Language and Age

12 Key excerpts on "Language and Age"

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  Discovering Sociolinguistics

  From Theory to Practice

  • Dick Smakman(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  126 THE LANGUAGE OF A LIFETIME Obviously, it is a mixture of these. The language of people with different ages can be revealed by looking at contemporary and past speech. Such research can show how fast change across generations can go and how subtle yet noticeable such change can be. Researchers generally choose chronological age as their default method of dividing their groups up into age group, knowing that any other means of age categorisation is difficulty to apply. However, this approach, while being practi-cal and efficient, overlooks the stages that people naturally go through and the life-changing events in people’s lives that affect their language and it ignores cultural perceptions of age. In addition, the individual’s sensitivity towards age-related norms as well as their sociolinguistic competence should ideally be part of investigations. A final challenge is to not misinterpret age-related changes that are due to an individual’s tendency to adjust their language to a different stage in their life. Despite many complications of categorising people on the basis of age, results from such investigations have yielded clear effects of age on language use. STUDY QUESTIONS 1. How important is age to you and the culture you are from? Is it a relevant factor from a sociolinguistic point of view? 2. After reading this chapter, try to describe your age from a sociolinguistic point of view, that is, according to the various ways of determining age. 3. Can you give an example of how a certain experience has permanently affected your language use? FURTHER READING Nussbaum and Coupland (2004) explain the social process of aging by presenting research on communication and aging (mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States) from the two decades preceding the book. It includes an interesting chapter by Coupland on age in social and sociolinguistic theory.

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  Pragmatics of Society

  • Gisle Andersen, Karin Aijmer, Gisle Andersen, Karin Aijmer(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  I. Social, regional and situational factors 1. Doing age and ageing: language, discourse and social interaction Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Anna Charalambidou 1. Introduction Sociolinguistic research on language and identities has by and large privileged cer-tain foci of inquiry, such as social class and, following that, gender, leaving age as an under-represented category. As has been observed before (Androutsopoulos and Georgakopoulou 2003b:6), age has remained a hidden or backgrounded category and this is particularly evident in influential studies that have documented how lan-guage shapes and is shaped by for instance, gender or ethnicity, whilst focusing ex-clusively on data from adolescents. In turn, within the category of ‘age’, there is also a pecking order of level of attention with research having traditionally con-centrated on the early parts of the life course (N. Coupland 2004: 69), leaving lan-guage in later life (even more) under-researched. In this chapter, we wish to redress the balance on both counts. We will foreground the category of age in our overview of language and identity studies at the same time as bringing together ‘young’ and ‘old’ age studies. In pursuing both aims, we are building on recent collections that have brought together socio-pragmatic and sociolinguistic research on youth lan-guage and identities (e.g. Stenström, Andersen and Hasund 2002; Androutsopou-los and Georgakopoulou 2003a). However, we are in a far more uncharted territory as regards the co-examining of studies of young and old age and communication. We do see it as a worthwhile enterprise though that will allow us to establish com-monalities or equally rifts between the two strands and that will pave the way to-wards a much needed inclusive approach. To pursue the above aims, we will provide an overview of young age and old age in language studies, as they have developed separately. We will subsequently draw synthesizing or comparative conclusions.

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  Sociolinguistics / Soziolinguistik. Volume 1

  • Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter Trudgill, Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter Trudgill(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  The usage of younger speakers will not, in this case, coincide with the established norms. There has been little, if any, research that has had age differences in language use as its prime focus, despite the social importance of such differences. The lack of information on age differences has been deplored by those working on pidgin and Creole varieties (see Rickford 1980, 176) and on language atti-tudes (see Paltridge/Giles 1984, 80). There is much to learn from the study of age-related differences in language use: age rarely has an independent effect on language use, and research on the interaction between age and other social factors would add considerably to our understanding of the relationship be-tween language and society. 6. Literature (selected) Chambers, Jack/Trudgill, Peter (1980) Dialectol-ogy , Cambridge. Cheshire, Jenny (1982 a) Variation in an English dialect, Cambridge. Cheshire, Jenny (1982 b) Dialect features and lin-guistic conflict in schools, in: Educational Review 34, 53-67. Clyne, Michael (1984) Language and society in the German-speaking countries, Cambridge. Downes, William (1984) Language and society, London. Edwards, John (1979) Language and disadvantage, London. Heath, Shirley B. (1983) Ways with words, Cam-bridge. Helfrich, Hede (1979) Age markers in speech, in: Social markers in speech, Giles, H./Scherer, K., eds., Cambridge, 63 — 107. Hockett, Charles (1950) Age-grading and linguis-tic continuity, in: Language 26, 449 — 459. Holes, Clive (1983) Patterns of communal lan-guage variation in Bahrain, in: Language in Society 12, 433-57. Hudson, Richard (1980) Sociolinguistics, Cam-bridge. Kemp, William (1981) Major sociolinguistic pat-terns in Montreal French, in: Variation Omnibus, Sankoff, D./Cedergren, H., eds., Edmonton, Al-berta, 3 -1 6 . Labov, William (1966) The social stratification of English in New York City, Washington, D. C. Labov, William (1973) The linguistic conse-quences of being a lame, in: Language in Society 2, 81-115.

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  Age and Foreign Language Learning in School

  • A. Lambelet, R. Berthele(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Pivot

    (Publisher)

  2 Theories and Hypotheses on the Influence of Age on Language Development

  Abstract:

  Children are generally regarded as more adept at learning languages, particularly when the focus is placed on natural language acquisition and long-term language attainment. The age factor is, however, frequently conflated with the idea of a critical period for language learning. Yet the critical period is only a single (radical) form of possible age-related influences; other factors responsible for age-related differences in language learning should also be examined. In this chapter, we cover classic studies and theories that address the effect of biological age on L1 and L2 acquisition. We also discuss the influence of other factors often confounded with age (input, motivation, attitudes, etc.). This discussion is crucial for a thorough understanding of the basic assumptions made in studies on foreign language teaching and learning

  .

  Keywords: critical period; L1 entrenchment; maturational hypotheses; sensitive period

  Lambelet, Amelia and Raphael Berthele. Age and Foreign Language Learning in School . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI : 10.1057/9781137525901.0008.

  In order to better understand scholarly findings on the effects of early foreign language learning in school, we first need to clarify the origins of the hypotheses that posit the benefits and drawbacks for young children as compared to adolescents and adults in terms of language development (first, second, and foreign languages). Because the focus of this literature review centers on the effects of age on learning foreign languages in a school setting, these hypotheses are granted only cursory coverage in the upcoming sections. We encourage readers who wish to learn more about the concepts presented in the chapter to consult reference works and summaries such as Singleton and Ryan (2004), Singleton (2003, 2005), Dewaele (2009b), Schouten (2009), and Grotjahn and Schlak (2013).

  This chapter is structured as follows. We first address L1 development and introduce hypotheses that touch upon the particular characteristics of children that allow them to access language (2.1). Then we move on to various hypotheses related to L2 development (2.2), first covering those on maturation (2.2.1) and then those related to interactions between L1 and L2 (2.2.2). The chapter concludes with a short summary and a discussion of the factors (both individual and social) that can influence language development in natural contexts.

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  Bilingual Children

  A Guide for Parents

  • Jürgen M. Meisel(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Bilingual Children: A Guide for Parents 204 204 and that substantial aspects of the alterations that happen during a child’s first years are due to maturational changes in the brain, some further comments explaining these claims are in order. This may not be of crucial interest to all readers, but I believe that for others it would be an inexcusable omission if this topic was not addressed here. Let me start by emphasizing that ‘age’ is obviously not exclusively a biological issue. From the day of our birth, body and mind change, and a number of these changes affect our capacity to acquire lan- guage as do the previously acquired linguistic knowledge and skills. Simultaneously, our roles as members of social groups change, and in the course of socialization social-psychological conditions evolve, as do attitudes and motivations; all this exerts influence on our behaviour, including our linguistic behaviour. Thus, age-dependent changes concerning the acquisition and use of language are by no means limited to the ones that affect the structure and the functioning of the brain. In fact, a wealth of research indicates that the development of linguistic knowledge and skills is influenced by age-related factors from birth up to approximately age 15, when the maturational period ends. And yet, neural maturation plays a special role in language acquisi- tion, especially during early years, i.e. roughly during the first half of this period. It is of particular importance not only because all children are subject to very much the same changes, proceeding through identical phases of development; it is also special because the Language Making Capacity, as a subsystem within the overall cognitive system, enjoys a certain degree of autonomy. Although it interacts with other subsystems, its development does not have to be in pace with them, nor does it depend on them.

