The present study was designed to compare the factorial structure of written coding patterns for a middle-class and a working-class group. Nineteen indices of written code elaboration were correlated for two groups of 40 subjects. The resulting correlation matrices yielded six factors (middle-class) and seven factors (working-class). Four common factors emerged—Syntax, Adverbial Elaboration, Personal Reference and Uncommon Linguistic Forms. The resulting factorial patterns did not support the Bernstein socio-linguistic thesis of greater complexity of coding elaboration for middle-class subjects.
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