Abstract
This chapter is concerned with the influence of social background on the child’s use of language, particularly the influence of the mother. Undoubtedly, the most challenging — and the most challenged — theorising in this area is that of Bernstein, with his wide-ranging code theory. As a theory of cultural reproduction and social production, Bernstein’s central concern is with the transmission/acquisition process. If one thinks of Bernstein’s early detailed work on maternal strategies of control (Bernstein and Cook-Gumperz, 1973; CookGumperz, 1973; Turner, 1973), it is probably true to say that the early work was more explicit on transmission than acquisition. Bern-stein’s (1981; 1987; 1990c) later work has paid much more attention to the linking of transmission and acquisition. Commenting on the earlier work, Bernstein (1990a: 3) writes: It was not clear how codes are acquired. There was a gap between the process of transmission and the process of acquisition. Bernstein’s (1990c) recent volume constitutes a significant reformulation of the code theory, in which the concepts of classification and framing (originally used by Bernstein (1971c; 1975) with respect to educational knowledge) have been assimilated into the sociolinguistic theory and are used as linking elements between the transmitter and the acquirer.
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