Bernstein's ‘codes’ and the linguistics of ‘deficit’

Jones, Peter E.

doi:10.1080/09500782.2012.760587

Cited by 38 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…using metaphors and indirectness, not being verbally elaborate and relying on shared identities) (Bernstein, 1973; Gudykunst, 2004: 107–8). Although the validity and relevance of Bernstein’s analysis are contested (Jones, 2013; Pennycook, 2015), some socio-linguists argue that class (linked to social inequalities in education and income) continues to matter to language (Block, 2014; Duchêne et al, 2013; Vandrick, 2014). Therefore, intercultural and interethnic communication likely constitutes a greater challenge in low-skill than in high-skill workplaces.…”

Section: Ethnic Diversity At Work Social Capital and Intergroup Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic barriers and bridges: constructing social capital in ethnically diverse low-skill workplaces

Thuesen

2016

Work, Employment and Society

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The influence of language on social capital in low-skill and ethnically diverse workplaces has thus far received very limited attention within the sociology of work. As the ethnically diverse workplace is an important social space for the construction of social relations bridging different social groups, the sociology of work needs to develop a better understanding of the way in which linguistic diversity influences the formation of social capital (i.e. resources such as the trust and reciprocity inherent in social relations in such workplaces). Drawing on theories about intergroup contact and intercultural communication, this article analyses interviews with 31 employees from two highly ethnically diverse Danish workplaces. The article shows how linguistic barriers such as different levels of majority language competence and their consequent misunderstandings breed mistrust and hostility, while communication related to collaboration and 'small talk' may provide linguistic bridges to social capital formation.

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Section: Ethnic Diversity At Work Social Capital and Intergroup Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic barriers and bridges: constructing social capital in ethnically diverse low-skill workplaces

Thuesen

2016

Work, Employment and Society

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“…Indeed, all competent speakers shift degrees of explicitness depending on the rhetorical situation. Although Bernstein's argument is unconvincing, it is not, as is often claimed, a simple deficit model of communication (for a review and a recent example of this critique, see Jones, 2013). Bernstein always maintained working class children use restricted codes to communicate in rich, complex, and creative ways.…”

Section: Notementioning

confidence: 99%

A Bernsteinian Analysis of Content Area Literacy

Collin

2014

Journal of Literacy Research

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This article examines two approaches to teaching content area literacy: a strategies approach focused on general practices of reading and writing and a disciplinary approach attuned to the particular discourses of particular domains. Basil Bernstein's theory of the pedagogic device is used to critique both approaches' assumptions about content area literacy. Neither approach, it is argued, accounts for the ways content areas bring together discourses from multiple fields. The strategies approach, for instance, does not account for the ways literacies in different content areas are bound up with different discourses. The disciplinary approach, on the other hand, conflates content area discourses with university and professional discourses. At the same time, the disciplinary approach minimizes content area discourses' connections to the discourses of domains such as the public sphere and everyday life. At the end of the article, Bernstein's ideas are used to formulate questions content area teachers might consider when teaching different ways of reading, writing, speaking, thinking, and listening.One of the most productive debates currently underway in literacy studies revolves around content area literacies, or literacies used in secondary school math, science, social studies, and so forth. Parties to the debate argue over whether and how content area literacies should be taught as discrete sets of practices used in discrete communities. Some educators and researchers, including authors of popular texts on literacy instruction, emphasize continuities across content areas and promote common strategies for

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“…In a debate well‐known to sociolinguists regarding the characterization of different kinds of speech, Bernstein (: 186) stated: ‘One of the difficulties … is to avoid implicit value judgements about the relative worth of speech systems and the cultures which they symbolize’. It is not our intention here to detail the high profile arguments made by Bernstein and Labov around spoken language or the ways these were taken up (for a useful overview see Jones ; Stubbs ) but rather to signal the challenges they faced in attempting to characterize the talk of specific socially‐marked groups; the (British) working class and middle class in the case of Bernstein, and Black children and youth in the U.S., in the case of Labov. Bernstein grappled towards a language of description and lighted on two highly contested terms: elaborated and restricted codes .…”

Section: The Challenge Of Developing a Language Of Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The sociolinguistics of writing in a global context: Objects, lenses, consequences

Lillis

McKinney

2013

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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In this paper, we argue that writing has largely been ignored as a significant empirical object of study in sociolinguistics. Pointing to the consequences of the specific ways in which writing has been positioned historically within sociolinguistics, we discuss the need to re‐imagine writing as an object of study and problematize the dominant lenses through which writing is understood and analyzed. We draw on recent work to illustrate three key challenges that need to be addressed: firstly, to move beyond a default position on writing in terms of ‘standard’ and ‘error’; secondly, to extend the analytic gaze beyond a monomodal orientation towards writing; and thirdly to avoid the privileging of single moments and sites of production. We conclude by giving an overview of the papers in the special issue and the ways in which they seek to reorient sociolinguistics towards the study of writing.

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Bernstein's ‘codes’ and the linguistics of ‘deficit’

Cited by 38 publications

References 17 publications

Linguistic barriers and bridges: constructing social capital in ethnically diverse low-skill workplaces

Linguistic barriers and bridges: constructing social capital in ethnically diverse low-skill workplaces

A Bernsteinian Analysis of Content Area Literacy

The sociolinguistics of writing in a global context: Objects, lenses, consequences

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