Abstract
Abstract.— Previous research on differences in language use in relation to social status have dealt almost exclusively with language production. The present study investigated the comprehension of connected discourse by 116 adult Danes from two different socio‐economic status groups, high status (HSES) and low status (LSES). On a task at the lexical level of comprehension (choosing between alternatives to two words in each of four texts) there appeared no differences between HSES and LSES subjects. At the structural level a difference (p<0.05) was found in drawing conclusions from the texts, but the groups nevertheless agreed completely (p<0.05) in underlining important segments of the texts. Thus the symmetry between production and comprehension hypothesized by Bernstein did not appear. The results are interpreted in accordance with a general model of language processing. It is suggested that in the future more attention should be paid to variables other than the purely sociological variable of social status or social class.
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