Jay -- here's a rather rambling reply --I am trying to clarify my own
position on the value of Bernstein's work on the structure of
pedagogic discourse
Bernstein's (1981) model of cultural transmission can be used to
theorise and identify the presence of specific pedagogic modalities in
exemplar schools. This model is one that is designed to relate
macro-institutional forms to micro-interactional levels and the
underlying rules of communicative competence (Hymes, D. 1971).
Bernstein (1977) focuses upon two levels; a structural level and an
interactional level. The structural level is analyzed in terms of the
social division of labour it creates and the interactional with the
form of social relation it creates. The social division is analyzed
in terms of strength of the boundary of its divisions, that is, with
respect to the degree of specialization. Thus the key concept at the
structural level is the concept of boundary, and structures are
distinguished in terms of their category relations. The interactional
level emerges as the regulation of the transmission/acquisition
relation between teacher and taught, that is, the interactional level
comes to refer to the pedagogic context and the social relations of
the classroom or its equivalent. The curriculum may then be analyzed
as an example of a social division of labour and pedagogic practice as
its constituent social relations through which the specialization of
that social division (subjects, units of the curriculum) are
transmitted and expected to be acquired. Power is manifested in
category relations and control is the communicative realisation of
these relations. Power is manifested in category relations which
themselves generate recognition rules. Control is manifested in
pedagogic communication governed by realisation rules.
"Recognition rules create the means of distinguishing between and so
recognizing the speciality that constitutes a context, and
realization rules regulate the creation and production of specialized
relationships internal to that context."
Bernstein (1981) pp 328 - 329
The distribution of power and principles of control differently
specialise structural features and their pedagogic communicative
relays.
In 1989 I used the distinction made by Bernstein (1977) between
instructional and regulative discourse. The former refers to the
transmission of skills and their relation to each other, and the
latter refers to the principles of social order, relation and
identity. Whereas the principles and distinctive features of
instructional discourse and its practice are relatively clear ( the
what and how of the specific skills / competences to be acquired and
their relation to each other), the principles and distinctive features
of the transmission of the regulative are less clear as this discourse
is transmitted through various media and may indeed be characterised
as a diffuse transmission. Regulative discourse communicates the
school's (or any institution's) public moral practice, values beliefs
and attitudes, principles of conduct, character and manner. It also
transmits features of the school's local history, local tradition and
community relations. Regulative discourse is transmitted essentially,
but not wholly, through: . symbolism and ritual (e.g. memorial
plaques; ritual displays such as assemblies, entrance and exit
practices; controls on movement and appraoches to special places such
as the headteachers room, libraries, staff rooms etc); . interaction
(e.g. spoken or written communication concerned with establishing and
maintaining principles and practices of expected conduct given usually
by staff) . instruction (e.g. where regulative discourse has its own
instructional discourse and its own specialist transmitters - special
courses on social and life skills, sex education etc)
The form taken by instructional discourse in classroom practice itself
contains important regulatory features. The more highly controlled the
instructional discourse the more likely it is that regulative
discourse will be constituted by imperative and positional modes.
Regulative discourse will be created through a more personal mode when
learners have more control over instructional practice. The more
implicit is the hierarchy, the more the control will inhere in
interpersonal communication. Pedagogic discourse is one discourse
created by the embedding and interpenetration of instructional and
regulative discourse.
Both these aspects of pedagogic discourse may be described in terms
of distribution of power and principles of control, a variety of
pedagogic structures may be generated according to their organizing
principle, that is, in terms of their underlying code. The form of
the code (its modality) contains principles for distinguishing
between contexts (recognition rules) and the creation and production
of specialized communication within contexts (realization rules).