78-14,639

SIEGEL, Gary Lee

LANGUAGE AND THE ORGANIZATION OF BEHAVIOR: AN
EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF CLASS AND ETHNIC
DIFFERENCES IN GIVING AND ENACTING
DIRECTIONS.
Saint Louis University,
Ph.D., 1577

University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48ioe

() Copyright by Gary Lee Siegel 1977

All Rights Reserved

 LANGUAGE AND THE ORGANIZATION
OF BEHAVIOR

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF
CLASS AND ETHNIC DIFFERENCES
IN GIVING AND ENACTING
DIRECTIONS

by

Gary Lee Siegel, M.A.

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate

School of Saint Louis University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

1977
COMMITTEE IN CHARGE OF CANDIDACY

Professor Thomas S. McPartland

Chairman and Adviser

Professor Clement S. Mihanovich

Associate Professor William J. Monahan

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like not only to acknowledge, but

to dedicate this dissertation to Dr. Thomas

McPartland without whose insight, guidance,

and patience it could not have been written;

and to Margaret, who was always there.

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv
vii
LIST OF TABLES

Chapter
l
I. BACKGROUND
5
Aim
II. CONCEPTUAL AND EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK
OF THE PROBLEM 7
III. OPERATIONALIZATION: "GIVING
DIRECTIONS" 18
IV. A PILOT STUDY: GIVING GEOGRAPHICAL
DIRECTIONS 29
Non-Adequate Directions 34
Adequate Directions 36
Adequate-Plus Directions 38
The Task 41
Audience 43

V. HYPOTHESES 51

VI. METHOD 55

Subjects 55

Procedures 58

VII. FINDINGS 65

Hypothesis 1 65
Hypothesis 2 69

v
 Page
Hypothesis 3
Hypothesis 4 80
Hypothesis 5 88
Hypothesis 6 103
Written v. Oral Commun-
ication 116
Grade School and High
School Samples 121

VIII. DISCUSSION 134

Language, Codes and the

organization of Behavior . . . . 134
Task Complexity and Lang-
uage-Communication 146
Encoding and Decoding 151
Language-Communication
and Social Class 155
Language-Communication,
Class and Ethnicity 158
Written Versus Oral
Communication 172
Language-Communication of
Grade School, High School
and College Subjects 175
A Final Word 180

IX. SUMMARY 184

BIBLIOGRAPHY 189

vi
 LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Adult Sample 64

2. Language Mode and Task Enactment . 57

3. Task Enactment of Directions

Given for Tinker Toy and
Puzzle Tasks 71
4. Task Enactment for Four Task
Levels 72
5. Language Mode Used for Tinker
Toy and Puzzle Tasks 73
6. Language Mode Used for Four
Task Levels 74

7. Language Mode and Social Class . . 77

8. Language Mode and Social Class

for Tinker Toy Task 78
9. Language Mode and Social Class
for Puzzle Task 81
10. Social Class of Directors and
Task Enactment 82
11. Social Class of Directors and
Task Enactment for Puzzle
Tasks 83

12. Social Class of Directors and

Task Enactment for Tinker Toy
Tasks 84
13. Language Mode of Directors of
Different Social Class and
Ethnicity 86
vii
 Page

14. Language Mode of Directors of Different

Social Class and Ethnicity for Tinker
Toy (Simple) Tasks 89

15. Language Mode of Directors of

Different Social Class and
Ethnicity for Puzzle (Complex)
Task 90

16. Social Class and Ethnicity of

Directors and Task Enactment 91

17. Task Enactment (of Adequate and

Adequate-Plus Directions) by
Subjects Who Had Employed
Different Language Modes in
Their Directions 93

18. Task Enactment of Adequate and

Adequate-Plus Directions to
Tinker Toy (Simple) Tasks by
Subjects Who Had Employed
Different Language Modes 95

19. Task Enactment of Adequate and

Adequate-Plus Directions to
Puzzle (Complex) Tasks by
Subjects Who Had Employed
Different Language Modes 96

20. Task Enactment by Actors of

Different Social Class 98

21. Task Enactment by Actors of

Different Social Class and
Ethnicity 99

22. Task Enactment of Tinker Toy

Tasks by Actors of Different
Social Class and Ethnicity 101

23. Task Enactment of Puzzle Tasks

by Actors of Different Social
Class and Ethnicity 102

viii
 Pag
Task Enactnent by Middle and Lower
Class Actors of Directions Given
by Middle and Lower Class
Directors 105
Task Enactment by Middle and Lower
Class Actors of Adequate and
Adequate-Plus Directions Given
by Middle and Lower Class
Directors 108

Task Enactment by Black and White

Actors of Directions Given by
Black and White Directors 109

Task Enactment by Black and White

Actors of Adequate and Adequate-
Plus Directions Given by Black and
White Directors Hi-
Task Enactment by Actors of Different
Social Class and Ethnicity of
Adequate and Adequate-Plus
Directions Given by Directors of
Different Social Class and
Ethnicity 112

Task Enactment by Lower Cliss Black

Actors of Directions Given by
Directors of Different Class
and Ethnicity 114

Task Enactment by Actors of

Different Class and Ethnicity
of Directions Given by Lower
Class Black Actors 115

ix
 Page

31. Adequacy of Directions and Frequ-

ency of Task Enactment for Oral
and Written Directions Given for
the Four Task Levels by Directors
of Different Class and Ethnicity . . . 117

32. Language Mode of Written and Oral

Directions Given for Puzzle
(Complex) Tasks 119

33. Language Mode Used by Black Directors

in Written and Oral Directions Given
for Tinker Toy (Simple) Tasks . . . . 120

34. Task Enactment by High School Lower

Class Actors 123

35. Task Enactment by High School Middle

Class Actors 124

36. Task Enactment by Grade School Lower

Class Actors 125

37. Task Enactment by Grade School

Middle Class Actors 127

38. Frequency of Task Enactment and

Adequacy of Directions Given by
Lower and Middle Class Grade
School, High School and College
Directors 128

39. Adequacy of Directions Given by

Grade School and High School
Versus College Directors 129

40. Adequacy of Directions Given by

Grade School, High School and
College Students of Different
Social Class 130

x
 Page
41. Task Enactment of Adequate-Plus
Adult Directions by Grade
School and High School
Actors of Different Social
Class 132

42. Task Enactment of Adequate Adult

Directions by Actors of Diff-
erent class and Age 133

xi
 CHAPTER I

BACKGROUND

Since the middle 1960's there has been much

interest in the language of children from the so-

called "disadvantaged populations" (cf. Cazden,

1966). Judged by the standards of the educational

system, the language of such children, more than

any other factor, has seemed to set them apart

from their middle class counterparts. A common

view of many writers on poor children has been

that a deprived environment retards children's

speech, that this inferior speech leads to defi-

cient thought, and that deficient speech and

thought result in school failure (cf. Blank and

Soloman, 1968; and Williams, 1970).

Much of the current interest in the language

of the "disadvantaged" has been stimulated by the

writing and research of the British sociologist

Basil Bernstein and his associates (cf. especially:

Bernstein, 1971 and 1973; and Cook-Gumperz, 1973).

Bernstein has devoted his attention to class

1
 2

differences in the use of language. He distin-

guishes a "restricted code" and an "elaborated

code" which govern the selection of linguistic

forms and suggests that working class speakers

are confined to the former while middle class

speakers have both.

Much of the writing on the language of the

"disadvantaged" can be located under the label

of a "deficiency hypothesis" (Williams, 1969).

The response to this hypothesis has been to provide

lower class children with compensatory programs of

language development. Bereiter and Engelmann

(1966), for example (cf. also: D.M. and G. Gahagen,

1970; and Blank and Soloman, 1968), stress programs

of direct linguistic instruction. Similarly such

programs as "Head Start" and the Public Broadcast-

ing Company's Sesame Street and The Electric Company

have language development as one of their key goals.

Interest in the connection between social class,

 3

language, and performance has spawned much research

on social class correlates of speech acquisition,

as well as social class variations in phonology,

lexicon, syntax, and inflection (cf. inter alia:

Ervin-Tripp, 1967; Williams, 1971; Bernstein, 1973;

and Gluksberg and Danks, 1974). There has also been

considerable research in the United States on the

speech of blacks, particularly the speech of poor,

urban, black children (inter alia: Stewart, 1965;

Labov, 1966; Wolfram, 1969; and Fasold, 1372). Un-

fortunately, there is little research dealing with

the implications of language use on performance.

Entwisle (1971: 125), observing this fact, writes:

The central emportance of language is acknow-

ledged in the massive efforts now aimed at
early education of the culturally deprived.
Subcultural differences in language develop-
ment are assumed to be important, but docu-
mentation of the assumption is surprisingly
sparse. It is astonishing, even somewhat
frightening, how little solid information
is available to guide these action programs.
Much of what (is being done) about educa-
tional deficits and the role of language
. . . is based more on intuition than hard
data.
 4

The question of the relation between lang-

uage ase and behavior, while an issue of consid-

erable importance for educators, is a crucial

matter for the social sciences generally

(Luckman, 1975). It is a central tenet of the

social sciences that the bulk of human behavior

is not expressive and spontaneous but organized

and directed (Newcomb, 1950). And it has been

argued in Sociology since Durkheim (1901), in

Anthropology since Sapir (1921), and in Social

Psychology since Mead (1934), that organization

and direction are supplied by man's symbolic and

linguistic capabilities. Questions regarding the

implications which this uniquely human form of

behavior, language, has upon other forms of behav

ior, thus, go to the center of sociological

concerns and must be addressed empirically and

systematically. Moreover, it is important for

a social science which strives to be behavioral

and useful not to restrict itself to accounts and

 5

illustrative anecdotes (e.g. Sudnow, 1972) for

data on the relation between language and behav-

ioral organization, but to test this relation.

Aim

This research is designed to analyze this

particular empirical problem: What is the corr-

espondence between the use of language and the

organization of behavior? More specifically,

it aims at establishing a set of procedures for

determining the specific features of language

used by people that make it a useful device for

guiding or informing their conduct in particular

environments. It further aims at using these

procedures to determine whether different modes

of language-communication can be distinguished

which are more or less effective organizational

devices. It ought to be of crucial significance

to be able to analytically distinguish differences

in language-communication which have fundamentally

different correspondences to the organization and

 6

direction of behavior. Finally, in the analysis

of the relation between language use and behav-

ioral organization, this research will attend to

class and ethnic differences in the sub-cultural

backgrounds of language users.

 CHAPTER II

CONCEPTUAL AND EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE PROBLEM

Considerable conceptual formulation regarding

the link between language and the organization of

behavior has been provided in the work of the

American Pragmatists, particularly that of John

Dewey (e.g. 1896, 1929, 1950) and George Mead

(e.g. 1934, 1936). Both Dewey and Mead argued

that language communication was not the simple

expression of antecedent thought, but was a way

of getting a plan of action organized into behav-

ior. In their view, language, as communication,

is a device, not just for passing along inform-

ation, but for informing and organizing conduct

and strips of conduct with reference to particular

environments.

In Experience and Nature, Dewey (1929:

857-858) wrote: "Language is a mode of inter-

action . . . it is a relationship . . . the word

is a mode of social action not an expression of

7
 8

a ready-made, exclusively individual mental state."

Language symbols refer to and are defined by an

active relationship between organism and environ-

ment. "To name something is to direct an inter-

action between an organism and some object" (805).

For Dewey, a person's response to an environmental

object depends upon his interpretation of its

meaning. These interpretations, which serve to

organize an individual's actions toward the envir-

onment, are carried by language symbols.

Mead maintained that it is because of lang-

uage that mancunlike other animals, is not at the

mercy of whatever stimuli that may be impinging

upon him at a given moment. It is language

which gives man control over his relationship with

the environment. Mead wrote (1956: 201): "Man

holds onto different possibilities of response

in terms of the different stimuli which present

themselves and it is his ability to hold them there

that constitutes his mind . . . and the mechanism

that makes that possible is language." Because of

 9

language, man is not a passive reactor to envir-

onmental stimuli. "The human animcil is able to

indicate to itself and to others what the char-

acters are in the environment which call out these

complex, highly organized responses, and by such

indication is able to control his responses . . .

Mentality consists in indicating these values to

others and to one's self (that is, it consists

of using language) so that one can control one's

responses" (205).

Thus with language, man has at his disposal

what we might call a regulatory strategy, a coping

mechanism, or a verbal organizational device that

guides and aids his dealings with his environment.

Moreover, as both Mead and Dewey observe, language

is a social and public organizational device. This

means that the meanings of the language symbols

employed, the interpretations which a person uses

to guide his conduct, are social in origin, and

that the language-communication of one person

can inform or guide the behavior of another.

 10

To a useful but limited extent (e.g. Goldstein,

1940; Luria, 1959, 1960, and 1961; Bruner, 1964;

Beiswerger, 1968) the directive and organizational

capacity of language has been the subject of

empirical research. Luria (1959), for example,

has shown how the actions of children are organized

and directed at first by the speech of adults and

afterward by their own speech. Bruner (1964) has

shown that the language children bring to a task

affects their performance of the task. (Mead and

Dewey, as well as Luria, would go further than

Bruner and maintain that the language not only

affects, but effects the performance.)

Proceeding from this theoretical and empirical

work some fundamental questions arise which must be

answered: What is it about language-communication

that allows someone to be guided by it? What are

the informational features of language? Do ways

of talking go with ways of acting? Are there part-

icular kinds of language modes better suited to

 11

serve as coping mechanisms for particular acting

situations? Are particular coping mechanisms '

inadequate to meet the demands of particular kinds

of conduct?

In considering an approach to these questions,

the work of Goldstein (1940; and with Scheerer,

1941) and Head (1926) on speech pathology is

especially relevant. From the examination of

aphasics, these writers conclude that there is a

correspondence between being able to perform cer-

tain kinds of acts and being able to use language

in certain kinds of ways. Head (v. 2: 857-859)

distinguishes what he calls acts of direct refer-

ence, non-symbolic acts toward objects directly

available in an environment, and symbolic acts,

or acts of indirect reference, those acts that

require some sort of symbolic formulation between

the initiation and the completion of the act. The

aphasic, suffering some loss in language function,

is generally able to engage in acts of direct

 12

reference, but has difficulty carrying out acts

of indirect reference. Goldstein (1941: 22)

remarks that "there is a pronounced line of

demarcation" between these two levels of activity

"which do not represent a gradual ascent from more

simple to complex mental sets." What Goldstein

calls the "abstract level of behavior" has an

"emergent quality, generically different from the

concrete" (22). This abstract level of behavior

he finds only among patients who are able to deal

with objects in their language "independent of

their occurence in any particular situation"

(1940: 76).

Although the contribution of Head and Goldstein

to the study and understanding of aphasia is recog-

nized and frequently applauded (cf. Critchley,

1970, p. 68), the line of enquiry they initiated

has been generally neglected. Interest has tended

to focus on the development of treatment therapies

for particular language pathologies (in reading,

 13

writing, hearing as well as speaking; (cf. Schuell,

1965) rather than the behavioral consequences

and correlates of these pathologies. However,

Hildred Schuell, one of the names most associated

with recent developments in the study of aphasia,

in delivering a paper on results of research she

conducted at the University of Minnesota, noted

that aphasics who had difficulty following simple

directions were able to perform a procedure when

"the therapist was carefully and systematically

demonstrating each step of the procedure at the

same time that she gave the directions" (1974:

91). Although Schuell does not pursue this,

what she is describing is evidence that there is

a correspondence between the ability to use lan-

guage and the ability to organize behavior.

