As a linguistically heterogeneous nation, China has 290 languages and nearly 2000 distinct "fangyans" (dialects or subdialects) with "Putonghua" as the national language. These languages and language varieties are hierarchically ranked, based on their wider communicative and socioeconomic values. This paper reports on how…

Basil Bernstein (1971) introduced the notion of the Restricted and the Elaborated code, claiming that working-class speakers have access only to the former but middle-class members to both. In an attempt to test this theory in the Iranian context and to investigate the effect of social class on the quality of students language use, we examined the…

Young people's perceptions may offer an insight into the complex associations between language, education and social class. However, little research has asked young people what they think of their own talking. Forty-two British adolescents aged between 14 and 15 years were interviewed: 21 attended a school in a working class area; 21 attended…