on the end of "Teddy" and "Harry" shows the child is starting to understand tense and belonging. The child uses the indefinite article "a" before the adjective of "big" which the child repeats as a form of emphasis, as their vocabulary is not yet widened to synonyms of the term "big".

  36 months

• Little Luke hit me, he did
• I am going to see Harriet another day tomorrow
• I don't like faces, I want to see children's ITV

By 36 months, the child is most likely to be in the post-telegraphic stage, using much more first person pronoun (in the correct sentence structure).