Language Use and Age

[Music] another really interesting area to look at when it comes to language use and different individual characteristics is the area of language and age so as we move through different categories of age we actually use language differently and languages used to talk about us differently so that's what we're going to take a look at in this session how does language use change as we move from one age group to another and then how does the language that's used to describe us change and how does the language that's used to talk to us change as we move through those different age groups so it's a really fascinating area to look at you'll start the session by taking a look at the different categories that we divide the human lifespan into when we're looking at a discussion of language and age so we'll look at the different age ranges in these categories then we'll look at how languages use to talk about people who are within these different age groups we'll look at how these different age groups talk so how members of specific age groups talk themselves or use language themselves and finally we'll look at how we talk to people who are in these different age groups so let's get started [Music] for the sake of simplicity when we're talking about what happens when with language use and age we're going to divide human life into four big categories so these are going to allow us to make very simple generalizations and obviously these generalizations are not true for every individual but they really help us just get our heads around this whole intersection or the interaction of language and age so we're gonna group human beings into children teenagers adults and seniors and the approximate ages obviously children would be twelve years and under teenagers would be all the fifteen numbers and then adults would be from twenty and onwards and seniors anywhere from early 60s onwards so those are the general categories we're going to use and obviously we will use them on the understanding that there are individual differences within these large general categories the first really interesting thing to look at when we look at these four categories of ages and language and language use is to look at which age group kind of controls language use or controls the language so which language group says this is the standard language this is how this particular language should be used yeah the very obvious answer is that the adult category controls the language so adults from 20 years onwards kind of consider themselves to be the keepers of the language so they're the ones that kind of get frustrated when grammar rules are broken or when language changes or when new slang comes into a language or new vocabulary comes into a language because these changes push against the boundaries of standardization that this adult group of speakers consider to be their territory so the first interesting thing about language and age is that the adults of a population group consider themselves to be the guardians of the language so they're the people who hold to the standards or the standard language use then the second interesting feature of language and age is to look at which of these four general categories pushes language change so which a each group or group of speakers brings a lot of change into a language so which group brings in new vocabulary or perhaps new rules of grammar use and so on and it's it's as obvious as you would think it is this is the teenager group so the teenager group or that category these are considered to be the lot the drivers of language change so that's the age group that brings in new words new ways of using a language so it brings that really interesting tie mention into our standard generation fights and generation tensions because not only do we have all these other issues you know among the junk generations but we've got language change as an issue so we've got teenagers pushing change in a language and then we've got the adult group pushing against that change and saying no here's the standard that we have to use so it's another interesting generational dynamic that we can add to the mix with language and age there's three main approaches we can take when we're analyzing how language and age interact so the first one is we can look at the language that is used to talk about a particular age group so those four categories what language do we use to talk about them then there is the category of the language that those groups actually use themselves so these there are there any specific features about language that those four different age categories use and then finally there's a category of language that we use to talk to that specific age group so when we're talking to children versus talking to Alice versus talking to seniors for example how does our language change so we'll take a look at each of these three in turn [Music] let's start by taking a look at the language we use to talk about people in these different age categories and we can take this and divide it further into two groups so we can divide it into the vocabulary we use to talk about people in a specific age category and then the discourse that we use our pronunciation doesn't really change when we're talking about an age category or people in that age category nor does our grammar but our vocabulary and our discourse I'm yield some kind of fun and really interesting language use I'm gonna start by putting you to work just take a couple of seconds and think about vocabulary so words that you use to talk about people in different age categories based upon their placement in that age category so what are some words that you use to talk about children any words that you use to talk about teens and adults and seniors once you've come up with some of those words also take a look at are those words positive so do they have a positive connotation or are they negative so do we use them to speak negatively about people in that particular age category [Music] [Applause] [Music] so let's take a look at some words that we might use for children so we we can use very formal neutral terms such as children infant baby but then we can use very affectionate terms such as youngster tyke little one cutie pie we can use cute little nicknames for kids and things like that and then if we want to portray that we don't feel quite so positive about this particular age group we can describe children as being cranky or whiny or a lot of work so we can have very positive cute and affectionate ways of talking about children and then some negative ways as well so it's just really fun to look at the wide range of terms that we have to talk about the age group particularly children we have the same collection of positive negative and neutral terms when it comes to talking about teenagers adults and seniors I particularly enjoy some of the words that are floating around now for seniors my favorite is the word wrinkly it's just a very affectionate term to describe a senior citizen we can call them all these then we can get into some negative terms which I won't put out here but seniors is another really fun category to look at in terms of the the nouns and adjectives we use to describe people in that category we don't get quite as much fun and quite as much variety with the teenage and adult groups but the children's groups and children's age category and the senior age category gives us some really fun words we have the same variety when it comes to the discourse that we use to talk about people in the different age categories and discourse is really revealing because it allows us to see how people in a particular each category are positioned within society so the discourse that we used to talk about people in different age categories very often reflects the power that we assign to people in those categories so there's two types of discourse that we can look at there's the text only discourse but the more powerful one is the multi modal discourse so this is a combination of texts or words and then also images and maybe music as well to get an idea of the discourse that we used to talk about people into for age categories take a look at different advertisements that are out there that are directed either at an age category or they're directed about an age category so take a look at some of the advertising either in magazines or on the internet or on television that is directed at children teenagers adults and seniors and that will really let you start to see the discourse that is out there about the people in those different age categories so for example if we look at advertising that is targeting children we'll see a lot of very bright colors okay a lot of cartoon characters the music there's also music accompanying any television ads and it's really cute upbeat music usually if it is advertising those targeting parents of children then we see a lot of things a lot of terminology about learning and education and development come in so you'll see