ELABORATED AND RESTRICTED CODE

ELABORATED AND RESTRICTED CODE. Terms introduced by the British sociologist Basil Bernstein in the 1960s, referring to two varieties (or codes) of language use, seen as part of a general theory of the nature of social systems and social rules. The elaborated code was said to be used in relatively formal, educated situations, permitting people to be reasonably creative in their expression and to use a range of linguistic alternatives. It was thought to be characterized by a fairly high proportion of such features as subordinate clauses, adjectives, the pronoun I and passives. By contrast, the restricted code was thought to be used in relatively informal situations, stressing the speaker's membership of a group, relying on context for its meaningfulness, and lacking stylistic range. Linguistically it is highly predictable, with a fairly high proportion of pronouns, tag questions, and the use of gestures and intonation to convey meaning. The attempt to correlate these codes with certain types of social class background, and their role in educational settings (such as whether children who are used to restricted code would succeed in schools where elaborated code is the norm) brought the theory considerable publicity and controversy. See SOCIOLINGUISTICS.