The question is, can we distinguish a parallel

correspondence between ways of using language and

the organization of behavior among persons without

an organic speech pathology? Can we distinguish,

 14

on the one hand, modes of language-communication

which limit, perhaps severely limit, the complexity

of behavioral organization, and, on the other hand,

modes which provide for the organization of more

complex conduct?

The distinctions between different kinds of

language and acts made by Head and Goldstein

parallel Mead's distinction between "significant

gestures" and "significant symbols." Mead sugg-

ested that it is with the capacity to use what he

termed "significant symbols" that the individual

becomes capable of using anticipated results of

actions to guide present action. He is able to

organize his acts with reference to objects, actions

and events that are not directly available in the

acting situation (1934: 46-48 and 61-75). Gest-

ures, on the other hand, confine the user to

responses elicited by the presence of the gestures

(109).
 15

Clearly, language which is more "gestural"

in its meanings will be able to inform and organ-

ize a narrower range of action and a shorter scope

of action than language which is more symbolic,

more abstract in its meanings. That is, language

required to inform or organize acts of direct

reference may not be adequate to inform or organ-

ize acts of indirect reference. Language capable

of informing acts of indirect reference must con-

sist of words whose meanings are not tied to con-

crete objects, but rather, are clear independent

of any particular referent.

In work that was foreshadowed by Schatzman

and Strauss (1955), Basil Bernstein (1971, 1973)

and his associates (Cook-Gumperz, 1973; Hender-

son, 1971; Turner and Pickvance, 1971; Robinson

and Creed, 1968), working with English school

children, have identified two distinct language

styles or modes which they call "sociolinguistic

codes." Differences in these language codes, they

 16

maintain, reflect differences in the social envir-

onments of the English middle and working classes.

Bernstein found that different ways of using lang-

uage is a product of different ways of acting and

inter-acting learned and practiced within differ-

ent socio-economic strata. Bernstein's research

indicates that the language of working class child-

ren tends to be confined by what he calls a "rest-

ricted code" which, among other features, is more

socially than conceptually oriented, appears limited

and stereotyped in its expressive alternatives, and

tends to be confined to relatively context-tied

meanings. Middle class children, on the other hand,

while learning the restricted language code also

learn a more "elaborated code" which is more

conceptually oriented, is richer in potential

alternatives for expression and which does not rely

heavily upon the context for meaning. It is Bern-

stein's view that his findings lead to a theory

which is not just another way of describing lang-

uage differences in children, but rather, a theory

 17

of socialization which has speech mediating

the characteristics of social structures and the

development of children reared within those struc-

tures. The question which remains from Bernstein's

work is: Do these differences in language codes

only reflect differences in socializing experiences,

or do they effect differences in the organization

of behavior?

Building upon the work of theorists like Mead

and Dewey and researchers like Luria, Goldstein

and Bernstein, if we pay attention to the way sym-

bol and action interweave in behavior and in part-

icular behavioral situations, we should be able to

discover what kind of language goes with and is

adequate to cope with particular kinds of action

and to what extent the use of effective language-

communication is related to the social class and

ethnicity of language users.

 CHAPTER III

OPERATIONALIZATION: "GIVING DIRECTIONS"

One example of where this symbol-action inJ 3r-

weave is observable is found in situations in which

people give directions. Here we have an empirically

available occasion in which people overtly try

to direct and organize actions in particular acting

environments with language. It is a situation

in which people attempt to have a particular set

of symbols, particular sentencesc transformed into

specific strips of action. Such a situation, sys-

tematically studied, should enable us to determine

how language is used as an organizational device to

give form to particular actions. It should allow

us to determine what differences in language use

make a difference in the organization of actions.

It should show us what level of symbolization, of

language use, is required for what kind of action

and whether a task can overload the coding capacity

of a particular language-user.

18
 19

If, for a particular task, an individual's

directions do not admit interpretation in action,

we can assume that the task overloads his coding

capacity; that is, that his habitual level of

symbolization, of language use, does not provide

him with the regulatory strategy required to cope

with the task. If, on the other hand, an indiv-

idual's directions are enactable, we can assume

that the coding technique he uses provides him

with a sufficient regulatory strategy to organize

this kind of action.

Analyzing the directions people give, we will

be able to determine whether their language in

particular acting contexts limits their capacity

to organize behavior and thus restricts them to

limited and reactive acts of direct reference in

these contexts or whether their language is adequ-

ate to plan and organize symbolic acts. Consequent

ly, it is proposed here to analyze the relation

between the use of language and the organization

 20

of behavior in the particular empirical situation

of "giving directions." In the course of this

research social class and ethnic differences in

the sub-cultural backgrounds of language users

will be attended to.

In work that represents, perhaps, the largest

and most coherent body of empirical research

touching upon the role of language in the organ-

ization of behavior, Soviet psycho-linguists

A. Luria (1959, 1960, 1961) and L. Vygotsky

(1962, 1966) see a central role for direction in

the ontogenetic development of the verbal regul-

ation of behavior. The leitmotif of their work is

that what the child is at first able to do with

the aid and direction of an adult's speech, he

is subsequently able to do with his own speech;

at first using vocal speech, but later in devel-

opment through what they call "silent speech"

(cf. Luria, 1959: 341). They see an adult's use

of increasingly complex instructions or commands

 21

as an "important vehicle for the interiorization

of social conduct, creating new levels of behavior"

(Luria, 1960: 359). Their research indicates that

it is the communicative nature of language, which

initially allows the adult to give form to the

activity of the child and which gradually becomes

the mechanism by which the individual develops

the capacity to organize his own actions through

the language-communication he has learned to use.

By focusing on situations in which the behavior

of a child is regulated and guided by the directions

of an adult, Luria and Vygotsky have successfully

brought to bear the role of language-as-communication

on the organization of behavior.

Unfortunately, this appreciation of the rel-

ation between the communicative nature of language

and its organizational capacity has seldom found

its way into the debate on the implications of

social class and ethnic differences in language use

(cf. Labov, 1970; Williams, 1970; Cazden, 1966;

 22

Ervin-Tripp, 1967). For the most part this debate

has been dominated by psycho-linguistically

oriented researchers who have described and

explained differences in speech solely on the

level of distinctions in form phonological

features, vocabulary size, inflectional capab-

ilities, syntactic repertoire, etc. The result

has been that "communication" development, under-

stood not simply as the acquiring of a syntactical

and lexical repertoire, but as a person's capab-

ility of using language and using it in an infor-

mational way (that is, to organize and give shape

to actions vis a vis particular environments) has

been generally overlooked. Moreover, research

indicates that grammatical and lexical skills

do not necessarily correlate with communication

skills (Bruck and Tucker, 1974; Bruner, 1971)

and that programs designed to improve formal

linguistic skills do not necessarily improve

communication skills (Cicerelli et al, 1968).

Thus, it is not surprising that analytical

 23

procedures useful for the study of linguistics or

psycho-linguistics have not proven to be effective

for studying the behavioral implications of lang-

uage use. It is precisely the lack of focus on

language-as-communication which is the reason that

so little data has been produced on the relation

between language use and behavioral performance.

It is a central argument of this research

that the relation between language use and the

organization of behavior is amenable to research

which focuses on directions, that is, situations

in which one person instructs another how to

execute some task. Not only does this operational-

ization of the problem make use of a situational

genre in which the connection between language and

action is empirically available, but it also ensures

that the study will attend to the communicative

aspects of language. Moreover, while Luria and

Vygotsky have focused on the role of direction and

instruction in the developmental process of children,

and while, in this country, much of the debate on

 24

the implications of language use has been focused

upon educational settings (cf. Bereiter and

Engelmann, 1966; Gluksberg and Danks, 1974;

Entwisle, 1971), the role of language as an

instructional device for shaping behavior is,

clearly, not limited to the experiences of

children or the confines of the classroom. It

is, in fact, a common aspect of the everyday

social experience of all of us; one in which

there should be general agreement that a link

between language used and behavior performed

exists and in which this link, when it occurs,

can be commonly recognized.

Certainly, occasions abound in which the

language-communication of one individual shapes

the enactment of a particular line of conduct by

another. Instructors, consultants, coaches,

supervisors, organizers, film directors, teaching

golf pros, baseball hitting instructors, swimming

instructors, ballet teachers, all supply direct-

 25

ions which serve as the verbal mapping which

organizes the actions of others. Instructional

television developed out of the proposition that

some masters at yoga, gardening, guitar playing,

cooking, etc. can communicate their skills to

others. Julia Child's"French Chef" PBS program

was long-running not simply because her peculiar

voice and mannerisms were amusing to viewers, but

because of her ability to encode the procedures

for complex and unusual gastronomical concoctions

in such a way that the amateur gourmet could

produce a respectable facsimile.

To some extent we all have been on both the

giving and receiving ends of communication which

has led to the enactment of particular lines of

conduct. From this we know that there are better

ways of encoding actions as well as ineffective

ways. We recognize that within particular worlds

(of cooking, acting, dancing, etc.) some indiv-

iduals are capable of invoking especially effect-

 26

ive communicative modalities that serve to encode

lines of action within these worlds. Directors

of ballet troupes and theatre companies must

possess special communicative skill to be able

to elicit, through their instructions, such

elaborate and lengthy performances on the part

of dancers and actors. The concept performance,

in fact, entails not a string of random actions

but an organized, constructed, and planned-out

enactment. Likewise, consider the teaching golf

pro whose help is sought by other professional

golfers. Clearly, he must stand apart from other

teachers of golf, not because he possesses a

unique vocabulary, but because of the quality of

his instruction, his ability to employ communicative

skills which effectively assist another golfer to

re-shape, re-construct, his actions (his position-

ing, rhythm, coordination) so that he plays better.

At the same time we realize that there are

also directors who cannot direct, coaches who

 27

cannot coach, and instructors who cannot instruct.

Many tax payers might argue that the designer

of the federal income tax forms has a poorly

developed communicative technique; that the

modality employed leaves much to be desired in

effecting the satisfactory completion of tax

forms.

It is not at all clear to what extent the

relative ability to employ efficacious language-

communication within one world is associated

with the ability to do so in another. Could Julia

Child become an accomplished film director?

Could Ingmar Bergman teach cooking? We might

expect that the carry-over factor is more likely

between worlds which are similar, than worlds

which are dissimilar; just as it should be easier,

for example, for a native Spanish speaker to learn

Portugese than Arabic. We might also expect

that someone who has already experienced the

learning process of developing an effective coding

 28

technique within a once unfamiliar world would

more likely be successful in another such enter-

prise than someone who has never done this.

However, all of this is extremely speculative.

The present research will focus on the differences

between the language people of different social

and ethnic groups use to encode lines of action

within a particular world. Obviously, there are

possibilities for much further research which

could also usefully employ the study of direct-

ions or instructions as a way of empirically

operationalizing the relation between language and

behavior.
 CHAPTER IV

A PILOT STUDY:

GIVING GEOGRAPHICAL DIRECTIONS

The giving and receiving of geographical

directions is a familiar and common social experi-

ence. A geographical direction (a response to

a "how-do-I-get-there?" question) can be seen

as a verbal map that a director gives a traveler

to guide and organize his actions in some parti-

cular and unfamiliar environment. In order to

get a better handle on the features of communicated

directions which are efficacious and those which

are not, to develop a set of procedures for analy-

zing directions as verbal organizational devices,

and to better determine the important parameters

of a research design employing directions, a

pilot exercise was run in which 86 college under-

classmen were asked to give geographical directions.

They were asked simply: "Write directions on how

to get from where we are now to your home." The

examination of these directions has led to a number

29
 30

of important conclusions about directions as verbal

organizational devices as well as about the nature

of tasks encoded in directions.

First of all the examination indicated that

the directions obtained could be separated into

two discrete categories: those that were enact-

able and those that were not. Somewhat to the

surprise of this investigator, approximately one

third of the directions fell into the latter cat-

egory and were not enactable. It was also evident

that the enactability of the directions was not

simply reducible to the lexical and/or syntactic

characteristics of the language of which they

consisted.

Examination indicated, rather, that the adequ-

acy of a direction to serve as an enactable verbal

map hinged upon the way the particular line of

conduct was encoded. Following Goldstein's

(1940) analysis of the speech of aphasics, it

was possible to distinguish between directions in

 31

which objects and actions were dealt with either

dependently or independently of their occurence

in a particular situation. Consider the follow-

ing directions:

A. On Oakland take the Hampton bus to Goodfellow

to Page. Take the bus by the record center
and this puts you off in front of my house.

B. Go straight down the highway till you come

to the exit of Grand Ave. get off there turn
right go down Lindell and Grand till you hit
a little town looking like a downtown area.
Then keep straight on down going north. You
will see a fox show going on until you see a
Jack in the Box, and on the left side of the
street is my house.

C. First of all you go stand in front of the school

where the bus stops. Get on and ride downtown.
Around there is another bus zone. Catch that
and get off right in front of it by the Pierce
Lounge. The other bus is Cherokee.

D. Go west on Oakland Ave to Hampton. Turn left

onto Hampton and follow the signs to Inter-
state 40 west. Take this entrance to get
upon I 40 and keep driving west until you
reach Rt. 725. Take 725 North until you get
to Olive Street Rd. Go Olive Street Rd east
until you get to Woodson Rd. Turn left at
Woodson Rd. Go to Richard. Turn right on
Richard and go all the way down as far as you
can. My house on the corner left.

E. Go out of the parking lot and make a left on

 32

Oakland, keep going west to Skinker, make

a right on Skinker, go over Skinker to
Page. Make a right on Page then another
right on Hodiamont. The No. is .

F. Go out to front of school and catch the

Forest Park bus going east on Oakland,
get off the bus at Oakland and Kingsway
the Bus will turn and let you off in front
of a Dinner I forget the name but anyway
they're selling five hamburgers for a $1.00.
You can wait inside if it real cold or rain-
ing. Then catch the Kingsway bus going North
besure to read the Name on the bus because four
bus stop in front of the dinner when you pass
across page ave. you can start looking for my
house which is the one on the right hand side.
The number is .

What we have here are differences in the use

of language to encode lines of conduct in the par-

ticular world of city geography. In the first three

directions (A, B, and C) directors take a great

deal for granted regarding the traveler's fami-

liarity with the acting contexts. These direc-

tions are closely tied to the contexts which genera-

ted them and their meanings (that is, the lines

of action to be taken by the traveler) are, to a

great extent, implicit. In directions D, E, and F

 33

little is taken for granted regarding the traveler's

familiarity with the acting contexts, directions

are much less context-tied, and therefore the

meanings of these directions are, for the most

part, explicit.

In a frequently cited study, P. R. Hawkins

(1969) analyzes the narrative-descriptions child-

ren give to a captionless strip cartoon. Follow-

the work of Halliday (1966) and Hasan (1968),

Hawkins uses the reference categories "anaphoric"

and "exophoric" to distinguish whether the refer-

ents of pronouns used are located within the narr-

ative text itself (anaphoric) or whether the

narratives contain pronouns which refer to objects

in the cartoon strip but which are not named in

the narrative (exophoric). Using these concepts

to distinguish different kinds of references (not

just pronouns) in the directions above we could

say: Directions A, B, and C which employ reference

statements which would be fully understood only by

 34

others who had access to the context which gener-

ated the directions in the first place, make use

of references that are more exophoric in nature.

Whereas directions D, E, and F employ references

that are more anaphoric in that they can be under-

stood by others who are not familiar with the

acting context in question.

