code (n.)

The general sense of this term – a set of conventions for converting one signalling system into another – enters into the subject-matter of SEMIOTICS and COMMUNICATION theory rather than LINGUISTICS. Such notions as ‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ are sometimes encountered in PHONETICS and linguistics, but the view of language as a ‘code’ is not one which figures greatly in these subjects. The term has come to the fore in SOCIOLINGUISTICS, where it is mainly used as a neutral label for any system of communication involving language – and which avoids sociolinguists having to commit themselves to such terms as DIALECT, LANGUAGE or VARIETY, which have a special status in their theories. The linguistic behavior referred to as code-switching (sometimes code-shifting or, within a language, style-shifting), for example, can be illustrated by the switch BILINGUAL or BIDIALECTAL speakers may make (depending on who they are talking to, or where they are) between STANDARD and regional forms of English, between Welsh and English in parts of Wales, or between occupational and domestic varieties. Code-mixing involves the transfer of linguistic elements from one language into another: a sentence begins in one language, then makes use of words or grammatical features belonging to another. Such mixed forms of language are often labelled with a hybrid name, such as (in the case of English) Spanglish, Franglais and Singlish (Singaporean English), and attract attitudes ranging from enthusiastic community support (as an expression of local identity) to outright condemnation (from some speakers of the related standard languages).

Several sociologists and sociolinguists have given ‘code’ a more restricted definition. For example, codes are sometimes defined in terms of mutual intelligibility (e.g. the language of a private or professional group). But the most widespread special use of the term was in the theory of communication codes propounded by the British sociologist Basil Bernstein (1924–2000). His distinction between ELABORATED and RESTRICTED codes was part of a theory of the nature of social systems, concerned in particular with the kinds of meanings people communicate, and how explicitly they do this, using the range of resources provided by the language.