"Verbal Deficit Theory" 1966 (Bernstein)

 Elaborated & Restricted Codes: Ideology & Education

Coined and analyzed in 1971 by Basil Bernstein elaborated and restricted codes are "refers to a set of organizing principles behind the language employed by members of a social group"

• Bernstein's theory shows how the language people use in everyday conversation both reflects and shapes the assumptions of a certain social group. Furthermore, relationships established within the social group affect the way that group uses language, and the type of speech that is used.
• As an educator, he was interested in accounting for the relatively poor performance of working-class students in language-based subjects, when they were achieving scores as high as their middle-class counterparts on mathematical topics. In his theory, Bernstein asserts a direct relationship between societal class and language.

According to Bernstein in Class, Codes and Control (1971):

• Forms of spoken language in the process of their learning initiate, generalize and reinforce special types of relationship with the environment and thus create for the individual particular forms of significance (p.76).

That is to say that the way language is used within a particular societal class affects the way people assign significance and meaning to the things about which they are speaking.

• The code that a person uses indeed symbolizes their social identity (Bernstein, 1971).

Elaborated code and restricted code

The two types of language codes are the elaborated code and the restricted code. The restricted code is suitable for insiders who share assumptions and understanding on the topic, whereas the elaborated code does not assume that the listener shares these assumptions or understandings, and thus elaborated code is more explicit, more thorough, and does not require the listener to read between the lines. According to Atherton (2002),

the essence of the distinction is in what the language is suited for. The restricted code works better than the elaborated code for situations in which there is a great deal of shared and taken-for-granted knowledge in the group of speakers. It is economical and rich, conveying a vast amount of meaning with a few words, each of which has a complex set of connotations and acts like an index, pointing the hearer to a lot more information which remains unsaid.

• Within the RESTRICTED CODE, speakers draw on background knowledge and shared understanding. This type of code creates a sense of inclusiveness, a feeling of belonging to a certain group. Restricted codes can be found among friends and families and other intimately knit groups.
• restricted code is shorter, condensed and requires background information and prior knowledge. 
• found in CLOSED ROLE SYSTEMS (learned): 
• When the socializing agencies are well defined and structured you find a restricted code.
• working class you are likely to find the use of the restricted code
• The restricted code is less formal with shorter phrases interjected into the middle or end of a thought to confirm understanding.

• The ELABORATED CODE spells everything out, not because it is better, but because it is necessary so that everyone can understand it. It has to elaborate because the circumstances do not allow the speaker to condense.” The elaborated code works well in situations where there is no prior or shared understanding and knowledge, where more thorough explanation is required. If one is saying something new to someone they’ve never met before, they would most certainly communicate in elaborated code.
• elaborated code can “stand on its own”, it is complete and full of detail, most overhearing a conversation would be able to understand it. 
• found in OPEN ROLE SYSTEMS (learned):
• In a society which values individuality you find elaborated codes, and in a narrower society you find restricted codes 
•  middle class you find the use of both the restricted and elaborated codes.
•  Elaborated codes have a longer, more complicated sentence structure that uses uncommon words and thoughts. 
• there is no padding or filler, only complete, well laid out thoughts that require no previous knowledge on the part of the listener, i.e., necessary details will be provided.

Code theory in sociology of education

Bernstein's 'code theory' in the sociology of education has undergone considerable development since the early 1970s and now enjoys a growing influence in both education and linguistics, especially among systemic functional linguistics.

• Social positions create, 'different modalities of communication differentially valued by the school, and differentially effective in it, because of the school's values, modes of practice and relations with its different communities' (1996: 91). 
• The notion was codified first in terms of "classification" and "framing", where classification conceptualizes relations of power that regulate relations between contexts or categories, and framing conceptualizes relations of control within these contexts or categories (1975)

STUDIES:
One of Bernstein's research studies involved showing a group of children a strip cartoon and recording their account of what it depicted. Some said things like:

"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" 

while others said:

"Three boys are playing football and one boy kicks the ball
and it goes through the window
the ball breaks the window
and the boys are looking at it
and a man comes out and shouts at them
because they've broken the window
so they run away
and then that lady looks out of her window
and she tells the boys off." 

(from Bernstein, 1971 p 203 [re-arranged]) 

• As Bernstein points out, the first account makes good sense if you have the strip cartoon in front of you, but means much less without it. This is an example of restricted code. The second can "stand on its own", and is an example of elaborated code. See Bernstein's own work for detailed accounts of the research behind the construct.

• The essence of the distinction is in what the language is suited for. The restricted code works better than the elaborated code for situations in which there is a great deal of shared and taken-for-granted knowledge in the group of speakers. It is economical and rich, conveying a vast amount of meaning with a few words, each of which has a complex set of connotations and acts like an index, pointing the hearer to a lot more information which remains unsaid.

"If you're going to town, get Rupert a new April from you-know-where" (Restricted)
"If you are going into Bedford, please get a new toy for Rupert the dog from the pet-shop (which we can't name because if the dog hears it he will go mad), to replace the one which we have come to call "April", which he has almost chewed to bits." (Elaborated)
"Cameron's at it again." (Restricted)
This is of course no longer applicable; Cameron is at the time of revision the Prime Minister in a Coalition government.
"I see from the newspaper I am reading that David Cameron, leader of the Opposition, is once again trying to attack the government from a position of right-wing populism as we discussed a couple of days ago." (Elaborated)

Not only that, but because it draws on a store of shared meanings and background knowledge, a restricted code carries a social message of inclusion, of implicitly acknowledging that the person addressed is "one of us".

• Its essential feature is that it works within, and is tuned to, a restricted community.

Elaborated code spells everything out: not because it is better, but because it is necessary so that everyone can understand it. It has to elaborate because the circumstances do not allow speakers to condense. ("Condensed" might have been a better label for the restricted code.) 

Restricted/condensed code is therefore great for shared, established and static meanings (and values): but if you want to break out to say something new, particularly something which questions the received wisdom, you are going to have to use an elaborated code. Bernstein's research argued that working-class students had access to their restricted code(s) - but middle-class students had access to both restricted and elaborated codes, because the middle classes were more geographically, socially and culturally mobile. I do not know of any recent research which attempts to check whether this is still true.

Because schools and colleges are:

• concerned with the introduction of new knowledge which goes beyond existing shared meanings

• relatively anonymous institutions which may not share many taken-for-granted meanings in their formal structures (although quite a lot in their informal structures within the staff and student groups)

- they need to use elaborated code. The bottom line is that if you can't handle elaborated code, you are not going to succeed in the educational system.

Bernstein has not gone unchallenged, particularly in his suggestion that restricted codes cannot deal effectively with new knowledge and ideas. 

Applications in Education

So? This is not about teachers trying to express themselves in their students' vernacular—which usually results in embarrassment and ridicule. It is, however, about the embarrassment which many students may feel when asked to express themselves (speak in class) in an elaborated-code, alien, institution. It is about the reassurance and security which can come from relapsing into grunts and argot which is inaccessible to the "powers that be". 

It is not primarily about restricted-code users' inability to understand elaborated code. They are exposed too much to the media for that (although some tabloid newspapers and radio stations affect a particular restricted-code style to suggest intimacy with their readers). It is however about their unfamiliarity with using it (speaking it rather than hearing it) to explain complex ideas.