"Non-Adequate" Directions. Further, and to

the point, we can say that context-dependent

directions, directions which consist of and rely

on exophoric references, are non-enactable direct-

ions. By themselves these directions cannot give

shape to acts of indirect reference, that is,

acts with reference to objects and situations not

a part of the immediate acting context. Therefore

these directions are inadequate as organizational

devices to guide a traveler to specific unfamiliar

locations. The language employed in context-depend-

ent directions is typically gestural, concrete, and

lacking in necessary specificity. The undirectional

 35

phrase, such as "go down the highway", without

elaboration, has little or no regulatory value

and only serves to add to a traveler's uncertain-

ty. It could only be useful if given in the

acting context in which it applies and then only

if accompanied by the director pointing. Simil-

arly, instructions which employ concrete objects

(e.g. "a fox show") require fore-knowledge of the

referent to be useful.

In context-dependent directions referents do

not operate as symbols so much as situated signals.

The actor is not given an explicit plan of action

but rather a series of situated signals or markers

which imply some concrete but largely unspeci-

fied action (apparently taken by the director

himself). An actor unfamiliar with the environ-

ment in which each referent-signal is found has

no way of knowing what the action is. Taken to-

gether these instructions represent a sequence of

connected acts of direct reference in which each

 36

act is precipitated not by its own anticipated

end, but by the end of the preceding act recog-

nized by the presence of a particular concrete

object.

Of the 86 directions obtained in the pilot

study, 32 of them were not adequate as verbal

organizational devices to effect the enactment

intended.

"Adequate" Directions. On the other hand, for

directions to be at least adequate to serve as

verbal organizational devices or verbal maps

they must be encoded in such a way that the mean-

ings of the referents are independent of the con-

test in which they occur; they must not rely on

exophoric references. In directions D, E, and F

above the traveler is given a verbal map which

represents a kind of schematic model of the course

he is to take. It is not required that he have

concrete foreknowledge of the course before he

starts. Particular lines of action with regard to

 37

each referent are not implied but explicitly

stated. The references used are not limited to

vague, subjective or concrete meanings. Rather,

they function as symbols which allow the organ-

ization of lines of conduct that are planned and

anticipatory, that is, acts of indirect or symbolic

reference. Directions encoded in this manner can

be distinguished as adequate verbal organizational

devices, capable of effecting the successful organ-

ization of and completion of the acts they encode.

In his research Hawkins found that working

class children more frequently used exophoric

pronouns in their stories and middle class children

more often used anaphoric pronouns. The pilot

study here indicates, similarly, that lower class

students more frequently employ language-directions

characterized by exophoric references and context

dependency than do middle class students and that

the directions of the latter were more often

enactable. What we are dealing with here are

 38

differences between people in the way they use

language in giving a certain kind of direction,

differences in the way they encode particular

lines of action, and, we must assume, differences

in the habitual level of symbolization available

to them to invoke when encoding these actions.

"Adequate-plus" Directions. Further examin-

ation of the obtained directions showed that just

as we can distinguish between those which are

adequate verbal organizational devices and those

which are not, we can also distinguish between

directions which are barely adequate and those

which are more than adequate. Consider the follow-

ing directions:

G. Go west on Oakland to Skinker Ave., from there,

go on Skinker to Olive, make a left turn on
Olive and go until you arrive at North and
South Blvd., then go until you reach Milan,
make a left turn onto Milan until you reach
Birchmont, make another left turn onto
Birchmont, keep straight until you reach
(the address).

H. Take Grand north to Lindell, turn west or

left on Lindell, take Lindell about two miles
 39

until it dead ends at Wash U. on Skinker.

Turn right or head north on Skinker, passing
Forest Park Parkway, on your left will be
a subdivision enclosed by a white stone wall
"Parkview", the first street is Pershing.
My street is the second one waterman, take
a left from Skinker to Waterman. My house is
the first on the left Waterman. A
large brick house with rounded door and a gas
light in front.

We can see that vis a vis the particular lines

of action encoded, direction H is contextually

more specific than direction G. For each act

encoded direction G gives just enough explicit

information to allow the act to be enacted.

Direction H, on the other hand gives additional

and supportive information for many of the actions

to be taken. We are told that turning west involves

taking a left; that we take Lindell to Skinker

which is about two miles away; that Waterman can

be expected a block after Pershing and both after

Forest Park Parkway; we are given the location of

the house on the block, its address and a descrip-

tion of it. Direction H clearly gives us more

information per act encoded than Direction G. If

 40

the former is enactable, the greater specificity

of the latter makes the destination easier to

find as well as more likely to be found. In a

relatively complex environment a direction which

is barely adequate places great demands upon the

traveler. The more contextually specific and

informative a direction is the clearer the approp-

riate lines of conduct will be to the actor and

the easier it will be to follow.

Thus, examination of the geographical direct-

ions obtained in the pilot study produced three

discrete analytic categories for distinguishing

different modes of encoding lines of action: non-

adequate verbal organizational devices, adequate

devices, and more-than-adequate (or adequate-plus

devices. In the process two dimensions were

indicated along which the language-communications of

directions can be differentiated (and which repre-

sent communicative features of language rather than

formal linguistic features): context-dependency

and context-specificity. With use and refinement

 41

these dimensions might be able to sustain a

two-dimensional grid along which language-comm-

unication might be able to be plotted with greater

sophistication. For the present, given the

relatively unchartered nature of these research

waters, the three categories of verbal organiz-

ational devices would seem to be sufficiently

precise as well as manageable.

The Task. It also became apparent in the

pilot study that the task to be encoded is itself

an important variable. In the pilot, while each

student gave the same kind of direction, the course

of action each was asked to encode was, in fact,

a different one. A student who lived miles away

across the city or even in a different community

was required to encode a more elaborate course of

action than a student whose home was down the

block. It would seem clear that a more difficult

task to perform is a more difficult taks to encode;

 42

and, likewise, a task which is less difficult

to enact would be less difficult to encode. Thus,

for example, a line of conduct which is longer

should be a harder task to enact and encode than

a shorter line of conduct. It also seems apparent

that a task which must be performed in a more

varied world is harder to encode, requires more

information to organize, than one which is to be

performed in a less varied world.

We can and should distinguish, then, between

tasks which are more or less difficult or complex

as they require more or less information to enact

and involve encoding more or less information.

As the adequacy of language-communication to func-

tion as a verbal organizational device is related

to the informational demands of a particular task,

directions should more accurately be distinguished

as either: non-task-adequate devices; task-

adequate devices; or task-adequate-plus devices.

The work of Bernstein (1960) indicates that

 43

the language of lower class children is not as

effective in dealing with complex ideas, objects

and experiences as the language of middle class

children. Likewise, Deutsch (1965) has remarked

". . . a s labelling requirements become more complex

and related to more diverse and variegated exper-

ience, lower class people with more restricted

experiences are going to have more difficulty in

supplying the correct labels (86)." In the study

proposed here, task complexity will be included

as an independent variable.

Audience c One other consideration of conse-

quence arose during the pilot study and that has to

do with the question of the audience for which dir-

ections are intended. It might be argued that

those directions which were categorized non-ade-

quate are, in fact, in many cases adequate devices

for particular populations. That is, while a

direction may be non-task-adequate for this invest-

igator or for the public at large, it might be

 44

task-adequate for a population which shares a

similar contextual history with the director.

It has been demonstrated, for instance, that

reference phrases become more abbreviated as a

function of the frequency of usage in social inter-

action (cf. Krauss and Weinheimer, 1964). It is

everyone's experience that in communication with

familiar others regarding familiar topics, things

are taken for granted; not everything is spoken.

Communication addressed -co a comprehending friend

may be obscure to a stranger who overhears it.

There is a popular position afoot these days

which insists that the speech of poor, black child-

ren is not deficient but simply not intelligible

to middle class white adults (cf. inter alia:

Labov, 1967, 1970; Ginsburg, 1972; Houston,

1969, 1970; Baratz and Baratz, 1970; Gluksburg

and Danks, 1973). Unfortunately, this position

maintains, these adults in many cases are the

teachers of these children who are perceived to

 45

possess poor learning skills and little aptitude

and who, as a result of their non-standard English

speech are victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy

(Williams and Naremore, 1969; Stewart, 1969;

Baratz, 1969). Studies are pointed to (e.g.

Pasomanick and Knoblock, 1955; Labov, et al.,

1968; Resnick, 1969; Philips, 1970) which

demonstrate that what appsar to be practically

non-verbal children, when taken out of the alien

and threatening classroom environment and approached

in a location and manner compatible with their

experiences (and usually by a black adult), that

these children often manifest highly sophisticated

verbal skills which is seen by some (e.g. Entwisle,

1970; Williams, 1971; Brown, 1972; Houston,

1969, 1973; Kochman, 1969) as a hallmark, rather

than a deficit, of the poor-black American sub-

culture. This position argues, accordingly, that

the problem resides not in the language capacity

of these children but in the perceptual and judg-

mental limitations of their teachers (Abrahams,

 46

1969; Johnson, 1969; Stewart 1969a, 1969b).

It generally concludes, that as a programmatic

response to this situation, the educational system

should not try to change the speech habits of these

children so much as build upon the richness of

expression that their speech contains (Baratz

and Baratz, 1969; Feigenbaum, 1970; Leaverton,

1971); the teacher as audience should learn to

adjust to the communicating child rather than the

other way around. An exponent of this view,

William Labov (1970: 154) has written: "The

notion of verbal deprivation is a part of the

modern mythology of educational psychology, typ-

ical of the unfounded notions which tend to expand

rapidly in our educational system."

It is unfortunate that much of the work which

bears on this timely matter is either anecdotal

in nature (cf. Kohl, 1967; Herndon, 1968;

Dennison, 1969) or else confounds formal linguis-

tic aspects of language with language-communication

 47

(cf. Wolfram, 1969; Labov, 1970; Fasold, 1972).

It is also the case that there is considerable

research with findings not consistent with the

assumptions of this position (cf. inter alia:

Hurst and Jones, 1966; Seitz et al., 1967,

Blank and Soloman, 1968). Krauss and Rotter

(1968), for instance, find that there is some

evidence that poor black children are better able

to comprehend the speech communication of middle

class white children than that of other poor black

children. Somerviile and Jacobs (1972) found black

children who listened to standard English had a

higher comprehension score than those who listened

to Black English. It is also unfortunate that the

debate on the merits of non-standard English

dialects has often been more ideological than

pedagogical.

It is important to point out, in any event,

that if language-communication is related to

behavior, then someone "restricted" (to use

Bernstein's word) to sharing familiar experiences

 48

only with others with whom he shares a contextual

history, is doomed to an extremely narrow range

of experiences. He will be severely hampered

if called upon to deal with something new and

different (an issue, a person, a problem, an

environment). The ability to deal with the fam-

iliar in the particular subcultural idiom of one's

everyday reality, while more noticeable among

more ghettoized sub-groups, is, nonetheless, a

skill which members of all groups possess. Limit-

ations arise if and when the idiom is the only

medium an individual is able to invoke. A central

focus of any educational program is, or ought to

be, overcoming the narrowness of individual exper-

iences and expanding the individual through the

use of more universalistic modalities.

In the directions given in the pilot, a res-

ponse mode which assumes and demands a narrowly

restricted audience, while sometimes colorfully

argotic, is, nevertheless, an inadequate response

 49

to the task. In relying upon the environmental

context for support, to supply the meaning left

implied, there is more than just the casual implic-

ation of potential limitations and problems in

operating in unfamiliar environments which cannot

be relied upon for support. The best evidence

available to indicate that a person's habitual

level of symbolization does not provide him with

the coding capacity to cope with a particular

task is its failure to do so.

It would not seem unreasonable, in this resea-

rch, to rely upon what might be called a "constant

audience" in the sense of the public-at-large

(represented by the researcher himself). In the

pilot, for example, it was the investigator who

requested the directions. So if, in fact, part-

icular directions were not enactable by him, this

represents a coding inadequacy vis a vis a real

audience. A similar concept has been employed by

others, namely "consensual validation" (cf. Sullivan,

1953) and "consensual statements" (cf. Kuhn and

McPartland, 1958; and Garretson, 1962).

 50

However, in order to clarify the validity

and ensure the reliability of both the research

procedures and the research findings, directions

obtained will also be presented to other subjects

to try to enact. In this way the adequacy of

directions can be most clearly established. This

procedure also allows the research to be designed

so as to determine whether communication between

members of the same sub-cultural groups is more

effective than communication between members of

different sub-cultural groups. In addition, if

each subject serves as both a communicator-dir-

ector and also as an audience for another

subject's directions, valuable data will be

obtained on the relation between the capacity

an individual has to invoke a particular level of

symbolization to encode a line of action on the

one hand, and his capacity to translate directions

into actions on the other.

 CHAPTER V

HYPOTHESES

From the theoretical framework and empirical

work cited, the following hypotheses can be

formulated:

1. The language-communication mode used in

particular directions will be related to the

ability of subjects to enact them, and in such

a way that: Non-task-adequate directions will

not be enacted while task-adequate directions

will be enacted in most cases, but not as con-

sistently as will task-adequate-plus directions.

2. A more difficult task to perform will

be a more difficult task to encode and a less

difficult task to perform will be a less difficult

task to encode.

2a. Combining hypothesis 2 with hypothesis

1 it is expected that tasks which are less diff-

icult to encode will be more frequently enacted

51
 52

successfully.

3. The language-communication mode used in

directions will be related to the social class of

subjects, and in such a way that: Middle class

subjects will more often give directions that are

task-adequate and task-adequate-plus and lower

class subjects will more often give directions

that are non-task-adequate.

3a. This finding will be stronger for more

difficult tasks than for less difficult tasks.

3b. combining hypothesis 3 with hypothesis

1 it is expected that middle class subjects will

more often give directions that can be enacted

than will lower class subjects.

4. Does the ethnicity of subjects affect the

relationship between the social class of subjects

and the language-communication mode they employ?

5. The language mode employed by subjects in

giving directions will be related to their ability

 53

to enact the directions of others, and in such

a way that: Those who employ non-task-adequate

directions will be least likely to enact adequate

directions given by others and those who employ

task-adequate-plus directions will be most likely

to enact adequate directions of others.

5a. Directions which are non-adequate will

not be enacted regardless of the language mode

available to the actor.

5b. The finding predicted in this hypothesis

will be more pronounced on more difficult tasks

than on less difficult tasks.

5c. Combining hypothesis 5 with hypothesis

3 it is expected that lower class subjects will

less frequently be able to enact the directions

of others than will middle class subjects.

6. The effectiveness of communication will

be determined less by the social class and eth-

nicity of subject-directors and actors than by

 54

the language-communication mode employed in the

directions.
 CHAPTER VI

METHOD

Subjects

While most studies on language codes employ

children as subjects (e.g. Bernstein, 1971;

Tough, 1970), this study focused primarily,

although not exclusively, upon adults. The

adult subjects were 228 students attending classes

in four metropolitan colleges. All subjects volun-

teered to participate.

In writing about the work of Bernstein and

the contextual dependency of the language of

children from different social classes, Bruner

(1971: 149) observed: "I do not know,save by

everyday observation, whether the difference is

greater among adults, but my impression is that

the difference in decontextualization is greater

between an English barrister and a dock worker

than it is between their children."

55
 56

In order to explore Bruner's "impression"

more fully, the study also included some younger

subjects. These were 88 sixth and tenth grade

volunteers from four metropolitan schools.

Following Brandis (1970) in Great Britain

and Hollingshead (1957) in the United States, two

factors were considered in determining the social

class of subjects: occupation and education.

The social class of adult subjects was determined

as follows: If the subjects were full time students

whose primary residence was with their parents,

the occupation and education level of their parents

was used. For the purposes of this study, these

subjects were categorized as lower class if their

parents were engaged in manual occupations and

had not attended college; they were categorized

as middle class if their parents were engaged in

non-manual occupations or if they had attended

college. For subjects whose primary residence

was not with their parents and who were not

 57

economically dependent upon their parents, the

subjects' own occupation was used along with

their parents' educational level. These subjects

were classified as lower class if they were employed

in manual work and if their parents had not attended

college; they were classified as middle class if

they were engaged in non-manual work or if their

parents had attended college.