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  Applied Child Study

  A Developmental Approach

  • Anthony D. Pellegrini, David F. Bjorklund(Authors)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  We have seen that children learn a new language most effectively when they have the desire to communicate with others and become part of the culture represented by the new language. Children are viewed as active learners who are motivated to learn new language forms by a desire to communicate ideas that they cannot express to others with their current linguistic repertoire. Fillmore’s (1979) work also shows that learning a second language is not just a “linguistic” problem, but is affected by a child’s cognitive and social skills and the presence of a supportive social environment of peers. Although the effect of the interaction of social, motivational, and linguistic factors is most obvious in the learning of a second language, it is also true for the acquisition of a child’s first language (L.Bloom, 1997). Language is acquired in a social context, be it home or school, or with parents or with peers, and we must be mindful of these social and emotional factors when trying to explain language development.

  The Role of Age in Learning a Second Language

  Our earlier discussion concerned young children learning a second language. Would learning be easier if children were older or younger than the 5- to 7-year olds studied by Fillmore (1979)? The answer is obvious here: Younger is better when it comes to learning a second language. People who learn a second language only as adults rarely become proficient in that language. This is seen both in phonology (“foreign” accents) and syntax.

  It is easy to spot almost anyone who learned a second language as an adult. Even if they are articulate, well-educated, and have an impressive vocabulary, they almost always have a noticeable accent. Research has confirmed this. Oyama (1976) studied Italian immigrants in the United States and assessed their accents as a function of (a) their age of arrival to the United States, and (b) how long they had resided in the United States. Only the first factor, age of arrival, and thus age at which they were first exposed to English, predicted the degree of their accents.

  Perhaps more subtle is syntax. Presumably, people who live in a country for many years will eventually master “like a native” the syntax of a language, even if they retain an accent. This was tested in research by J.S.Johnson and Newport (1989), who examined second-language learning as a function of age. They tested 46 native Chinese or Korean speakers who had emigrated to the United States and learned English as a second language. The age of people at time of arrival in the United States ranged from 3 to 39 years, and they had lived in the United States between 3 and 26 years when they were tested.

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  Cross-Linguistic Influence in Third Language Acquisition

  Psycholinguistic Perspectives

  • Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen, Ulrike Jessner(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Multilingual Matters

    (Publisher)

  In the case of young learners, age is associated with cognitive and metalinguistic development, and older chil-dren have been reported to advance more quickly in the first stages of The Effect of Linguistic Distance, L2 Status and Age 9 second language acquisition. Cognitive and metalinguistic development could also be related to cross-linguistic influence, and particularly, to psychotypology, because older children can have a more accurate percep-tion of linguistic distance that could influence the source language they use when transferring terms from one of the languages they know. Another factor that can potentially affect cross-linguistic influence is ‘recency’ (see Hammarberg, this volume). It could be hypothesised that learners are more likely to borrow from a language they actively use than from other languages they may know but do not use. Hammarberg’s results (this volume) seem to confirm the influence of recency because the learner uses the most recently acquired language, German, as a base language, although this use of German could also be due to the subject’s higher proficiency in German or to psychotypology. The study of cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition is complex because of the number of potential factors that are associated with it and their possible interactions, and also because third language acquisi-tion presents more diversity than second language acquisition (Cenoz, 2000). Third language acquisition can take place in natural and formal contexts and the number of specific situations derived from typology, proficiency, mode, age and recency is extremely high. The study of cross-linguistic influence is affected not only by the knowledge of other languages but also by the process of acquiring those languages, and the strategies the learner used to acquire them.

