Social Class and Modes of Communication

Differences in modes of communication, as reveled in interviews with lover- and middle-class respondents, are more than differences in intelligibility, grammar, and vocabulary. Differences are found in number and kinds of perspective, ability to take the listener's role, use of classifying or generalizing terms, and devices of style to order and implement communication. These differences in speech can be accounted for by differences in thinking and perceiving and in the respondent's relationship to the interviewer.