Of the 228 adult subjects, 127 were lower class

and 91 were middle class.

The determination of the social class of the

younger subjects was not made on a case by case

basis. Rather, these subjects were drawn from

schools whose students came from either predomi-

nantly lower class or middle class families.

Of the 88 sixth and tenth grade subjects, 40

were lower class and 48 were middle class.

Along with social class, the ethnicity of the

 58

subjects was also a controlled, independent vari-

able in the study. One hundred and eight of the

adult subjects were white and 120 were black.

Sixty-six of the sixth and tenth grade subjects were

white and 22 were black.

Procedures

In this study subjects were asked to do two

things: 1) they were asked to give directions

regarding the execution of a task (in this capa-

city subjects are referred to as "directors";

and 2) they were asked to try to enact directions

of a second task previously given by another subject

(in this capacity subjects are referred to as

"actors").

Prior to their being given to actors to enact,

the directions obtained were categorized by the

investigator, using the dimensions of context-

dependency and context-specificity, as verbal

organizational devices that were either: non-task

 59

adequate; task-adequate; or task-adequate-plus.

The study employed two similar but distinct

tasks for which directions were sought. Each task

had a less complex and a more complex variation.

Task One involved the following puzzle:

variation 1
(four pieces)

variation 2
(five pieces)
NT

Forty-eight subjects were asked to give directions

for assembling variation one and 49 were asked to

give directions for assembling variation two.

Task Two involved constructing the following

designs with tinker toy pieces:

 60

design 1
(four pieces)
o
design 2
(six pieces)

Sixty-six subjects were asked to give instructions

for constructing design one and 65 were asked to

give instructions for constructing design two.

It has been suggested (e.g. Labov, 1970),

that in considering the relative communication

effectiveness of people in different social class

and ethnic sub-cultures, it may make a difference

whether the form of the communication is oral or

written. While this is not a major concern of

this research, it is also not a trivial matter.

Accordingly, for the adult subjects, 163 of them

gave their directions in writing and were given

written directions to enact. The remaining 65

 61

subjects gave and received directions orally in

back-to-back pairs (except for one triadic group).

All 88 of the younger subjects gave and received

directions in back-to-back pairs.

Differences between written and oral direct-

ions were considered an important issue but second-

ary to the central focus of the research and were

treated independently of the basic design (in

which both written and oral directions were com-

bined) . Likewise, the sample of the 88 youthful

subjects was treated as a secondary issue and

analysed independently of the adult sample.

The basic experimental design of this study

was a 2 x 2 x 2 construction: social class

(middle and low) x ethnicity (black and white) x

task complexity (simple and complex).

It was originally assumed that the tinker toy

and puzzle tasks were of a similar degree of

difficulty and that for the purposes of analysis

the four piece puzzle task and the four piece

 62

tinker toy task could be combined under the rubric

"simpler task" and that, likewise, the five piece

puzzle and six piece tinker toy tasks could be

combined in the analysis as the "more complex task."

However, preliminary analysis after 150 sub-

jects had participated in the study showed that

both versions of the tinker toy task were more

frequently being enacted successfully than either

versions of the puzzle task. The rate of success-

ful enactment for the four piece tinker toy task

was 62%; for the six piece tinker toy task, 40%;

for the four piece puzzle task, 25%; and 15% for

the five piece puzzle task.

Accordingly, in the analysis both tinker toy

tasks were treated as and classified as the

"simpler tasks" and both puzzle tasks were treated

and classified as the "more complex tasks."

The final array of adult subjects as directors

and actors according to their class and ethnicity

 63

and the task for which directions were given is

shown in Table 1.
 64

Table 1

Adult Sample

Actors

Directors WL WM BL BM T

WLS 12 4 12 4 32

WLC 4 10 6 5 25

WMS 4 8 11 6 29

WMC 9 4 5 4 22

BLS 12 8 22 55 47

BLC 7 8 11 7 33

BMS 4 5 9 5 23

BMC _5_ __4 4 4 17

57 51 80 40 228

W = White
B = Black

L = Lower Class
M - Middle Class

S = Simple Task (tinker toy)

C = Complex Task (puzzle)
 CHAPTER VII

FINDINGS

Hypothesis 1

Hypothesis one predicted that the language-

communication mode used in particular directions

would be related to the ability of subjects to

enact them. Specifically, it predicted that non-

task-adequate directions would not be enacted;

that task-adequate directions would, in most cases,

be enacted; and that task-adequate-plus directions

would be enacted consistently.

Hypothesis one was confirmed.

Directions obtained in the study were categ-

orized as non-task-adequate (NA), task-adequate

(A), or task-adequate-plus (A+) verbal organiz-

ational devices, according to the criteria estab-

lished in the pilot study. Of the 228 directions

given, 105 were classified NA, 104 were classified

A, and 19 were classified A+.

65
 66

Table 2 shows that, as predicted in hypothesis

one, there was a significant correlation between

the language-communication mode used in particular

directions and the ability of subject-actors to

enact them (X2=134.32, p .001; C=.61). As predicted

A+ directions were most frequently enacted (17

of the 19 A+ directions were enacted successfully

operationally, this means these 17 tasks were

performed perfectly.) Seventy-seven of the 104 A

directions were enacted. Only one NA direction wss

enacted.

If this single NA direction that was enacted

can be considered an accident, then we can say

that, for this study, "adequate" language-commun-

ica '^n encoding was a necessary condition for the

task enactment. As defined in the pilot study,

"adequate" encoding entailed language-communication

that was context-independent and context-specific.

Thus a fundamental requirement to inform and

direct the range of action represented in this

 67

Table 2

Language Mode and Task Enactment

Language Mode
used in
Directions successful not successful total

non-adequate 1 104 105

adequate 77 27 104

adequate-plus 17 2 19

95 133 228

X = 134.32, 2 df, p .001. Contingency Coeff-

icient C = .61.
 68

study's tasks (acts of "indirect reference" as

defined by Head, 1926; "abstract level" behavior

as described by Goldstein, 1941) was language-

communication that was context-independent and

specific ("significant symbols" as described by

Mead, 1934). Directions which consisted of

context-tied language (Mead's "significant ges-

tures") were not adequate to inform and direct the

level of behavioral organization represented by

these tasks.

Of the 228 directions obtained in the study,

only 123 of them (53%) were encoded "adequately."

Less than half of the directions given were enacted

successfully. These numbers seem remarkable con-

sidering the subjects involved were college students.

In 59% of the cases, the college student subjects

did not give directions to the tasks that other

college students enacted. As the results in Table

2 indicate, this failure is associated with the

leval of symbolization available to the subjects

 69

to invoke either when encoding or decoding the

actions which comprise the tasks.

Hypothesis 2

It was predicted in hypothesis two that a

more difficult task to perform will be a more

difficult task to encode.

This Hypothesis was confirmed.

That the puzzle tasks were more difficult

to perform than the tinker toy tasks is operation-

ally indicated in the fact that the puzzle tasks

were less frequently enacted than the tinker toy

tasks. As shown in Table 3, 74 of the 131 direct-

ions given for the tinker toy tasks (56%) were

enacted, while only 21 of the 97 directions given

for the puzzle tasks (21%) were enacted. As

table 4 further shows this finding is consistent

across all four task levels. Enactment rates

varied from a high of 70% for the four-piece tinker

 70

toy task to a low of 16% for the five-piece

puzzle task.

Table 5 shows that the puzzle tasks were also

more difficult to encode than the tinker toy tasks

2
as predicted by hypothesis 2 (X =9.37, p .01).

Sixty-two percent of the tinker toy task directions

were A+ or A directions. Moreover, table 6 shows

that for the four task levels as the tasks got

progressively more difficult they became progress-

ively harder to encode.

If we compare the relative difference between

the percentage of tinker toy tasks for which A

directions were given (62%) and the percentage

of tinker toy directions enacted (56%) on the one

hand, to the difference between the percentage of

puzzle tasks for which A directions were given (42%)

and the percentage enacted (21%) on the other, it

appears that, not only is a more difficult task to

perform harder to encode, but that an adequate

 71

Table 3

Task Enactment of Directions

Given for Tinker Toy and
Puzzle Tasks

Task Enactment

Tasks successful not successful total

tinker toy 74 57 131

puzzlr 21 76 97

95 133 228

X 2 = 28.89, 1 df, p .001,

 72

Table 4

Task Enactment for Four Task Levels

Task Enactment

Tasks successful not successful total

tinker toy 46 (70%) 20 (30%) 66

(4-piece)

tinker toy 28 (43%) 37 (57%) 65

(6-piece)

puzzle 13 (26%) 35 (74%) 48

(4-piece)

puzzle 8 (16%) 41 (84%) 49

(5-piece)

95 133 228
 73

Table 5

Language Mode Used for Tinker

Toy and Puzzle Tasks

Language Mode

Tasks adequate- adequate non- total

plus adequate

tinker toy 12 70 49 131

puzzle 7 34 56 97

19 104 105 228

X 2 = 9.37, 1 df, p .01.

 74

Table 6

Language Mode Used for Four

Task Levels

Language Mode

Tasks adequate-plu s
and adequate non-adequate total

tinker toy 50 (75%) 16 (24%) 66 (100%)

(4-piece)

tinker toy 32 (49%) 33 (51%) 65 (100%)

(6-piece)

puzzle 22 (39%) 26 (54%) 48 (100%)

(4-piece)

puzzle 19 (39%) 30 (61%) 49 (100%)

(5-piece)

123 105 228

 75

direction to a less difficult task.

These results indicate that increasingly

complex behavioral organization requires increase

ingly sophisticated language-communication. Also,

ability to encode or decode language-communication

for a relatively simple task does not mean one

possesses the language-communication skill required

for encoding or decoding more complex tasks.

Hypothesis 3

Hypothesis three predicted that the language-

communication mode used in direcL- would be

related to the social class of the subjects.

More specifically, it predicted that middle class

subjects would more often give A+ and A directions

and that lower class subjects would more often give

NA directions.

This hypothesis was confirmed.

As table 7 shows the difference in the language-

communication mode used by middle and lower class

 76

subjects was significant (X2 =14.21, p 01; C=.24).

Sixty-nine percent of the directions given by

middle class subjects were A+ or A directions.

On the other hand, only 43% of the directions

given by lower class subjects were A+ or A.

Hypothesis three further predicted that this

finding would be stronger for more difficult and

complex tasks than for less difficult, simpler

tasks. Table 8 shows the language-communication

mode used by middle and lower class subjects for

the simpler (tinker toy) tasks. Table 9 shows

the language mode used by middle and lower class

subjects for the more complex (puzzle) tasks.

As can be seen, the tendency for middle class

subjects to give A+ or A directions more often

than lower class subjects was significant for both

tasks. The tables also show that both groups gave

A+ or A directions more frequently to the simpler

task than the complex task. Comparing the tables

we can also see that, as expected, the association

 77

Table 7

Language Mode and Social Class

Language Mode

Subjects adequate-plus non-adequate total

and adequate _______________ ______

middle class 63 (69%) 28 (31%) 91 (100%)

lower class 60 (43%) 77 (57%) 137 (100%)

123 105 228

X 2 = 14.21, 1 df, p .01. C = .24.

 78

Table 8

Language Mode and Social Class

for Tinker Toy Task

Language Mode

Subjects adequate-plus non-adequate total

and adequate ,.

middle class 39 (77%) 13 (23%) 52 (100%)

lower class 43 (57%) 36 (43%) 79 (100%)

82 49 131

X 2 = 6.68, i df, p .01. C = 22.

 79

between class and language code is somewhat stronger

for the more difficult task (x2 =9.93; C=.30)

than for the less difficult task (X2 =6.68;

C=.22).

Finally, it should be pointed out that the

relative difference between the ability of middle

and lower class subjects to encode the tasks was

such that middle class subjects gave A+ or A

directions to the more difficult tasks more fre-

quently (61%) than did lower class subjects to

the less difficult tasks (57%).

Hypothesis 3a

It was further predicted that middle class

subjects would more frequently give directions

that would be enacted than would lower class sub-

jects. As table 10 shows, while this tendency was

present, the difference was not significant.

When we separate the directions given for

the puzzle tasks from the directions given for the

 80

tinker toy tasks we can see (tables 11 and 12)

that the predicted tendency is present inboth

cases and that it is, in fact, significant between

the .025 and .05 level for the puzzle tasks. This

further emphasizes that the differences that do

exist between middle class and lower class subjects

in giving effective directions are greater for

more complex tasks than for simpler tasks.

Hypothesis 4

Hypothesis four enquired whether the ethnicity

of the subjects affected the relationship between

social class and language-communication mode. No

prediction was made.

Table 13 shows the language mode used by

subjects who are white lower class (WL), white

middle class (Wm) , black lower ^ a s s (BL) , and

black middle class (BM). We can compare the

relative ability of the four groups to encode the

tasks by looking at the frequency of NA directions

The subject-group with the fewest NA directions

 81

Table 9

Language Mode and Social Class

for Puzzle Task

Language Mode

Subjects adequate-plus non-adequate total

and adequate

middle class 24 (61%) 15 (39%) 39 (100%)

lower class 17 (29%) 41 (71%) 58 (100%)

41 56 97

X 2 = 9.93, 1 df, p .01. C = .30

 82

Table 10

Social Class of Directors

and Task Enactment

Task Enactment
Subject-
Directors successful not successful total

middle class 44 (48%) 47 (52%) 91 (100%)

lower class 51 (38%) 86 (62%) 137 (100%)

95 133 228

X 2 = 2.79, 1 df, p .10 (M.S.)

 83

Table 11

Social Class of Directors and

Task Enactment for Puzzle Tasks

Task Enactment

Subject-
Directors successful not successful total

middle class 10 (25%) 29 (75%) 39 (100%)

lower class 11 (18%) 47 (82%) 58 (100%)

21 76 97

X 2 = 4.53, ldf, p .05.

 84

Table 12

Social Class of Directors and Task

Enactment for Tinker Toy Tasks

Task Enactment
Subject-
Directors, successful not successful total

middle class 34 (65%) 18 (35%) 52 (100%)

lower class 40 (50%) 39 (50%) 79 (100%)

74 57 131

X 2 = 2.42, ldf, p .20. (N.SO

 85

(and therefore a greater frequency of A+ and A

directions) was WM with 28%. This group also

had the most A+ directions (17%). BM subjects

had the next fewest NA directions, 35%. WL

followed with 39%. Finally, BL subjects gave NA

directions 69% of the time.

Thus, as table 13 shows, the group which

most frequently failed to encode their directions

adequately was BL. Black lower class subjects,

in fact, stood well apart from the other three

groups in ability to encode the tasks. The most

common language mode of WL subjects (51% of the

time), WM subjects (55%), and BM subjects (57%)

was A. However the most common language mode

employed by BL subjects was NA (69%) . Thus we

can see that the findings which support hypothesis

3 which show lower class subjects less frequently

giving A+- or A directions than middle class sub-

jects, are primarily due to the BL subjects.

There is little difference in the language

 86

Table 13

Language Mode of Directors of

Different Social Class and
Ethnicity

Language Mode

Directors adequate- adequate non- total

plus adequate

WL 6 (10%) 29 (51%) 22 (39%) 57(100%)

WM 9 (17%) 28 (55%) 14 (28%) 51(100%)

BL 1 (02%) 24 (29%) 55 (69%) 80(100%)

BM 3 (08%) 23 (57%) 14 (35%) 40(100%)

19 104 105 228

X * = 26.91, 6 df, p .001.

