WHILST I grew up in a working-class household, it soon became clear that 'bad' language was reserved for the otherworldly arena of parental conflict and that if my little sister and I dared to imitate such verbal abominations we were punished accordingly.
Yes. I once heard an octogenarian working class couple declaring love to each other by ironically telling each other to 'fuck off' with beaming smiles onntheir faces.
Basil Bernstein upset a lot of lefties when he described the type of speech used by the working class pupils as a 'limited code' and that they were unfamiliar with the 'elaborate code used by the middle class students and teachers. What he was reeferring to was the way educated middle class people used a wide vocabulary and grammar to distinguish themselves and their opinions from others through the content of their words rather than the context in which they were uttered (context free), whereas working class people tended to rely on social context (context bound) for meaning often using the same words to mean very different things, which emphasised group solidarity. He later admitted to my mentor, N Domgoole, that when talking about serious and deeply personal subjects, like death, workjing class people did tend also to use an elaborate code. What occurs to me is that of course middle class people also use a different type of limnited or what I would call an 'oral' code when talking informally. The need to put all the meaning oif an utterance into word semantics and syntax is surely related to a culture that uses writing fot important topics - writing is relatively context free, so has to be more elaboate in its verbal expressions to ensure meanings cross time and space boundaries in an abstract set of two dimnesional marks.
Hugh Brody is very good on the verbal sophistication of oral cultures - in his instance people of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic. But so called working class people have - if they have had the opportunity to settle over generations - also have a very sopihiusticated oral culture which is generally more important to them than the abstract culture of books and other lomng lasting records of communicative acts.
Bernstein makes an interesting point, I wasn't aware of his contrast between the application and context of language among the different classes. I think the code issue is important, and I know from personal experience that many working-class folk will only relate to one another in very specific ways. People always say the middle-classes are fairly loveless, especially towards their children, but I find that working-class men often shun any form of intimacy. I have old friends with whom I can only engage in a manner that involves constant (offensive) banter and you find this tendency worsens when the respective parties have been drinking. If you've ever listened to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as 'Derek and Clive,' you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I think this attitude is part of the fierce competitiveness that the English possess, which is possibly why we've invented so many sports.
So complicated and varied are the uses of language and class and the varieties of people within classes, etc. R Willians I think simplifies and thus sentimentalises the working-class 'model' of a family. The competitiveness of the working class perhaps is more direct and physical, - who is top cock of the street, who is boss and not, or else a slap or a smack, did that geezer insult my girlfriend , wollop. But I do not underestimate the physical cruelty and violence of the Upper Middles and Uppers. We played Marlborough College's THIRD team, and I have only once before experienced such vicious and underhanded cheating and bullying, underhanded violence, which was when I was thirteen and beaten up with my mates by a group of drunken soldiers in Miami because they wanted to commit violence on someone - did not matter if they were half the size and half the age.
Fair play and cricket among the British ruling class? Bollocks. The Upper and Upper Middles are capable of the most unmitigated bullying, cheating, and violence just so they win. Or perhaps I exaggerate?
Yes. I once heard an octogenarian working class couple declaring love to each other by ironically telling each other to 'fuck off' with beaming smiles onntheir faces.
Basil Bernstein upset a lot of lefties when he described the type of speech used by the working class pupils as a 'limited code' and that they were unfamiliar with the 'elaborate code used by the middle class students and teachers. What he was reeferring to was the way educated middle class people used a wide vocabulary and grammar to distinguish themselves and their opinions from others through the content of their words rather than the context in which they were uttered (context free), whereas working class people tended to rely on social context (context bound) for meaning often using the same words to mean very different things, which emphasised group solidarity. He later admitted to my mentor, N Domgoole, that when talking about serious and deeply personal subjects, like death, workjing class people did tend also to use an elaborate code. What occurs to me is that of course middle class people also use a different type of limnited or what I would call an 'oral' code when talking informally. The need to put all the meaning oif an utterance into word semantics and syntax is surely related to a culture that uses writing fot important topics - writing is relatively context free, so has to be more elaboate in its verbal expressions to ensure meanings cross time and space boundaries in an abstract set of two dimnesional marks.
Hugh Brody is very good on the verbal sophistication of oral cultures - in his instance people of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic. But so called working class people have - if they have had the opportunity to settle over generations - also have a very sopihiusticated oral culture which is generally more important to them than the abstract culture of books and other lomng lasting records of communicative acts.
Bernstein makes an interesting point, I wasn't aware of his contrast between the application and context of language among the different classes. I think the code issue is important, and I know from personal experience that many working-class folk will only relate to one another in very specific ways. People always say the middle-classes are fairly loveless, especially towards their children, but I find that working-class men often shun any form of intimacy. I have old friends with whom I can only engage in a manner that involves constant (offensive) banter and you find this tendency worsens when the respective parties have been drinking. If you've ever listened to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as 'Derek and Clive,' you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I think this attitude is part of the fierce competitiveness that the English possess, which is possibly why we've invented so many sports.
So complicated and varied are the uses of language and class and the varieties of people within classes, etc. R Willians I think simplifies and thus sentimentalises the working-class 'model' of a family. The competitiveness of the working class perhaps is more direct and physical, - who is top cock of the street, who is boss and not, or else a slap or a smack, did that geezer insult my girlfriend , wollop. But I do not underestimate the physical cruelty and violence of the Upper Middles and Uppers. We played Marlborough College's THIRD team, and I have only once before experienced such vicious and underhanded cheating and bullying, underhanded violence, which was when I was thirteen and beaten up with my mates by a group of drunken soldiers in Miami because they wanted to commit violence on someone - did not matter if they were half the size and half the age.
Fair play and cricket among the British ruling class? Bollocks. The Upper and Upper Middles are capable of the most unmitigated bullying, cheating, and violence just so they win. Or perhaps I exaggerate?