The Inner Logic of Language and Academic Performance
According to Basil Bernstein's code theory,students'academic achievements are mainly governed by the consistency of their own language type and academic curriculum.Since there are signif-icant differences in the consistency among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds,this phe-nomenon can be attributed to the specialized semantic communication contexts led by parents'parenting styles.Given that a specific context requires a special way of language expression to make communica-tion between interlocutors understandable,language development is regulated by contextual features.These correlations explain why a restricted code prevails in lower SES families and middle-class students are proficient in an elaborated code.Although this principle accounts for their unique charac-teristics without any inferior-superior relationships between them,an elaborated mode meets the re-quirements of the academic curriculum,so this situation assists its possessor in obtaining better aca-demic performance than their restricted code counterparts.The above theoretical lens suggests that dif-ferent language types have their inner logic that administers their speakers'thoughts and actions.Be-cause the features of context-based coding orientation(i.e.,the restricted code)tend to be operational,concrete,local,and emotional,analytical and logical reasoning are not the core elements in exercising language expressions.In contrast,the uncontext-based elaborated code emphasizes features such as a-nalysis,reasoning,synthesis,and induction.Because of the systematic correlations among these fea-tures,abstract lexicons can be integrated into an organized verbal structure,making the practice of log-ical and analytical reasoning attainable.These correlations indicate that students'learning outcomes are not substantially rooted in their language types but in the inner logic of the language they possess.
coding orientationcommunication contexts,the inner logic of languagecontext-baseduncontext-basededucational achievement
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