WL = White lower class subjects

WM = White middle class subjects
BL = Black lower class subjects
BM = Black middle class subjects
 87

mode employed by BM subjects compared with WL

and WM subjects (X2 =1.13, p .70). There is a

significant difference, however, between the

language used by BL and BM subjects (X2 =27.12,

p .001). We see that ethnicity as a contributing

factor does not stand alone.

Difficulty using effective language-conunun-

ication to organize and inform actions does not

arise simply out of social class differences or

of ethnic differences. These findings indicate

that the problem of effectively employing language

to inform and organize actions is particularly

acute among subjects with a black and lower class

background.

In tables 14 and 15 we can see how much diff-

iculty BL subjects had encoding both the tinker

toy and the puzzle tasks. We also see in table

15 that WM subjects did considerably better than

any of the other groups in encoding the more complex

puzzle tasks.
 88

When we look to see whose directions were

enacted (table 16), again, the overwhelming

finding is the relative failure of BL subjects

to have their directions enacted.

Hypothesis 5

Hypothesis five predicted that there would

be a significant association between the language-

communication mode used by subjects in giving

directions and their ability to enact directions

given by others. Specifically, it predicted that

those who gave NA directions would be least

likely to enact directions given by others and

that those who gave A+ directions would be most

likely to enact the directions of others.

This hypothesis was confirmed.

These findings are indicated in table 17.

Since only one NA direction of the 105 obtained

in the study was enacted, the table includes

only the 123 A+ and A directions given by subjects.

 89

Table 14

Language Mode of Directors of

Different Social Class and
Ethnicity for Tinker Toy
(Simpler) Tasks.

Language Mode

Directors adequate--plus non-adequate total

and adequate

WL 23 9 32

WM 22 7 29

BL 20 27 47

BM 17 6 23

82 49 131

X 2 = 12.65, 3 df, p .01.

 90

Table 15

Language Mode of Directors of

Different Social Class and
Ethnicity for Puzzle (More
Complex) Tasks

Language Mode

adequate--plus non-adequate total

and adeqijate

12 13 25

15 7 22

5 28 33

9 8 17

41 56 97

2
= 17.11, 3df, p .001,
 91

Table 16

Task Enactment and Social Class

and Ethnicity of Directors

Task Enactment

Directors successiful not successful total

WL 29 28 57

WM 27 24 51

BL 22 58 80

BM 17 23 40

95 133 228

X 2 = 11.34, 3 df, p .01.

 92

It shows whether these directions were enacted

successfully or not by subjects who had employed

NA, A, and A+ modes in their own directions. Of

the 123 A+ and A directions obtained in the study,

94 of them were enacted successfully. All 11

subjects who had given A+ directions themselves

and 40 of the 48 subjects who had given A directions

enacted the adequate directions given to them.

As table 17 shows, 33% of the time, subjects

who had been unable to adequately encode the task

were also unable to decode adequate directions and

perform the task. On the other hand, this means

that 67% of the subjects whose coding capacities

were insufficient to cope with the task were able

to perform a similar task when adequate language-

communication was supplied by another subject.

Hypothesis 5a

It was further predicted that the association

between the abilities of subjects to encode and

decode directions would be more pronounced on

 93

Table 17

Task Enactment of Adequate and

Adequate-Plus Directions by
Subjects Who Had Employed
Different Language Modes in
Their Directions

Task Enactment
Language Modes
used by
Directors successful not successful total

non-adequate 43 21 64

adequate 40 8 48

adequate-plus 11 0 11

94 29 123

X 2 = 6.99, 2df, p .05,

 94

more difficult tasks than on less difficult

tasks. This hypothesis was confirmed.

Table 18 shows how frequently A+ and A

directions for the tinker toy tasks were enacted

by subjects who had employed different language

modes in their own directions. It shows that

most subjects, irregardless of the language mode

employed in their own directions, were able to

enact these directions. Ninety-seven percent

of the subjects who had given A+ or A directions

and 82% of the subjects who had given NA directions,

enacted adequate directions given to them for

these simpler tasks.

Table 19 shows how frequently A+ and A dir-

ections for the more complex puzzle tasks were

enacted. Subjects who had given A+ and. A direct-

ions themselves were able to enact these direct-

ions 67% of the time, while subjects who had given

NA directions enacted them only 29% of the time.

Here we see that the relation between language

 95

Table 18

Task Enactment of Adequate and Adequate-Plus

directions for Tinker Toy (Simpler) Tasks
by Subjects Who Had Employed Different
Language Modes

Task Enactment

Language Modes successful not successful total

non-adequate 38 8 46

adequate-plus
and adequate 35 1 36

73 9 82

X 2 = 4.22, 1 df, p .05.

 96

Table 19

Task Enactment of Adequate and Adequate-Plus

Puzzle (More Complex) Tasks by Subjects Who
Had Employed Different Language Modes

Task Enactment

Language Modes successful not successful total

non-adequate 12 17

adequate-plus
and adequate 16 8 24

21 20 41

X 2 = 5.48, 1 df, p .01

 97

mode used and task enactment (between ability to

encode and decode) is much stronger.

Hypothesis 5b

It was further predicted that lower class

subjects would be able to enact the directions

of others less frequently than middle class sub-

jects. This hypothesis was not confirmed.

Table 20 shows how frequently lower and middle

class subjects were able to successfully enact

directions which were A+ or A. No difference was

found between the two groups: 76% of the time

lower class subjects enacted these directions and

77% of the time middle class subjects enacted them.

When ethnicity of subjects is considered along

with social class we get the frequencies shown in

table 21. Between group differences are relatively

small: White lower class subjects enacted the

directions most frequently, 84%; followed by black

middle class subjects, 78%; then white middle

class subjects, 76%; and finally, black lower

 98

Table 20

Task Enactment of Adequate and

Adequate-Plus Directions by
Actors of Different Social
Classes

Task Enactment
Subject-
Actors successful not successful total

lower class 57 (76%) 18 (24%) 75 (100%)

Middle class 37 (77%) 11 (23%) 48 (100%)

94 29 123

X 3.20, ldf, M.S.

 99

Table 21

Task Enactment of Adequate and Adequate-

Plus Directions by Actors of Different
Social Class and Ethnicity

Ta sk Enactment
Subject-
Actors successful not successful total

white
lower class 27 (84%) 5 (16%) 32 (100%)

white
middle class 19 (76%) 6 (24%) 25 (100%)

black
lower class 30 (70%) 13 (30%) 43 (100%)

Black
middle class 18 (78%) 5 (22%) 23 (100%)

94 29 123

X 2 = 2.35, 3 df, M.S.

 100

class subjects, 70%. As indicated in table

21 these differences between the four subject

groups are not significant (X2 =2.35, p .50).

Tables 22 and 23 show how frequently subjects

from the four subject groups enacted adequate

directions for the tinker toy and puzzle tasks

respectively. Table 22 shows that, for the

tinker toy task, there was little difference bet-

ween groups in their abilities to enact these

directions. Most of the subjects in all the

groups were able to enact them. Table 23 shows,

however, that while all groups enacted adequate

puzzle directions less frequently than they had

tinker toy directions, none of the BL subjects

who were given adequate puzzle directions were

able to enact them, while a majority of subjects

in each of the other groups were able to.

Thus while no overall difference was found

between middle and lower class subjects in their

 101

Table 22

Task Enactment of Tinker Toy

Tasks by Actors of Different
Social Class and Ethnicity

Task Enactment

Actors successful not successful total

white
lower class 19 19

white
middle class 11 12

black
lower class 30 36

black
middle class 14 16

74 9 83
 102

Table 23

Task Enactment of Puzzle Tasks

by Actors of Different Social
Class and Ethnicity

Task Enactment

Actors successful not successful total

white
lower class 8 5 13

white
middle class 8 5 13

black
lower class 0 7 7

black
middle class 4 3 7

20 20 40
 103

ability to enact the directions of others, we

do find on the more complex tasks that black

lower class subjects have the most difficulty

following adequate directions given to them.

Hypothesis 6

Hypothesis six predicted that communication

effectiveness, both within and between ethnic

and social class sub-groups, was determined prim-

arily by the adequacy of the language-communication

used in directions rather than the sub-cultural

similarities between subjects.

This hypothesis was confirmed.

The initial indication of the central import-

ance of the language-communication mode for comm-

unication effectiveness was the finding (cf. hypo-

thesis 1) that only one of the NA directions had

been enacted. This meant that, in spite of the

ethnicity and class of the director vis a vis the

ethnicity and class of the actor, in 104 out of

105 cases when the directions were NA they were not

 104

enacted. Subjects within particular sub-groups

did not (as some researchers have indicated they

do; eg. Houston, 1967) communicate in some special

sub-cultural code that was effective only for some-

one within the group.

Table 24 shows how frequently lower and middle

class actors were able to enact directions given

to them by lower and middle class directors. It

shows that middle class actors as well as lower

class actors were more frequently able to enact

the directions of middle class directors. As can

be seen middle class actors successfully enacted

the directions of middle class directors 45%

of the time and enacted the directions of lower

class directors 37% of the time. Similarly,

lower class actors enacted middle class direct-

ions 51% of the time and lower class directions

37% of the time.

Now if we consider only A+ and A directions

given by subjects of either class to actors of

 105

Table 24

Task Enactment by Middle and Lower

Class Actors of Directions given
by Middle and Lower Class Directors

Middle Class Lower Class

Actors Actors

Directors success- not succ- success- not succ-

ful essful ful essful

middle
class 18 22 26 25

lower
class 19 32 32 54
 106

either class, the differences found in table 24

no longer appear. As table 25 shows, it is no

longer the case that middle and lower class actors

more often enact the directions of middle class

directors. Each group enacts the directions given

by all directors a very high percentage of the

time. It is clear that the data in table 24 which

shows both middle class and lower class actors more

frequently enacting the directions given by middle

class directors results from the fact that the

middle class directors gave fewer NA directions

(cf. table 7 ) .

Table 26 shows how frequently black and white

actors were able to enact directions given to them

by black and white directors. It shows that black

and white actors enacted the directions of black

directors less frequently (black actors: 34%;

white actors: 37%) than the directions of white

directors (black actors: 47%; white actors: 56%).

Again, considering only A+ andA directions, we see

 107

Table 24

Task Enactment by Middle and Lower

Class Actors of Directions Given
by Middle and Lower Class Directors
Task Enactment
Middle Class Lower Class
Actors Actors

Directors success- not succ- success- not succ-

ful essful ful essful

middle class 18 22 26 25

lower class 19 32 32 54
 108

Table 25

Task Enactment by Middle and Lower

Class Actors of Adequate and Adequate-
Plus Directions Given by Middle and
Lower Class Directors

Task Enactment

Middle Class Lower Class

Actors Actors

Directors success- not succ- success- not succ-

ful essful ful essful

middle
class 18 7 25 13

lower
class 19 4 32 5
 109

Table 26

Task Enactment by Black and White

Actors of Directions given by Black
and White Directors

Task Enactment

Black Actors White Actors

Directors success- not succ- success- not succ-

ful essful ful essful

Black 23 44 16 37

White 25 28 31 24
 110

in table 27, that black actors no longer enact the

directions of white actors more frequently.

There remains, however, a tendency for white

actors to enact the directions of white directors

more frequently. But this would appear to result

from the fact that 10 of the 19 A+ directions given

in the study were given by white directors to

white actors, whereas white actors received no A+

directions from black directors. And so even this

finding results from the language mode used in

directions that actors received and not simply the

ethnicity of the director.

Table 28 shows how frequently WL, WM, BL and

BM actors successfully enacted A+ and A directions

given by WL, WM, BL and BM directors. No sign-

ificant or even strong effects are indicated which

result from the ethnicity and social class inter-

action of the subjects. The overriding factor

effecting the enactment of all directions by all

subjects was the adequacy of the language-commun-

 Ill

Table 27

Task Enactment by Black and White Actors

of Adequate and Adequate-Plus Directions
Given by Black and White Directors

Task Enactment

Black Actors White Actors

Directors success- not succ- success- not succ-

ful essful ful ful

Black 23 8 15

White 25 10 31
 112

Table 28
Task Enactment by Actors of Different
Social Class and E t h n i c i t y of Adequate
and Adequate-Plus D i r e c t i o n s Given by
D i r e c t o r s of Different Social Class
and E t h n i c i t y

Actors

WL WM BL BM

Directors S NS S NS S NS S NS

WL 12 0 7 2 6 3 4 1

WM 9 2 3 2 9 5 6 6

BL 4 0 5 0 10 2 3 1

BM 2 3 4 2 5 3 5 2

27 5 19 6 30 13 18

S = successful

NS "= not successful

 113

ication used in giving directions.

In the analysis of the data of this study,

black lower class subjects have been distinguished

by their relative difficulty both in giving dir-

ections and in enacting them. The following two

tables take a closer look at BL subjects as actors

and directors. Table 29 shows that the ability

of BL actors to enact directions is not a function

of the ethnicity or class of the director but

the adequacy of the language used in the directions.

Table 30 shows that the ability of BL subjects to

effectively communicate to an actor is not a

function of the ethnicity or social class of the

actor but rather the ability of the particular

BL director to adequately encode the directions.

With regard to the tasks used in this study, BL

subjects (in fact, all subjects) demonstrated no

greater facility to communicate effectively among

themselves than to communicate with any of the

other subjects.
 114

Table 29

Task Enactment by Lower Class Black

Actors cf Directions Given by Directors
of Different Class and Ethnicity

Black Actors

Directions all dir- adequate-plus and

received ections adequate directions
from
S_ NS S NS

WL directors 6 12 6 3

WM directors 9 5

BL directors 10 23 10 2

BM directors 8 5 3

S = successful

NS = not successful
 115

Table 30

Task Enactment by Actors of Different

Class and Ethnicity of Directions Given
by Lower Class Black Actors

BL
Directions all directions adequate-plus and
given to adequate directions

NS S NS

WL 4 15 4 0

WM 5 11 5 0

BL 10 23 10 2

BM 3 9 3 1

S = successful

NS = not successful
 116

Written Versus Oral Communication

Of the 228 adult subjects who participated

in this study, 163 gave and received directions

in writing, while 65 gave and received directions

orally. Table 31 shows, for both written and

oral cases, the adequacy of the directions given

and the frequency of their enactment for each

sub-group of subjects and for each task level.

No significant differences were found on any task

level for any sub-group of subjects.

Although statistically insignificant, strong

difference between written and oral directions

were observed. Table 32 shows that for more

difficult tasks oral directions were less frequently

adequate (32%) than written directions (42%).

Table 33 shows, on simpler tasks, that black

subjects less frequently gave adequate directions

when writing them than when giving them orally.

