Different language variety

When language is the source of disadvantage, the term does not necessarily mean a different mother tongue, it can also refer to a different version of the common language. The connection between a child’s language variety and his or her performance at school has been the focus of several research studies since the 1960s.

Earlier studies suggest that working-class and minority children are deficient in language ability when compared to middle-class, mainstream children. Bernstein's sociolinguistic account of educational failure (1972) is based on pedagogic discourse.

The Deficit Hypothesis is associated with Bernstein who differentiated restricted and elaborated codes. An elaborated code is characterized by explicitness and a restricted code by heavy dependence on context, a dependence which causes difficulties at school.

According to Bernstein, the elaborated code enables speakers to communicate more effectively as the language of the classroom is abstract and disembedded. He supposed a cyclical process between social structure and language use. Different social classes use language in different ways, and these differences are inherited from generation to generation.

The earliest investigations in Hungary aimed at proving Bernstein’s theory. The first research investigating the connection between social situation and language performance was conducted by Pap and Pléh (1972). Their tests were based on Bernstein’s research (1972). The schools under investigation were categorized

Bernstein’s results: pupils of the school in the best social situation produced speech which was elaborated, and situationally independent. In some other aspects, the results contradicted Bernstein’s results. No significant difference could be shown in the effect of the father’s and mother’s profession. In contrast with Bernstein’s result, working-class girls are not in a favoured situation in Hungary; their results were only better in certain indices.

Sugárné (1985) compared the language abilities of 4- to 6-year old children with average social background to those with sociocultural disadvantages. In the research, the phonetic and prosodic characteristics, perception, reconstruction of visual and auditive accounts, and verbal expressivity were examined. The results showed a significant advantage for the group with average social background but the author emphasized that this advantage was not exceptional. It was more significant at a younger age and it evened out later, probably due to nursery school education. The most important deficit was found in one-parent families, which shows the significance of social interaction and communicative situations in families.

The writing skills of rural pupils were examined by Bíró (2002). Reading Bernstein’s theory (1972), Bíró realized that the text labelled by restricted code is very similar to the compositions written by children learning in traditional village schools.

The study compared the compositions of rural pupils to compositions written by town children. Significant differences were found in the level of the texts: the writings of village children had several characteristics of spoken language (sequence of sentences, conjunctions, structure, several implicit fragments). These differences do not absolutely refer to features of the restricted code, rather to a different narrative and communicative style. A more recent study by Oláh Örsi (2005), using Bernstein’s model in the

Hungarian context, stated that the role of the parents’ socio-economic status in the school performance of disadvantaged children is of major importance even now.

Difficulties of children whose language is labelled as restricted in the Deficit Theory framework are further exacerbated be the assumption of self-fulfilling prophecy, which was first established in sociology by Merton (1948) and stressed that expectations, even if mistaken, often come true. This assumption was further elaborated on in the field of education. Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) called it the “Pygmalion-effect” and suggested that the ways in which a teacher views a student influence the quality of teaching the student receives, furthermore, it affects the student’s ultimate success or failure at school considerably.

It must be stressed here that Bernstein’s theory (1972) was principally dismissed in sociolinguistics, as a result of the work of Labov (1972) who claimed that the poor performance of minority children was not the result of linguistically deprived home environments. The difference in dialect forms caused literacy problems in school. This view refuted the underlying cognitive deficiency assumed by the Deficit Hypothesis.

However, many teachers, administrators and educational policy makers still believe that children from low socioeconomic or culturally different (minority) background are cognitively and linguistically deficient (Luke, 1986). Although working class and minority children may use language differently from middle-class children, they are not deficient in language ability. Their language is as complex and complete as it is for middle-class children. The main point is that their language is different, not deficient or restricted. The limited success of compensatory programmes aimed at achieving middle class language skills also indicates that the educational failure of these children should be viewed as more complex.

Children who do not speak the standard version of the language used in the classroom may have several difficulties. Bartha (2002) underlines the fact that children whose mother tongue is not the standard version of Hungarian are more frequently categorized erroneously as having learning disabilities or being mentally disadvantaged.

Sparks, Ganschow and Javorsky (1992) claim that there is an important relationship between native language and foreign language learning. The “Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis” assumed that foreign language learning was based on native language skills. They also stated that difficulties in one language may have a negative influence on both language systems, as both native and foreign language learning rely on basic language learning mechanisms.

