Bernstein's theory, in my view, is a garbled nibblet of verbal yuck. His theory is that people of different classes talk differently. Not different vocabulary or structure, but with different underlying meanings. He says people of the lower classes "are oriented to 'restricted' linguistic codes, while middle-class children use 'elaborated' codes." Bernstein says that schools are geared towards the middle classes because they use elaborated codes (in other words, are better educated than the lower class.) I dunno.... sounds to me like quite a stretch. On a scale of one to ten, I give it a 2. A Restricted code is one for the working-class children. "Bernstein claims that working-class children generally grow up in homes where common circumstances, knowledge, and values give rise to speech patterns in which meanings remain implicit and dependent on their context." The elaborate codes, on the other hand, "express the unique perspective and experience of the speaker; meanings are less tied to a local relationship and local social structure and consequently are made linguistically explicit." PHOOEY! I can understand all sorts of people. I don't know. I think social reproduction is caused by things a lot bigger than linguistic codes. That'd be too easy. Any thoughts?