 Table 31

Adequacy of Directions and Frequency of Task

Enactment for Oral and Written Directions Given
for the Four Task Levels by Directors of Diff-
erent Class and Ethnicity

Oral Directions Written Directions

Language Task Language Task
Directors Mode Enactment Mode Enactment
Task A+&A NA S. NS T A+&A NA S NS T GT
WL T _4
TTT-4 33 1 3 1 4 9 2 9 2 11 15 H
TT-6 3 2 2 3 5 8 4 7 5 12 17
P-4 1 3 1 3 4 5 4 4 5 9 13
P-5 2 _3 1 _4_5 4 3 2 5 7 12
9 9 6 11 18 26 13 23 17 39 57
WM TT-4
TT-4 44 0 4 0 4 9 2 7 4 11 15
TT-6 2 2 2 2 4 7 3 7 3 10 14
P-4 2 1 0 3 3 6 1 4 3 7 10
P-5 2 _ 2 ^ L _ 3 _ i _5 _3 J _6 J 12
10 5 7 8 15 27 9 20 16 36 51

TT-4 = tinker toy - 4 piece T = total

TT-6 = tinker toy - 6 piece GT = grand total
P-4 = puzzle - 4 piece
P-5 = puzzle - 5 piece
 Table 31 (cont)

Adequacy of Directions and Frequency of Task

Enactment for Oral and Written Directions Given
for the Four Task Levels by Directors of Diff-
erent Class and Ethnicity

Oral Directions Written Directions

Language Task Language Task
Directors Mode Enactment Mode Enactment
Task A+&A NA S NS T A+&A NA S NS T GT.
BL TT-4 4 1 4 1 5 10 9 10 9 19 24
TT-6 2 3 2 3 5 4 14 3 15 18 23 oo
P-4 0 4 0 4 4 3 9 2 10 12 16
P-5 0 4 0 4 4 2 11 1 12 13 17
6 12 6 12 18 19 43 16 46 62 80
BM TT-4 3 0 3 0 3 6 3 6 3 9 12
TT-6 2 2 1 3 4 4 3 4 3 7 11
P-4 2 2 0 4 4 3 2 2 3 5 9
P-5 1 2 0 3 3 3 2 1 4 5 8
8 6 4 10 14 16 10 13 13 26 40

TTX-A_ = tinker toy - 4 piece .T = total

TT
LJ.-6 = tinker toy - 6 piece GT = grand total
P-4 = puzzle - 4 piece
P-5 = puzzle - 5 piece
 119

Table 32

Language Mode of Written and

Oral Directions Given for
Puzzle (More Complex) Task

Language Mode

Directions adequate-plus non-adequate total

and adequate

written 31 35 66

oral 10 21 31

41 56 97

X 2 = 1.85, Idf, N.S.

 120

Table 33

Language Mode Used by Black Directors

in Written and Oral Directions Given
for Tinker Toy (Simpler) Tasks

Language Mode

Directions of adequate-plus non-

Black Directors and adequate adequate total

written 24 29 53

oral 11 6 17

35 35 70

X 2 = 3.64, ldf, N.S.

 121

Grade School and High School Samples

Besides the 228 adult subjects who particip-

ated in the study, 40 high school sophomores from

two area high schools and 48 sixth graders from

twoarea grade schools also participated in the study.

These88 subjects were tested in pairs. In each pair,

while seated back-to-back, the students took turns

giving directions to each other. Each pair of stud-

ents also were read A+ directions previously written

by an adult subject and asked to try to enact them.

The high school sample consisted of 22 soph-

omores (3 black, 19 white) from a school which

draws upon a predominantly working class population

and 18 (all white) from a school with predominantly

middle class students. The grade school sample

consisted of 18 sixth graders (17 black, 1 white)

from a school with a lower class population and 30

sixth graders (28 white, 2 black) from a middle

class school only 16 of these latter subjects

also received adult directions.

 122

Table 34 shows the results from the working

class high school sample. As can be seen, the

students were unable to enact any of the directions

given by fellow students. However, 12 of the 22

students were able to enact the directions of

adults.

Table 35shows the results from the middle

class high school sample. Six of the 18 students

were able to enact directions given by fellow

students; 12 of the 18 enacted the directions of

adults. Middle class high school students, thus,

were more successful than their lower class counter-

parts both in giving directions to each other and

in enacting the directions of an adult.

This difference between middle class and lower

class high school subjects was mirrored in the find-

ings among grade school subjects. Table 36 shows

the results from the lower class grade school sample.

Two of these 18 students enacted student directions,

while five of the 18 enacted the adult directions.

 123

Table 34

Task Enactment by High School Lower

Class Actors

Student Adult
Directions Directions

task NS NS

tinker toy 8
(4-piece)

tinker toy
(6-piece)

puzzle
(4-piece)

puzzle
(5-piece)

22 12 10

S = successful

NS = not successful
 124

Table 35

Task Enactment by High School Middle

Class Actors

Student Adult
Directions Directions

task NS NS

tinker toy
(4-piece)

tinker toy
(6-piece)

puzzle
(4-piece)

puzzle
(5-piece)

12 12

S = successful

NS = not successful
 125

Table 36

Task Enactment by Grade School Lower

Class Actors

Student Adult
Directions Directions

task NS + NS

tinker toy
(4-piece) 2

tinker toy
(6-piece) 0

puzzle
(4-piece) 0

puzzle
(5-piece) 0

16 13

S = successful

NS = not successful
 126

Table 37 shows the results from the middle class

grade school sample. Nine of the 30 students

enacted student directions. Seven of the 16

who were given adult directions to enact did

so successfully.

Table 38 shows that middle class subjects

of each group (grade school, high school, as well

as college) more frequently gave adequate direct-

ions and had more of their directions enacted

than lower class subjects. By comparing tables

34 through 37, showing results for the younger

subjects along with tables 7, 8 and 9, showing the

results of adult subjects, we can see that the

differences between all groups of subjects is such

that, as the tasks become more difficult, the size

of the difference increases.

Table 39 shows that, on all tasks, adult

subjects more frequently gave adequate directions

than did the younger subjects. Table 40 shows

that this finding holds true for both lower class

 127

Table 37

Tasks Enactment by Grade School Middle

Class Actors

Student Adult
Directions Directions

task S. NS S NS

tinker toy 6 5 3 1
(4 piece)

tinker toy 3 9 2 2
(6-piece)

puzzle 0 4 2 2
(4-piece)

puzzle 0 3 0 4
(5-piece)

9 21 7 9

S = successful

NS = not successful
 128

Table 38

Frequency of Task Enactment and Adequacy

of Directions Given by Lower and Middle
Class Grade School, High School,and
College Directors

Task Enactment Language Mode

S. NS A+&A NA

Grade School

lower class 2 16 4 14

middle class _9 21 13 11
11 37 17 31

(X2 = 5.98, 1 df, p .02.)

High School

lower class 0 22 2 20

middle class _6 12 _8 10
6 34 10 30

(x2 = 4.20, 1 df, p .02)

College

lower class 51 86 60 77

middle class 44 47 63 28
95 133 123 105

(X2 = 14.21, 1 df, p .001)

 129
Table 39

Adequacy of Directions Given by Grade

School and High School Versus College
Directors

Language Mode

adequate-plus
Directors and adequate non-adequate total

Grade and 27 61 88
High School

College 123 105 228

150 166 316

(X2 = 12.70, 1 df, p .001)

 130

Table 40

Adequacy of Directions Given by Grade

School, High School, and College
Students of Different Social Class

Language Mode

Lower class adequate-plus

Directors and adequate non-adequate total

grade school 4 14 18
high school 2 20 22
college 60 77 137

66 111 177

(X2 = 11.66, 2 df, p .01.)

Middle class
Directors

grade school 13 17 30
high school 8 10 18
college 63 28 91

84 55 139

(X2 = 8.90, 2 df, p .02)

 131

and middle class subjects.

Table 41 shows that the social class of grade

school and high school subjects was not a factor

determining ability to enact A+ adult directions.

Overall, adults more frequently enacted ade-

quate adult directions than did the younger subjects.

But as table 42 shows, this is true of lower class

subjects but not middle class subjects.

 132

Table 41

Task Enactment of Adequate-Plus Adult Direct-

ions by Grade School and High School Actorsof
Different Social Class

Task Enactment

Grade School
Actors successful not successful total

lower class 5 13 18

middle class 7 9 16

12 22 34

High School
Actors

lower class 12 10 22

middle class 12 6 18

24 16 40
 133

Table 42

Task Enactment of Adequate Adult Direct-

ions by Actors ofDifferent Social Class
and Age

Task Enactment

Lower Class
Actors successful not success ful total

grade school 5 13 18

high school 12 10 22

college 5_7 18 75

77 41 115

(X2 = 21.91, 2 df, p .001)

Middle Class
Actors

grade school 7 9 16

high school 12 6 18

college 37 11 48

56 26 82

(X2 = 5.53, 2 df, N.S.)

 CHAPTER VIII

DISCUSSION

Language, Codes and the Organization of Behavior

The results of this research establish that

there are differences in language-communication,

different language codes, which have fundamentally

different correspondences to the organization and

direction of behavior. Luria and his associates

(cf. Luria, 1959; Vygotsky, 1962; and Martsin-

ovskaya, quoted in Luria, 1961) have demonstrated

the role of language as a regulator of motor

behavior. They have not, however, investigated

whether or how the regulation of behavior might

be facilitated or impeded by differences in the

way people use language. American researchers

interested in Luria's work and in what they call

language's "mediational" role in behavior (Reese,

1962; Kendler and Kendler, 1962; Gagne and Smith,

1962) have generally limited themselves to either

134
 135

replicating Luria' work or only narrowly extending

it. They likewise, have neglected to pursue the

behavioral consequences of language differences.

The results of this study indicate that the

critical features of language-communication which

determine whether it will be an adequate regulatory

device or not, are its context-independency and

context-specificity. These two factors, which

emerged in the pilot study, proved to be the

critical differences between directions which

were effective and those which were not. Only

subjects whose directions consisted of context-

independent and context-specific language success-

fully shaped and gave form to the enactment of the

task by an actor. Directions which did not possess

these features were not informative; they were

inadequate and were not enacted.

The work of Bernstein on language codes antic-

ipated these results (cf. especially, 1971). How-

ever, the language codes Bernstein distinguished

 136

represent a vast array of primarily structural

differences in the language used by the middle and

working class children he studied. The language-

communication modes distinguished in this study

represent only those features of language which

affect the informational content and effect the

organizational consequences of language as commun-

ication. This study did not seek to determine

the distinguishing characteristics of the language

used by particular groups of peole, but to distin-

guish the determining features of language-comm-

unication as a regulatory device and only subsequ-

ently establish the extent to which these features

are found in the language of different social

classes and ethnic groups.

By looking at some specific directions given

by subjects in this study, we will be able to more

clearly understand the informational and organiz-

ational role of context-independency and specificity

in language-communication. This will also serve

 137

to demonstrate how and why directions were cate

gorized as representing different language-

communication modes.

The directions which will follow were given by

different subjects for the same task, the four-piece

tinker toy task.

Direction 1.

1st you will find 4 objects; a blue stick approxi-

mately 3 inches long, a yellow stick approximately
2 inches long, 2 wheel shaped objects. These
wheels have a hole which goes through the center
from 1 flat surface to the other. Around the
periphery of the wheel there are 8 additional
holes. (1st) Take the 2 wheels & lay them 4
inches apart so that a flat surface is facing up.
(2nd) Now take the blue (3 in stick) and put one
end of the stick into one of the outer peripheral
holes in one wheel & the other end of blue stick
in an outer peripheral hole of the other wheel.
Place this object back down in front of you so that
the 2 wheels still have a flat surface showing up.
(3rd) Now take the yellow (2 in) stick and put it
in one of the peripheral holes of one of the
wheels so that counting clockwise, from the junc-
tion of the blue stick to the wheel you choose to
work with, the yellow stick is attached 5 holes
away from the blue sticks attachment & counting
counter-clockwise the yellow stick is attached 3
holes away from the blue stick.

Very little is taken for granted in this direc-

tion. Each of the four tinker toy pieces is

 138

first carefully described. Then each act to be

taken with regard to each piece is specifically

denoted. Throughout, all references to the pieces

are clear and explicit. All referents are

"anaphoric," they are contained in the direction

itself. It is not necessary for an actor to have

ever seen the final assemblage to know what action

to take with what pieces in order to re-construct

it successfully. It is in this sense that the

direction is said to be context-independent: The

meaning of each sentence of instruction in the

direction (what the actor is to do) does not depend

upon concrete foreknowledge of the object by the

actor. The instructions stand on their own, taking

the place of the object symbolically, re-presenting

the object to the actor as a series of specific,

explicit acts.

Each instruction in the direction,in fact,

specifically limits the actor to one explicit act.

And the meaning of this act is not contingent upon

 139

any subjective extrapolation by the actor. Rather,

it has a direct correspondence in a particular

action and cannot be satisfied by any other action.

It is in this sense that the direction is said to

be context-specific: There is a set of particular,

concrete acts that, if taken with respect to these

particular concrete tinker toy pieces, will form

this assemblage.

Thus, for example, the instruction "take the

blue (3 in) stick and put one end of it into one

of the outer peripheral holes in one of the wheels"

both 1) indicates an action that can be taken by

someone who has not previously seen the puzzle

assembled, and 2) admits interpretation into only

one specific, explicit act.

In this study direction 1 was categorized as

an "adequate-plus" direction. This means, that

besides being context-independent and -specific,

the instructions included supplemental or clari-

fying information. For example, the sticks are

 140
consistently referred to in terms of both their

color (blue or yellow) and their length (2 or 3

inches). Another indication of this appears in

the last sentence of the instruction in which the

actor is told where on the wheel to place the

yellow stick relative to both sides of the blue

stick.

Direction I was enacted successfully by a

subject-actor, as was the following direction for

the same task.

Direction II.

Lay the 2 wheels flat in front of you. Put the

blue stick into any of the holes on the outer edge
of one of the wheels. Put the other end of the
blue stick into any of the holes on the outer edge
of the other wheel. Put the yellow stick into one
of the holes in the outer edge of one of the wheels
so that there are two holes between the blue stick
and the yellow stick.

Like example I the language of this direction

is context-independent. The actor was able to

follow each instruction without reference to or

foreknowledge of the completed assemblage itself.

Also, each act of which the final product is composed

 141

is specified, although without elaboration. This

direction was, accordingly, categorized as "ade-

quate" rather than "adequate-plus."

The instruction: "put the blue stick into

any of the holes on the outer edge of one of the

wheels" is 1) intelligible to a naive actor and

2) while simply put, its meaning is unequivocal.

Directions I and II are examples of directions

which were composed of "adequate" or "adequate-

plus" language-communication. In these directions

we find an isomorphic correspondence between the

vehavioral organization involved in the task-to-

be-done and the informational organization of the

instructions. These directions re-present the

acts, which, in turn, define the task for the actor.

This correspondence is not found in the following

instructions.

Direction III.

1. Insert the long blue poll in the center of

each brown wheel; connecting both wheels with the
 142

poll in the middle;

2. then insert your short yellow poll in one of
the wheels, in the 5th hole of the wheel.

Direction IV.

Take one round piece with smooth sidetowards you.

Put it on the bottom. Take the other round piece
and put it on the top. Take the long blue piece
and put it down the middle of the two round
pieces into appropiate holes. Face the piece
already constructed directly in front of you. On
the circle on top count 3 lines going clockwise
and insert yellow piece.

Directions III and IV were classified as "non-

task- adequate" directions and neither was enacted.

The meaning of the instructions given, that is,

what actions are to be taken, is often ambiguous

in these directions. For example, the instruction

in direction III which tells the actor to "insert

the blue poll in the center of each brown wheel"

led the actor in this instance to connect the stick

to the hole in one of the flat sides of the wheel

rather than in one of the holes around the edge

of the wheel where it belonged. Likewise, the

"5th hole of bhe wheel" has little or no regulatory

value without reference to something else and can

 143

only add to the actor's uncertainty rather than

reduce it.

Similarly, the instruction in example IV that

tells the actor to "Take the long blue piece and

put it down the middle of the 2 round pieces into

appropriate holes" begs the question the instruct-

ions are supposed to answer: namely, what are the

"appropriate holes?"

This kind of context-tied language is not

informative. It does not take the place of or

re-present the organization of the task symbolic-

ally, but relies on it. It does not stand for it

in its absence. And it can not admit interpret-

ation back into action it does not informationally

contain. This kind of language is not effective

language-communication. It does not inform or

organize the range of action involved in this task.

Watching the way symbol and action come to-

gether in the tasks used in this study in the

directions and enactments of the subjects, we see

 144

the way language-communication is able to act

as an organizational device for behavior. We

see how it can give direction and guidance for

actions oand also how and when it fails to do

this.