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  Beyond Grammar

  Language, Power, and the Classroom: Resources for Teachers

  • Mary R. Harmon, Marilyn J. Wilson(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Because these subsystems of language function only in social contexts, the sociolinguistic dimensions of language study become central to our analysis of language. For years linguists approached the study of language objectively and with critical distance, describing but not commenting on the social ramifications of its use. Currently, however, applied linguistics has taken a critical turn, focusing not just on the “object” but on the social and cultural framework of language, that has deepened our understanding of it. Decontextualized language study is less messy, but it’s also irrelevant. People always speak within specific cultural contexts that relate their choices and intentions to issues of politics and power.

  Language Acquisition

  How do children acquire language so effortlessly? How do they do it on their own, without a grammar book or an English teacher to teach them? Linguists agree that language is biologically determined and that its acquisition is an instinctive, natural process that is inevitable and certain, given normal intelligence and exposure to language. Steven Pinker says,

  Language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell time or how the federal government works. Instead, it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently. (18)

  Although the degree to which language is biologically determined is vigorously argued, every linguist acknowledges the basic biological predisposition for language. Some linguists liken the process to the germination of a seed. When the conditions are right—the presence of sufficient sunlight, moisture, fertile soil—the genetic code in the seed is activated, and it grows and develops. When the conditions are right for language acquisition—when the child is in the presence of human language and is expected to be a participant—the language acquisition device is activated, and language develops.

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  Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis

  • David Birdsong(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Our approach to evaluating the argument for a critical period is to show that age intervenes in the effect that linguistic and cognitive factors have on success in second language acquisition. Therefore, correlations between age and success are spurious because the relation is actually reflecting the effects of these linguistic and cognitive factors. Statistically, this argument could be demonstrated by partialling age out of the equation and then studying the relation between these linguistic and cognitive factors in the absence of age. If our explanation is correct, then the partial correlations between linguistic and cognitive sources of variance and proficiency should remain significant when age is not included in the equation. Alternatively, if it could be shown that linguistic or cognitive factors (or social, although we do not discuss these) were capable of producing patterns of results that are sometimes attributed to age differences, then the role of age in explaining these effects would need to be reconsidered. Our approach, however, is to offer data that challenge the interpretation that the effects are caused by age by identifying areas in which empirical results contradict predictions from the critical period hypothesis.

  The debate over the critical period hypothesis embodies some of the most basic questions about second language acquisition, and indeed, language acquisition in general. These questions permeate the foundations of several disciplines, such as linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neurolinguistics. Is language learning governed by environmental conditions or by an internal bioprogram? Do languages reside in independently constructed mental representations or are they mutually available in processing? Is transfer a legitimate process in language learning or an unwanted symptom of the improper separation of distinct languages? To some extent, the answers to these and other fundamental questions in human language learning rest partly in the role that age plays in acquiring languages. If there is a critical period for second language acquisition, then logically there is also one for first language acquisition, and the answers to questions about language processing take a clear direction. One must be prudent, therefore, in accepting the hypothesis for a critical period in second language acquisition. Methodologically, one must begin with the null hypothesis that no such limitation exists and produce reasons why this hypothesis should be rejected.

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  The Continuum Companion to Second Language Acquisition

  • Bloomsbury Publishing(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  Literate adults rely on writing in all sorts of ways and organ-ize their thinking di ff erently. Age has o Ğ en been blamed for alleged de fi ciencies in L2 acquisition. L2 learners are typically older than children acquiring their fi rst language. Perhaps there is a point of no return beyond which the second language can no longer be learnt in the same way or with the same e ffi ciency that you learnt your fi rst language. This is not the place to explore the vast literature on age di ff erences as it is dealt with elsewhere in this volume. It might be for example that once Universal Grammar has been instantiated in one language it is no longer available for L2 acquisition. So a second language would have to be learnt in some way that did not involve Universal Grammar, as argued by, say, Clahsen and Muysken (1989). However it is not age per se that shuts the door but maturation on a particular scale: it’s not being 30 that prevents you learning a new language but having the memory system, the cognitive abilities and the social situations etc. of a 30-year-old. The variable is not age itself but one of the inevitable companions of age. Differences in Situation, Learner and Language Input The vast majority of children acquire their fi rst language in a primal family care-taking situation; the situations of human babies are rather similar, apart from cultural di ff erences in child-rearing practices. Virtually all human children learn human language; nothing stops a child learning their fi rst language other than the total absence of language. First language learning can be taken for granted: it’s what human beings do to be human.

