ABSTRACT
In the section about the sociology of education Bernstein's original linkage of a 'restricted' code to a particular social class is generalized and incorporated as one instance within a role theoretic framework which distinguishes between 'open' and 'closed' role systems. Bernstein's Sociological Research Unit at the Institute of Education, London, has similar objectives. Among the research goals are a comprehensive linguistic description of social class and other differences in the speech of five-year-old Infant- school children, an examination of the relationships between language and school performance, and investigations of the social psychological antecedents of each, both at school and at home. The methodological points have been mentioned both to illustrate the usefulness of a functional perspective in sociolinguistic studies and to stress the importance of conducting such investigations at an appropriate level of linguistic analysis within limited contexts for homogeneous groups of persons.