The job which faced the subject-directors

in this study was 1) to transform the task-object

into an organized set of actions, and 2) to trans-

form these actions into instruction-sentences

which symbolically and context-independently

represented the task-object as task-actions-to-

be taken to the actor. These instruction-sent-

ences thus presented to the actor the set of

context-specific acts that composed the task-

object, that, if performed by the actor, would

re-constitute the task-object.

If the director did this and effected the

correspondence between the organization of actions

represented by and in the task-object and the

symbolic representation of the instruction-sen-

 145

tences, his directions could be said to be inform-

ative (that is, effective as communication and

effective in informing and directing the required

actions).

Language-communication which has been called

"adequate" and "adequate-plus" is informative in

this sense. It presents the actor with the explicit,

specific acts which constitute the task-object.

Directions which consist of language-communication

which has been called "non-adequate" is composed

of instruction-sentences which do not symbolically

represent the task-object (that is, is context-

dependent) and which, if enacted, would lead to

actions not a part of that set of acts which con-

stitute the original task-object. Non-task-adequate

directions are thus not informative and cannot

effect the formation of the task-object.

Subjects who did not possess the language-

communication skill to construct the context-indep-

endent and specific sentences required to represent

 146

symbolically a particular task-object, were

limited to presenting non-adequate directions

which were not informative and not enactable.

In this way a particular task could overload the

coding capacity of a communicator-director. The

language-communication which resulted was inadequ-

ate symbolization and is commonly referred to

as "misinformation."

Task Complexity and Language-Communication

The data which confirm hypothesis two indicated

that as tasks became increasingly complex, they

become increasingly more difficult to encode and to

enact. As discussed, the job of the director was

to transform the organization of the task-object

into a highly specific, symbolic representation, that

is, directions which were the informational equ-

ivalent of the task-object. The first logical

step in this process involved -che translation by

the director of the organization of the task-object

into an organized set of actions-to-be-taken

 147

(specifically, the constituentacts of the task).

These actions-to-be-taken were the informational

content of the task-object which the director

encoded in his directions. The greater the number

of specific acts that constituted a task-object,

the more information (or bits of information)

needed to be encoded by the director. And the

more information encoded by the director means

there is more information to be decoded by the

actor and transformed into his actions- Only if

every constituent act of the task-object (every

bit of information) was represented in it could a

direction effect the object's reconstruction

through the organization of an actor's behavior.

It is not difficult to understand how the

five-piece puzzle was informationally and organiz-

ationally a more complex task-object than the four-

piece puzzle. But why or in what way was the

four-piece puzzle a more complex task than the

6-piece tinker toy assemblage?

 148

A task-object is not defined by the sum of its

pieces but by its constituent acts. These acts,

moreover, are not independent of each other, but

combine as a particular organization of actions

one organization or combination, in fact, which

must be specified from a universe of n-possible

combinations. The complexity of the language-

communication required to effect any particular

organization can be seen as a function of the

n-possible combinations: the product of the total

number of ways the pieces may be combined and the

universe within which the constituent acts are

specified.

For example: The four-piece puzzle task

consisted of four puzzle pieces of different shapes

and sizes - one three-sides piece, two four-sided

pieces, and one five-sided piece. Since any piece

can potentially be ajoined to any other along

any of the sides, the total possible combinations

are: 3 x 4 x 4 x 5 = 240. Directors confronted

 149

with this puzzle had to encode a line of highly

specific actions that would be informationally

isomorphic with only one of a great number of

possible combinations.

Looking at the six-piece tinker toy assem-

blage we see two kinds of pieces: wheels and

sticks. The three wheels were identical, each

with eight holes around the rim and one through

the center. The three sticks were different

lengths. Since sticks could only be connected to

wheels and not directly to other sticks, and

wheels, likewise, could only be connected to

other wheels via sticks, the maximum number of

possible combinations is: 9 x 2 + 9 x 2 + 9 x 2

= 54. Thus directors confronted with the six-

piece tinker toy assemblage were faced with encod-

ing a line of action within a much less organiz-

ationally and informationally complex universe

than the directors who were given the puzzle tasks.

In tte table below we can see the relationship

 150
between the relative informational complexity of

the four task levels (in terms of the possible

combinations each represents) and how frequently

they were adequately encoded, as well as how

frequently directions for them were successfully

enacted.

complexity (com- adequately successfully

task binations) encoded enacted

four-piece 36 76% 70%

tinker toy

six-piece 54 49% 43%

tinker toy

four-piece 240 46% 26%

puzzle

five-piece 960 39% 15%

puzzle

A more complex task-object requires inform-

ationally more complex language-communication to

encode it and to organize behavior that reconstructs

it. A majority (76%) of subject-directors possessed

a level of language-communication effective in

encoding and organizing the simplest task. However,

as the task level became more complex we see that

the coding capacity of more and more subjects is

 151

overloaded.

Encoding and Decoding

While "adequate" encoding in the language-

communication of the director was a necessary

condition for successful task enactment, it

did not, obviously, guarantee that communication

would take place and that the task would, in fact,

be enacted. As we saw in this study, 29 of the

133 directions which were not enacted had been

adequately encoded. This means that the informat-

ional complexity of a particular task may over-

load the coding capacity of a communicator, but

also that the complexity of particular tasks may

require the encoding of language-communication

which overloads a particular actor's ability to

translate them into his actions.

One would expect that encoding and decoding

language-communication are related skills. Results

of hypothesis 5 confirm that this is so. As

indicated in the findings, 86% of the subjects

 152
whose language-communication was sufficient to

adequately encode the task presented to them were

also able to decode adequately encoded directions.

On the other hand 33% of the actor-subjects who

were unable to decode and enact adequate directions

were subjects who as directors, had not employed

adequate language-communication in their directions.

Thus someone whose language-communication

skills permitted him to encode a particular task

was more likely to be able to decode and enact a

similar task than someone who had been unable to

encode the former task. However, as pointed out

earlier, many subjects (67%) whose language was

inadequate to cope with a particular task were,

nonethless, able to decode and perform a similar

task when adequate symbolization was supplied by

another subject.

Luria's (1959) central hypothesisconcerning

the development of verbal control of behavior in

children is that this development takes p]a ce in a

 153

progression of identifiable stages. He found that

from approximately 1.5 to 3 years of age, the child

is capable of organizing simple actions through

the speech of adults. Then from 3 to 4.5 years

the child begins to gain regulatory control over

his own actions through his own overt speech.

The final stage in Luria's study involved the

internationalization of verbal control, self-

control through covert speech ("thought").

This present research suggests five identif-

iable levels of language-communication in adults,

analogous to the stages Luria describes in the

development of children, which relate to the

organization of behavior. Subjects in this study

possessed language-communication capabilities which

enabled them (or did not enable them) to encode

and direct and to decode and enact either simple

or complex tasks. At the lowest level (level 1)

we find subjects who do not have the language-comm-

unication capacity to either encode or decode even

 154

relatively simple tasks. At the highest level

(level 5) on the other hand, we find subjects

whose language-communication sophistication enables

them both to direct as well as to enact highly

complex tasks. In between we find subjects

who can decode and enact a simple task but

cannot encode it (level 2); who can both encode

and decode simple tasks (level 3); who can encode

simple tasks but not complex ones, but who can,

nevertheless, decode and enact complex tasks

(level 4 ) .

These five levels represent progressive stages

of language-communication development and control

over behavioral organization.

We should expect that just as the children in

Luria's research developed increased symbolic

control over behavior, that similar development is

possible among adults. Bern (1967) found that

three-year olds whose performance on a pretest

measure suggested an absence of verbal self-regu-

 155

lation of behavior, could be trained to develop

this capacity. There is no reason to doubt that

an adult with some encoding and decoding ability

would be able to learn through instruction how to

bring language-communication and behavioral

organization together on increasingly complex

tasks.

Language-Communication and Social Class

The expectation that this research would find

significant language-communication differences

between subjects of different social classes

was based upon the previous work of Bernstein

(1971) among others (e.g. Schatzman and Strauss,

1955; Deutsch, 1965). The major theme which runs

through Bernstein's research is the social class

basis for language differences. He sees the social

class experience in a Durkheimian perspective (cf.

1971, 170-230): Social relationships emerging

among the working class are characterized by

mechanical solidarity while the social relationships

 156

which develop within the middle class are charact-

erized by organic solidarity. Bernstein writes:

"Which speech codes are realized is a function of

the culture acting through social relationships in

specific contexts. Different speech forms or

codes symbolize the form of the social relationship

.... the speech form is a function of a given

social arrangement" (173-174). It is Bernstein's

view that the "elaborated" code employed by the

middle class and the "restricted" code of the

working class reflect as well as reinforce the

different forms of social integration found within

the classes.

A number of researchers, however, have not

accepted Bernstein's analysis and especially his

findingsthat the language of the working or lower

classes is more "restricted." Lawton (1968)

maintains, for instance, that working class children

can use the "elaborated" code even though it may

be difficult for them. They can do it, he believes,

 157

if they are placed in a situation that forces

them to use the elaborated code, such as a dis-

cussion of an abstract question or of an ethical

issue. Lawton views the use of different speech

modes as the result of habit rather than necessity.

He believes we may adapt our modes of speech to

the situation.

The results of this study, however, do not

indicate that the use of more sophisticated ("ade-

quate") language-communication can be turned on

or off depending upon the situational requirements.

In this research all subjects were required to use

language-communication appropriate for a specific

task. The results indicate that there were social

class differences in the ability of subjects to do

this. The differences found between classes are

not categorically absolute. Many lower class

subjects were able to successfully employ adequate

language-communication for the tasks and many

middle class subjects were not. But there is a

 158

significant difference overall showing middle class

subjects more frequently using a level of language

communication adequate to encode the tasks.

The results of this study also indicate (as

Bernstein, 1960, and Deutsch, 1965, predicted)

that as the task becomes more comples, i.e., more

informationally demanding in the language-communic-

ation required, the social class differences be-

come more pronounced.

Language-Communication, Social Class rnd Ethnicity

As the results pertaining to hypothesis 4

indicate, the role of social class in producing the

preceding findings is somewhat confounded by the

ethnicity of subjects. Both white and black middle

class subjects were more frequently able tc adequ-

ately encode task-directions than their white and

black lower class counterparts. However, WM

subjects were more frequently able to adequately

encode the more complex tasks than were BM subjects.

Likewise, the language-communication of WL subjects

 159

was more often adequate than that of BL subjects.

How can we explain this?

In his study of "Social Class and Language in

Glasgow," Macauley cautioned that findings may

sometimes be artifacts of the way social class

differences are determined. In this study, class

was determined by using an occupational-educational

index which could be applied either to subjects

themselves or to their families of origin. When-

ever the index could be applied directly to the

subject, as in the case of a part-time student

who had a full-time job and did not live with his

parents, it was. If it could not, as in the case

of a full-time student living with his parents, the

index was applied to the parents.

Reexamination of the background data sheets

on the subjects categorized as BM showed that five

of them had been categorized as middle class

because of their occupation, but that they came

from families that were lower class according to

 160

the index. For instance, one subject who was a

supervisor in a Manpower Program was classified as

middle class. His father, however, was a retired

laborer and his mother did housework. If social-

ization plays the powerful role in language devel-

opment that Bernstein suggests, we might expect

some language differences between middle class

subjects with lower class roots and middle class

subjects with middle class roots.

Two of these five BM subjects had given direct-

ions for the tinker toy tasks and three for the

puzzle tasks. One of the former and none of the

b-tter had encoded the task adequately. If we

remove these latter three subjects from table 15

we see the following change;

from -
A+&A NA
WL 12 13
WM 15 7
BL 5 28
BM 9 8

to -
A+&A NA
WL 12 13
WM 15 7
BL 5 28
BM 9 5
 161

As we can see, the difference between the WM

group and the BM group of subjects has diminished.

In fact, the difference between the groups in the

second case is not statistically significant

(X2 =.056, ldf, p .90).

The evaporation of this difference when

legitimate adjustments were made in the social

class index, called for the reexamination of the

background data of the 80 BL subjects. The

language-communication differences between BL sub-

jects and WL subjects had been found to be greater

than the differences beVeen BM and WM and were

found not only on the complex tasks (table 15),

but on the simpler tasks as well (table 14).

This look at the background data on the BL

subjects suggested that the categorization of all

of these subjects under the single rubric "lower

class" may have been a gross oversimplification.

On the one hand there were student-subjects in this

category whose parents were policemen, clerks, and

 162

and factory workers. On the other hand there

were subjects whose parents were welfare recipients

or simply were unemployed.

When the directions given by these two sub-

groups of the category "lower class subjects"

are examined separately we see the following

results regarding the language-communication mode

used:
A+&A NA
BL total (as in table 13): 25 55
BL (from working families): 17 24
BL (from non-working
families): 8 31

This difference is statistically significant

at the .05 level (X2 = 3.98, 1 df, p .05). The

difference between the BL - working class subjects

and the WL subjects (also from working class fam-

ilies) continues to be significant, but less strongly

so (X2 = 3.31, 1 df, p .05). We again see that

adjustments in the method of determining social

class distinctions have reduced the independent

 163

affect of ethnicity. This suggests that study

results which isolate ethnicity as a strong,

determining independent variable (e.g. Jensen,

1969; especially, 78-80) may simply not have

looked closely enough at the extenuating nature

and consequences of social class.

Nonetheless, for whatever reasons, an unequiv-

ocal finding in this study was that lower class

black subjects most frequently brought a level of

language-communication to the task which was in-

capable of encoding it adequately. While some

members of all subject groups lacked the language-

communication required for the tasks, especially

for the complex tasks, this was simply much more

often the case for BL subjects.

Evidence of what some have called the language

deficiency of lower class blacks is not uncommon.

Two frequently cited studies were carried out at

the Institute forDevelopmental Studies in New York.

John (1963) examined "linguistic and cognitive

 164

behavior" in black children from several socio-

economic levels by administering a battery of

language and IQ tests. She found that middle class

children performed higher than the lower class

children on such measures as vocabulary, nonverbal

IQ and tasks involving use of precise and abstract

language. Deutsch (1965) evaluated a wide range

of variables with children of different ethnicity

and social class. He found variables which measured

abstract and categorical use of language to be

highly correlated with ethnicity and socioeconomic

status, with poorer performances by lower class

children, particularly lower class black children.

Nevertheless, a debate has raged in this country

in recent years between those who view the language

of poor black children as deficient and those who

view it as different but not deficient. What is

called the "deficit model" is perhaps most commonly

associated with Bereiter and Engelmann (1966).

This position holds that disadvantaged children are

 165

slower than middle class children in the acquis-

ition of language. The language they do develop

is viewed as being limited in many respects

smaller vocabulary (Goldberg, 1967), grammatical

errors (Yoneura, 1969), mispronunciation (Cheyney,

1967). This language deficit is believed to retard

academic progress in the school setting (Hunt,

1967; Engelmann, 1971) and is seen as not providing

an adequate basis for abstract thinking and concept-

ualization (Ausubel, 1967) or cognitive development

(Raph, 1965).

A primary goal of those who hold to the deficit

position is the practice of intervention to change

and improve language skills. Their efforts have

primarily emphasized "correction" of structure

and form. The approach has been to correct the

child's grammar and pronunciation, with the assump-

tion that "correct" grammar and pronunciation are

the roads to cognitive development and academic

success.
 166

On the other hand those who support the "diff-

erence model" maintain that "Black English" is

not a substandard variety of standard English,

but that it has a pattern of syntax and phonology

which is quite structured and consistent (Malmstrem ,

1969; Stewart, 1969b) and that it is equally

effective for the needs of its speakers (Dillart,

1972; Stewart, 1969b). Proponents of this pos-

ition often have a Chomskyesque view of language

acquisition (cf. Chomsky, 1967) which minimizes

the role of parent-child interaction in favor of

what is seen as an innate capacity for language

(Lenneberg, 1964; Houston, 1970). It is their

view that the very fact that a child uses language

necessitates rather than precedes abstract think-

ing, categorization, and conceptualization (Houston,

1970; Cazden, 1971; Menyuk, 1970).