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  The Social Construction of Age

  Adult Foreign Language Learners

  • Patricia Andrew(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Multilingual Matters

    (Publisher)

  5 prevalent in contemporary Western culture, but one that thus far is not sustained by solid evidence.

  A larger problem with the CPH studies is that age is invariably treated in chronological terms. Even those researchers who do not fully accept the biological determinism of the CPH and ascribe age-related differences to other factors connect them with chronological age. Such an essentialist notion of age can lead to a simplistic and unquestioned mode of categorizing people into groups by age-in-years or, more broadly, by life stages, that does not always dovetail with lived experience. Chronological age is not a reliable indicator of where a person is in the life course for, as Eckert points out, ‘social and biological development do not move in lock step with chronological age, or with each other’ (Eckert, 1997a: 154–155). Moreover, life stages, such as childhood, adolescence and middle age, are identified and defined differently from one culture to the next and from one moment in history to another. This explains in part why age can never be fully isolated from other social factors, such as gender, social class and ethnicity.

  This stance is also consistent with the sociocultural perspective on SLA, one which gives greater prominence to social reality, in contrast to the mainstream cognitive strand of SLA, which has tended to neglect the social aspects of learning by focusing primarily on decontextualized cognitive processes. The principal thrust of research in the cognitive tradition has been on determining how individual learner factors, such as age, account for differential success among learners. The emphasis for the most part has been on universal properties of language and acquisition, on the formal aspects of language and on mental processes in the individual. The social side of language learning has largely been skirted by researchers adopting a psycholinguistic orientation to SLA. This is evident in the body of CPH research reviewed here (see ‘language focus’ in Table 1.1

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  The Guidebook to Sociolinguistics

  • Allan Bell(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)
• Or conduct a similar comparison of successive generations of a celebrity family of actors or politicians or sportspeople – Redgraves, Fondas, Bushes, Kennedys. This makes a real-time study: what language changes can you trace in the generational differences in these families’ speech?

8.9 SUMMARY

• Age, together with gender, is the most fundamental social factor structuring any study of language variation. Age is not controlled by chronological time, it has social, cultural and psychological dimensions. The concept of the lifespan recognizes identifiable, socially constructed age stages. In age graded speech, at any one time different age groups behave differently, but each generation repeats the same pattern as the previous one.
• To track language change, we use ‘apparent time’ – recording older and mid-age speakers as linguistic archives for their generations. But telling the difference with certainty between age grading and generational change requires real-time data.
• ‘Trend’ re-studies of the same population show that original apparent-time interpretations tend to be confirmed in real time. Apparent time assumes people continue to speak similarly throughout their adult lives. ‘Panel’ re-studies of the same speakers show that while a majority do remain stable, a large minority may still be changing.
• In the study of language change, phonology has been most researched, while ­quantitative research in syntax, morphology and discourse has been mainly ­confined to easily delimitable features. A qualitative case study shows that the language of news has changed markedly in the past century, with technological change helping promote changes in news language.
• Change in consonants often involves phonetic weakening or ‘lenition’. The study of vowel change focuses on mergers, when two vowel phonemes come to occupy the same phonetic space, and chain shifts, when more than one adjacent vowel moves. Labov has focused on formulating principles for vowel changes, especially the ‘Northern Cities Chain Shift’ in the US.
• Speakers are aware of some changes but not others. Change from above the level of consciousness is also led ‘from above’ in society, but most changes are unconscious and come from the middle of the social hierarchy.