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This paper reports social class differences in the emphasis placed upon the use of language in two areas of the socialization of the child: inter-person relationships and the acquisition of basic skills. The sample of 100 mothers is a sub-sample of 120 mothers who live in a middle class area and 192 mothers who live in a working class area. (The correlation between area and the social class position of the family is 0.74.) The results obtained from the use of a closed schedule show that the middle class mothers, relative to the working class mothers, place a much greater emphasis upon the use of language in the person area; whereas the working class mothers, relative to the middle class mothers, place a greater emphasis upon the use of language in the transmission of basic skills. The results are consonant with the prediction derived from the theory of restricted and elaborated linguistic codes which has also been used to generate a model for the understanding of social learning and forms of cultural discontinuity between the home and the school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from a sample of 351 families reveals social class differences in mother's conceptions of the uses of toys. Both the degree of agreement in the ranking of six possible uses of toys and the differentiation of the choices follow a social class gradient. Within the lower three social class groups the score on an index of maternal-child communication relates to maternal conceptions of the uses of toys. A significant correlation exists between the rank order of two uses of toys and the measured ability of six year old children even when the effect of social class is partialed out of this relationship. Maternal conception of the uses of toys is thought to have an important bearing upon socialization into the role of infant school pupil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only a summary will be given here as the study has been described in detail in the previous report. Five sub-groups were selected with the characteristics shown in the article from two parent samples. The members of the main sample were drawn from a public school and a day release college. The speech sample consisted for each group of the 1800 words, approximately, which followed the first five minutes of the discussion. Long and short utterances were distinguished according to whether the utterance was between ten and forty syllables or over forty syllables.

Focuses on the relationship of linguistic codes, hesitation phenomena and intelligence. Elaborated and restricted linguistic codes; Levels of cognitive behavior.