Since the adherents of the differencemodel do

not assume the child to be lacking in linguistic

skills, they do not advocate intervention to

 167

correct deficiencies (cf. Baratz and Baratz, 1970).

It is not surprising that the language inter-

vention programs designed by deficit model theor-

ists and emphasising linguistic structure have

seldom proven effective (Cazden, 1970). As the

results of this research confirm, the crucial

features of language which determine its effect-

iveness as communication and its capacity to

organize behavior are informational rather than

structural.

There has been some evidence in recent liter-

ature of a recognition that language intervention

programs have often been misdirected. Cazden (1971)

has noted chat the goals of education "too often

focus on language form when they should be concern-

ed with language use." Bernstein (1970) indicated

that his own research and philosophy have been

misinterpreted and that too much emphasis has been

given to distinctions in speech and not enough to

 168

communication. The existence of a "restricted"

code, according to Bernstein, does not mean that

teaching formal grammar will help.

Unfortunately, the frequent failure of such

intervention programs has intensified the backlash

from different model theorists who view this as

legitimation of their own assumptions (cf. Somerville,

1976).

Labov, (1969), who has written extensively on

the language of poor black children and is one of

the most frequently quoted proponents of the diff-

erent model, maintains that language enrichment

programs do little good because any concepts which

can be expressed in standard English can also be

expressed in "Black Vernacular English." The

results of this research, however, bring that

position into serious question. C. S. Pierce

commenting about concepts has observed (in Thayer,

1973: 226): "consider the effects. . . with practical

bearing which you conceive a concept to have . . .

 169

those practical effects are all that your concept

means." If we judge the ability of subjects in

this study to express the meaning of the task-

objects in their language in terms of effects what

do we find? Not only that black lower class sub-

jects had consistently more trouble encoding the

tasks than the other subjects, but that these

subjects also had significantly fewer of their

directions enacted.

This research also calls into question the

assumption upon which Labov's comment appears to be

based; that because someone uses language at all,

he possesses the full range of language-communicat-

ion capabilities. Subjects in this research were

found to possess quite different and wide ranging

language-communication skills. In fact, many lower

class black subjects were found to be able to decode

and enact adequate directions given by other sub-

jects even though they were themselves unable to

give such adequate directions for the tasks. The

 170

results of this research are clear in this regard:

there are different levels of language skill which

have different consequences upon communication

effectiveness and behavioral organization.

Another frequently quoted supporter of the

different model, Houston (1970, 1973),'has des-

cribed what she refers to as "register." She

defines "registers" as styles of speech which are

appropriate to a given situation. She maintains

that the nonschool register of the black child is

quite fluent and creative. In this register a

child has no difficulty in expressing himself and

in being understood by others operating within the

same register. It is the school register, accord-

ing to Houston, which is responsible for the mis-

conceptions about language held by those who view

the language of the disadvantaged as deficient.

However, the subjects of this research were

not children new to the unfamiliar role of student.

They were adult, college students. Further, the

 171

language-communication problems experienced by

lower class black subjects in this study did not

arise between themselves and a teacher who used a

different "register". Their failure to communicate,

that is, to effect successful task completion,

as the results from hypothesis 6 indicate, occurred

no less frequently when the actor was another lower

class black than when the actor was a middle class

black or a lower or middle class white.

The crucial determinant of communication

effectiveness in this research was not, as Houston

and Labov have suggested, the ethnic and socio-

economic similarity between directors and actors.

Communication effectiveness, rather, hinged prim-

arily upon the language-communication skills, of

the directors and the tasks they faced. It was

the task that either was cr was not encoded ade-

quately. The nature of the relationship between

director and actor was independent of this. If the

informational requirements of the task-object

 172

overloaded the language-communication ability of

a director, sub-cultural (ethnic, class, or

language - "register") similarities were not

sufficient compensation. If the language-comm-

unication was inadequate, then the director was

not successful and his direction was not enacted.

If the language-communication of a director was

adequate, then the actor, irrespective of class or

ethnicity, was likely to enact the task. It was

the variation in the complexity of the task, not

variation in the audience, which determined whether

the language-communication of a particular director

was able to encode it.

Written Versus Oral Communication

One of the criticisms sometimes made of

Bernstein's work is its preoccupation with spoken

at the expense of written data (Robinson, 1965;

Rushton and Young, 1975). References towritten

language are rare in his work. Lawton (1968),

quoting Vygotsky (1962), remarks that the autonomous

nature of written language suggests that the act of

 173

writing might require a form of verbal planning

closer to that of Bernstein "elaborated" code.

He predicted that, as a result, social class

differences in writing would be greater than those

found in speech. Robinson (1965), on the other

hand, has argued that as speaking is the skill

which requires the more rapidly produced sequences

of co-ordinated activity it may be that working

class subjects will find it easier to produce

complex and elaborate language in writing.

The relative skills of black and white child-

ren to express themselves m writing and in speech

has been given some attention by researchers in

this country. A number have praised the spoken

language of poor black children for being espec-

ially creative and fluent (inter alia: Labov, 1969;

Williams, 1971; Kochman, 1969). Some have main-

tained that the speech of young inner city child-

ren is linguistically more advanced than middle

class children of the same age (Entwisle, 1970;

Entwisle and Greenberger, 1968).

 174

Obtaining both written and oral data this

study was able to look at these expectations.

The major finding was that there was little or

no difference between the effectiveness of written

and oral directions for either black or white

subjects. There was some tendency (although

statistically not significant) for written direct-

ions to be more frequently adequate for the more

complex tasks. Perhaps this occurs for the reasons

Vygotsky has suggested, that writing requires the

use of contextually less restrictive language.

This does not seem likely, however inthis study

since the only non-verbal communication mode

available in the oral situation not available in

the written was voice inflection.

The slight tendency for black subjects to

more often give adequate directions when giving

them orally, might appear to support the expect-

ations of both Robinson and Labov. But this

finding, like the former is so slight, that

 175

additional study is necessary before anything can

be concluded.

The general finding that oral and written

communication did not differ in adequacy seems

most likely to be an indication that the abstract

nature of the tasks in this study required a

sophisticated level of symbolization for which

language, oral or written, is better suited than

other non-verbal means of communication,

Language-Communication of Grade School, High School

and College Students.

By concentrating upon adult subjects this

research represents a departure from the far more

common practic. of studying language differences,

codes, and consequences among children. Yet the

small samp] of grade school and high school stud-

ents in this research, coupled with the adult

sample, allow a more comprehensive perspective on

the development of language-communication skills.

The two major findings cnat emerged from this

 176

of the research were 1) that older subjects gen-

erally possess more sophisticated language-comm-

unication skills than younger subjects, and 2)

that the social class differences in language-

communication capabilities found among adult sub-

jects were also found among the younger subjects

as well. Neither of these findings is surprising.

In fact, it would have been much more surprising

if they had not been found.

There are some interesting findings worthy

of a word or two of comment, however. For instance,

we can compare the differences between the groups

in terms of the five-level model of language-

communication discussed earlier. Tnis gives us a

glimpse of the range of language-communication

skills found among the different groups. We found,

for example, that the adults in the study ranged

from those who could neither encode or decode the

simple tasks (level 1) to those who could both

encode and decode the more complex tasks (level 5 ) .

 177

We found further that lower class black subjects

were more heavily represented at the bottom end of

this language-communication spectrum (level 1)

and that middle class white subjects were found

somewhat more frequently than the other groups

at the topend (level 5 ) .

The younger subjects as a group were heavily

concentrated toward the lower end of this spectrum,

with only one middle class high school student

at level 5.

Comparing the two high school samples we see

that the difference between the middle class and

the lower class is not in their ability to follow

simple instructions, but in following (decoding)

complex directions and, especially, in giving

(encoding) instructions. The shared ability of a

majority of these students to decode the tasks and

the inability of most to encode them, may result

from the considerable practice they have had, in

their student role, in taking instructions and

 178

being directed (and in a more general way,

reflect normal language-communication develop-

ment; observed among children by Luria). The

grade school subjects, with less practice in the

student role, were less often able to do this.

Within the middle class grade school sample,

however, a wider range of language-communication

was found, not only than their lower class Grade

school counterparts, but also than the lower class

high school sample. Close tohalf of the middle

class grade school subjects faced with the simpler

tasks were able to encode them adequately, a feat

only a couple of lower class high school subjects

could do.

A rather startling discovery is that the

range of language-communication skills found

among middle class grade school and high school

students is approximately the same as the range of

language-communication skills found among lower

class college students, particularly lower class

 179

black college students. Language development

among this latter group appears to have been

stunted from the beginning of their lives and to

have continued.

Finally, comparing the size of theChi-square

scores shown in table 38, we see that there is

less difference among younger subjects in language-

communication mode used than among the older sub-

jects (as Bruner hypothesized). This result appears

to have occurred because of the more sophisticated

development that has taken place in the language-

communication of the middle class subjects.

This finding is consistent with those of Deutsch

(1967). He found that the gap between disadvantaged

children and their middle-class contemporaries

widens as the children progress through school. He

referred to this increasing difference as the accumu-

lative deficit."
 180

A Final Word

In a general and theoretical sense, the

results of this research corroborate the view of

language held by Pragmatists like Mead, Dewey and

Pierce in which language and behavioral organizat-

ion are seen as interrelated and interdependent.

It likewise lends support to the Durkheimian

tradition which has seen a fundamental linkage

of symbolic systems, social structure and the

shaping of experience. It also extends the

Worfian view of important intercultural consequ-

ences flowing from linguistic differences, to an

appreciation of important intracultural consequ-

ences which flow from different language-communicat-

ion modalities.

This research demonstrates what each of these

perspectives has maintained: that there are import-

ant correspondences between symbol and action,

language and behavior. It has also demonstrated

that these correspondences, central to the study of

human, social behavior, can be systematically and

 181

empirically investigated.

In a practical sense, this research has

important implications. The organizational and

informational complexity of objects, ideas, phy-

sical and social systems and relationships,

actions and performances all have language-comm-

unication prerequisites. Language which does not

meet these symbolic (informational and coding)

prerequisites is insufficient to deal with them.

If educators, for example, restrict the process

of instruction only to those things which can be

handled by the language-communication level

students have previously developed, they will of

necessity remove from consideration entire areas

of study. This has nothing to do with teacher

attempts to make the educational experience

"relevant" or of employing language metaphors that

are "meaningful" to the sub-cultural experiences

of their students. Of course the educational

process must be relevant and meaningful. But it

 182

means that unless student capacities to employ

language-communication is developed, the range

of "meaningful" instruction itself will be

severely limited. Language-communication develop-

ment is the condition for the possibility of a

wider range of items, experiences, perceptions,

ideas, skills, etc. becoming meaningful for the

student.

This research indicates that the language-

communication of lower class blacks has particular

informational limitations. To the extent that

the problems are fundamentally social class in

origin, long term programs of intervention must

be economic and occupational as much as linguistic.

In the meantime, such programs need to emphasize

the areas of linguistic difference that makes a

difference. It can only be counterproductive to

deny their existence and, therefore, their con-

sequences, or to focus only upon highly visible but

largely inconsequential differences.

 183

Finally, communication is often defined as

a "transfer of meaning". In this study it can

be seen what that definition entails. Meaning

is where symbols and actions come together. A

communicator is successful, accomplishes comm-

unication, to the extent that his use of symbols

(language) informs the receiver; that is, to the

extent that the symbols can be transformed into

the actions of the receiver. Mead wrote:

"Meaning is thus a development of phases of the

social act; it is not a psychical addition to

that act . . . . Meaning is given or stated in

terms of response . . . Its development takes

place in terms of symbolization" (1934: 75-76).

 CHAPTER IX

SUMMARY

To a considerable degree, Basil Bernstein

and his colleagues are responsible for much of

the interest that has developed in language codes

in recent years. The focus of their studyhas been

the relationship between the social class of people

and the language they use. Their studies do not

extend, however, to the kinds of behavioral con-

sequences that might flow from different language

codes.

On the other hand, Alexander Luria and his

associates, with a view of language reminiscent

of Mead's, have long been studying the role of

language in the regulation and direction of

behavior. They have not, however, investigated

whether or how the regulation of behavior might

be facilitated or impeded by differences in the

way people use language, that is, by different

language codes.

This research represents in many ways a

184
 185

synthesis of the ideas of Bernstein, Luria, and Mead,

and an extension of their work. In the process,

some of the basic inadequacies in contemporary

theorizing about the language of the "disadvantaged"

are addressed.

This research sought to determine: 1) whether

differences in language use, different language

codes, are more or less effective in organizing

and directing behavior; 2) what the crucial

features of language which differentiate such

codes are; 3) what extent these language features

are found in the language-communication of people

from different socio-economic and ethnic groups;

and 4) to what extent these language codes in-

fluence the ability of members of these groups

to communicate effectively with each other.

This research employed a straightforward

method to study the relation between language use

and the organization of behavior. It had sub-

 186

jects (directors) give directions for a task and

then had other subjects (actors) try to follow

these directions. Each subject was employed as

both a director and an actor. This method allowed

effective language-communication to be compared

with and distinguished from ineffective language-

communication. It also allowed the social class

and ethnicity of subject-directors and subject-

actors to be controlled and their language analyzed.

The major findings of this study can be briefly

summarized:

1. Different language codes have different corres-

pondences to the organization and direction of

behavior.

2. The two features of language-communication

which are necessary for it to be an adequate

organizational device are context-independency

and context-specificity. Language-communicat-

ion modes can be distinguished by the presence

or absence of these features.

 187

3. The relation between language-communication

and the organization of behavior is such that

more difficult tasks to perform are more

difficult to encode.

4. The ability to encode and direct and to decode

and enact directions are related skills.

However, decoding is something most subjects

could do if supplied with adequate directions.

5. Levels of language-communication skill can be

distinguished. These represent at the lowest

level, the inability to encode or decode simple

tasks to, at the highest level, the ability

both to encode and decode complex tasks.

6. The language of middle class subjects is more

often adequate to encode the tasks than the

language of lower class subjects, especially,

lower class black subjects. This difference is

more pronounced on more complex tasks.

7. Communication effectiveness within and between

members of different sub-cultural groups depends

upon the language-communication mode employed

by the communicator rather than the sub-cultural

 188

similarity between directors and actors.

There is no difference between the adequacy

of written and oral directions for the tasks

used in this study.

Younger subjects are less able to encode and

decode task directions because of their

level of language-communication than older

subjects.

Social class differences in language-commun-

ication found among older subjects also

exists among younger subjects.

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 BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Gary L. Siegel was born on August 20, 1943 in Highland,

Illinois. He grew up in Lebanon, Illinois, and atten-

ded St. Henry Prep High School and Junior College in

Belleville, Illinois. He received a B.A. from Our

Lady of Snows Scholasticate in Pass Christian, Mississi-

ppi in 1966 and an M.A. in Sociology from St. Louis

University in 1969. He worked in educational research

for the Central Midwestern Regional Educational Labora-

tory in St. Louis from 1968-1970. He was a Graduate

Fellow in the Sociology Department at Saint Louis

University in 1971-1972. He was an Instructor and

Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at the

University of Scranton 1972-1975. He has taught at

Forest Park Community College in Saint Louis since 1975.

Married to Margaret (nee) Sheahan, he has a daughter,

Catherine.