Another perspective of how language influences failure or success in education was expressed by Bourdieu (1973), who also emphasizes the different ways of speaking and using the language at home and at school. The present research uses insights from the work of Bourdieu on the “cultural capital” (1973). Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital includes references to a wide range of social phenomena, which he collectively calls as “habitus” (schemata of perception, language use, dispositions, skills, orientations, and dispositions). Children are equipped with their habitus through their socialization in their families and communities. Children of high status background are given the appropriate type of cultural capital for school success, that is their habitus becomes their cultural capital (Lin, 1999).

The framework of Bourdieu (1986) elaborates on the concepts of various forms of capital (economic, symbolic, cultural and social). The implications of cultural capital explain the dynamics between school and family setting. He further differentiates three different forms of cultural capital. The institutionalized state cultural capital refers to the academic qualifications attained by the individual. The embodied state cultural capital is

related to the capability to be familiar with cultural techniques, for instance reading. The third state is the objectified state cultural capital which is realized in the form of cultural possessions (e.g. paintings, classic literature or poetry and certificates, official diplomas, or credentials. The operationalized variables of measuring children’s family background described in Section 2.2 can be easily associated with these forms of cultural capital as they refer to parents’ educational attainment and the home possessions of the families.

Language is regarded as representing a significant part of the cognitive aspect of cultural capital since, as a means of communication, depending on the richness of vocabulary, it provides a system of categories that enables children to interpret complex logical and aesthetic structures. This view suggests that schools support certain kinds of cultural capital and Bourdieu (1986) assumed that some families are able to recognize what is necessary for their children to be successful at school and are to capitalize on this.

Children from disadvantaged families have a habitus which is incompatible with that presupposed in school. As a result, social stratification is reproduced. Bourdieu (1986) argued that social stratification is maintained by the education system. The achievement of students from a high status background, who are adept in the mainstream culture, is reinforced in education. The success of students from high status backgrounds is enhanced because teachers and other gatekeepers judge and assess students by the criteria set by the dominant culture. In sum, the habitus and cultural capital are Bourdieu’s concepts to explain the transgenerational ways of thinking or intergenerational advantages or disadvantages of family background.

Research studies in the 1980s concentrated on the difference between the language used at home and that used in educational settings. Increasingly, research was pointing to characteristics of classroom discourse involved in teaching for

understanding. In this approach, the aim of classroom discourse is to socialize students into academic learning (Gibbons, 2007). Classroom discourse is viewed as a kind of scaffolding in the Vygotskyan sense serving to give adequate support for children. The lack or inadequacy of the scaffolding function of classroom discourse may impede school performance.

Research into the role of classroom discourse patterns in knowledge construction asserts that the interactions of children of low socioeconomic and minority background often do not match the language used at school (Perry, 2007). The result is a lack of mutual comprehension between the teacher and the student, which has an obvious negative effect on children’s school performance. Based on the findings of classroom discourse studies, non-traditional classroom discourse started to dominate in language programmes in the 1990s which focused teachers not directly on correcting linguistic elements (mainly of syntax, phonology and morphology), but on successful communication, which supports the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning.

The above mentioned research projects have generated several interventions (for instance Sure Start in the UK, Project Head Start in the USA) which aim at improving home background and health conditions, language environment, and, subsequently, children’s readiness for school. In spite of all the efforts, the project experts have asserted that “progress and improvements still need to be achieved to give genuine substance to early childhood public services” (Early Childhood Intervention – Progress and Developments 2005–2010, 2010, p. 19). Bennett (2001) draws attention to a possible negative effect of intervention, which is the stigmatization of disadvantaged groups. Consequently, programme participants might feel that they and their children are problematic as being dependant on educational intervention; they may attribute negative feedback to prejudice. He also emphasizes that the compensatory approach, the

main agent of social change is education, which might divert attention from other more necessary measures.

Studies show that children from different social backgrounds have different levels of language competence, which may consecutively influence their later academic achievement. The significance of understanding the meaning of language and culture in families and its effect on classroom practices and educational attainment is underlined in the studies focusing on linguistic socialization.