My thoughts on Bernstein

What a huge workshop. My brain feels fuzzy after looking at this the second time. I remember some of the ideas from the first time doing this unit, but now that I have to sit through them again, I am still trying to come to an understanding of Basil Bernstein’s elaborated and restricted code. I guess the best way for me to learn it and know it, is for me to write about it.

So this is my understanding of Bernstein’s ideas written in this short post.

So this guy, Basil Bernstein developed this theory to explain the relatively lower language subject performance of students in poorer socio-economic areas. Bernstein puts forward two ideas: Restricted code, and elaborated code.

Restricted code: this does mean that students have restricted use of words. An example given in the workshop shows the written interpretation of a picture by students who are using the restricted code. The students who are using the restricted code explained the set of events with minimal explanation and reproduction of the ideas.

"They're playing football
and he kicks it and it goes through there


it breaks the window and they're looking at it


and he comes out 


and shouts at them


because they've broken it


so they run away


and then she looks out


and she tells them off"

The text explains what the student is seeing before them. However, they are not reproducing the ideas or transferring the information into another genre, they are merely expressing their reading of the text. Therefore, this type of explanation does not make much sense to a reader who is not supplied with an image to accompany the explanation. My understanding of restricted code is that, it is used in cases where assumption of understanding is more frequent. For instance, in a case where names are used and insider terms are used to generate intimacy or familiarity.

The second sample we looked at in the lesson shows elaborated code. The elaborated code explains ideas and concepts in a way that can be understood by all readers and eliminates shared meanings and insider terms.

This idea reminds me of a concept I learnt in World Englishes that suggests that, cross cultural communication is inversely related to personality and identity. For example, to effectively communicate an idea to a foreigner, a person must forgo any identity and personality markers, such as accents, regional terms and lexicon. Hence effective communication between different cultures occurs when the person adopts elaborated code.

So that is what I gathered from this workshop.

How does this apply to my teaching?

I think about code switching and how this would effect my communication with my students. On one end of the spectrum, my job is to teach effective communication and therefore, I would try to limit restricted code. At the same time, my use of restricted code could be a way of relating to my students and act as a bridge to communicate with them. I suppose it comes down to code switching. I should know when it is appropriate to use certain types of language.

There is more on this subject at this website.

ATHERTON J S (2008) Doceo; Language Codes [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.doceo.co.uk/background/language_codes.htm Accessed: 2 November 2009