Basil Bernstein argues that speech events bear class characteristics, and different social classes exhibit different linguistic typologies, coding and meaning. Although working-class language is characterized as a closed code in terms of its language structure, it possesses unique educational power, specifically manifesting as its unique meanings…

As universities in the Anglophone world attend to operating on a global stage, linguistic diversity in the sector has intensified. Historically, higher education has adopted language-as-problem orientations to managing linguistic diversity, viewing multilingual repertoires largely as an obstacle. An emerging body of work informed by…

In this paper we investigate the effect of variable input on the acquisition of grammar. More specifically, we examine the acquisition of the third person singular marker -s on the auxiliary "do" in comprehension and production in two groups of children who are exposed to similar varieties of English but that differ with respect to adult…

Basil Bernstein (1971) introduced the notion of the Restricted and the Elaborated code, claiming that working-class speakers have access only to the former but middle-class members to both. In an attempt to test this theory in the Iranian context and to investigate the effect of social class on the quality of students language use, we examined the…

Sociolinguists have been fighting dialect prejudice since the 1960s, but deficit views of non-standard English are regaining currency in educational discourse. In this paper I argue that the traditional sociolinguistic response--stressing dialect systematicity and tolerance of "difference"--may no longer be effective by questioning a key…

Young people's perceptions may offer an insight into the complex associations between language, education and social class. However, little research has asked young people what they think of their own talking. Forty-two British adolescents aged between 14 and 15 years were interviewed: 21 attended a school in a working class area; 21 attended…

The prestige accorded to standard language varieties, particularly within the field of education, together with language management role of schools with respect to the variety and the extent to which linguistic differences construct discontinuous relationships between the school and specific social groups provide the rationale for this paper. This…

At one time, academic inquiries into the relationship between socioeconomic class and language acquisition were commonplace, but the past 20 years have seen a decrease in work that focuses on the intersection between class and early language learning. Recently, however, against the backdrop of the No Child Left Behind legislation in the United…

Addresses the issue of diverse literacies and the problems of privileging a dominant form of literacy at the expense of those from non-mainstream cultures. Illustrates how the literacy practices of working-class families and communities can be incorporated into learning programs. Stresses the need to legitimate the vernacular literacies of the…

This article focuses on "gheada," a phonetic feature characteristic of certain areas of Galicia (Spain), unknown in Castilian and Portuguese, consists of the pronunciation of /g/ ([g], [y]) as [h]. This phonetic innovation, which is widespread in Western Galicia, has been traditionally stigmatized as a sign of rusticity and lack of…

Examines the variable distribution of word-final consonant devoicing (WFCD) among working-class speakers in the Roubaix district of northern France. WFCD is shown to affect coronals, labials, and velars in that order and to be favored by prepausal position. WFCD is primarily associated with female speakers over age 45. (40 references) (MDM)

A study combining qualitative and quantitative research methods (a direct survey) investigated the attitudes of 75 working class individuals in Glasgow, Scotland toward differences in the speech of older or younger people and in the speech of the opposite sex. Results indicate that dialect lexis loss was neither as thorough nor as abrupt as older…