advertising targeting parents of kids that says something like buy this toy so that your kid can learn this or you know this is the best learning tool that's out there for your kid so the whole educational process comes into our discourse about children a lot as well so we see bright colors music cartoons and then when when the advertising is targeting adults who have children we get this whole educational piece going into the discourse as well when you look at the discourse that's I'm talking about teenagers or targeting teenagers there really are no surprises so discourse about teenagers is all about being cutting-edge being trendy being fashionable having the latest gadget keeping up with everybody you know being in the know being part of the cool group so that's the discourse we see for teenagers and you'll see this in any advertising director at this age category discourse about adults tends to be far more serious so we'll see a lot of advertising a lot of discourse about responsibilities that adults have so you'll see advertising about mortgages for example buying cars making serious purchase decisions so the advertising or the discourse about adults it tends to be a lot more serious it's nowhere near as fun as the discourse about kids for example and it's thought it's cutting it just the discourse about teenagers so the adults we unfortunately tend to get the very serious stuff the serious discourse the seniors age category is where we're starting to see a lot of really fun change going on in terms of the discourse that's used to talk about to this age category and this is as a result of the baby boomers hitting this age category so this is the largest demographic group in most populations in developed countries and so they're you know very powerful in terms of setting trends and so the trend that we're seeing with discourse about seniors is actually a really fun one so what we're seeing now is a lot of discourse about you know staying young having lots of energy getting out and doing really fun things different ways to stay healthy different ways to stay engaged and energized and we're also seeing a lot of fun jokes about seniors you know jokes about the wonderful things that happen to our bodies as they get older and it's a really fun set of discourse to take a look at so I really encourage you to take a look at some advertising on both in print and television and on the internet targeted at seniors and you'll see some really fun stuff and some very fun discourse messages being projected [Music] so that's how we talk about people in the different age categories in the children teenager adult and senior categories now let's take a look at how people in those age categories actually talk themselves so what language use choices do we make that are fairly well influenced or fairly strongly influenced by our age category there are two types of research being done to really find out about language use differences according to age category and these are called this type these types of research are called synchronic research and diachronic research so synchronic research is research that that is conducted at a single point in time so it takes people in a certain age category at a specific point in time and analyzes their language use diachronic research looks at multiple time periods so dicrotic research will actually follow a group of speakers or a group of language users as they change from one age category to another diachronic research obviously takes more time it's a much lengthier type of research but it does uncover how language use changes over time with the same group of people synchronic research just looks at a single group at a single point in time so while you can get a very good sense of that specific group at that point in time you don't get the idea of language change that we get that you get with diachronic research so both types of research are very useful and and kind of shows different things when it comes to language use and age let's start by taking a look at language use in that children's age category and this is where there's probably been the most amount of research because in this category we capture the acquisition of first language so children start with zero language when they're born and then they progress and learn more and more of their first language as they move through the different years in that children's age category I am by no means an expert in first language acquisition so I'm not even going to pretend to be but things that researchers kind of focusing on at this age group are different age ages at which children move from saying one word to two words to say in complete sentences to saying grammatically correct sentences they also look at the rate at which children add new vocabulary to their overall set of their first language and so on and they also look at sound acquisition so how did children refine their pronunciation as they get older so when children start out they have very approximate pronunciation or some interesting pronunciation patterns and then as they get older they acquire the pronunciation that goes very specifically with that first language that they're learning so there's a lot of really interesting stuff that goes on in terms of language use in that children's category if this is of interest to you I would direct you to do more research on first language acquisition and then you'll see this whole first language acquisition process unfold teenage use of language is a really interesting category as well but it is actually not as well researched as children's use of language as I mentioned earlier in this session teenagers are the driving force for language change within a culture a cultural group or language group so you know the teenage in teenage languages we see much more informal language use we see a lot of slang use we see a lot of experimentation with new words and new vocabulary a lot of word formation goes on in this age group and they just really position themselves as cutting edge in language change so this is where researchers go when they want to look at language change that's happening within a specific language they go to the this teenage age category as I also mentioned adults are considered the standard language users of any specific language group so in the adult age category this is where researchers look for standard language usage so they'll look for standard grammatical patterns pronunciation patterns vocabulary usage discourse usage and so on so this is where the standards reside in terms of the languages of a specific language group in the adult age category the seniors each category in terms of language use is one that's attracting more and more attention as there are more more seniors within most of the developed countries so what happens to language use at the senior age category really reflects what happens in terms of the brain as it ages so researchers are really looking for close ties between senior language use and brain functions so there's a lot of research going on in that specific area so changes that we see in language use really are directly related to changes in brain function so receiving more hesitations with senior language use less volume possibly a slower speaking speed more searching for words as the person can't quite find the exact or that he or she wants they might use a definition or an alternate word just a lot more hesitation in terms of language use so this is an age category that is attracting more attention as there's a greater percentage of specific populations sitting in that age category and it is to really directly related to uncovering what's going on in terms of brain functioning [Music] the last area will look at is another really fun one and this is how we talk to people who are in these different age categories so does the language we use change when we're talking to children teenagers outs and seniors yeah the answer that researchers have found is that actually yes our language use does change when we're talking to people in these different age categories so we do talk to children differently and then we talk to teenagers and adults and seniors so let's take a look at some of these differences in how we talk to people in these different age categories let's start by taking a look at how we talk to children so what are the unique features of our languages when we're talking to children researchers have found that there are a lot of unique features in this type of language use and that so much so that they've given it a name this is called child directed language or CDL so child directed language is very unique because we tend to use a higher pitch we tend to use a slower speed we use much simpler vocabulary and much simpler grammar we use shorter sentences we use a lot of repetition so we'll repeat words will repeat entire sentences then we also use a lot of pauses to give the children time to think and process what we're saying there are a few other features or characteristics of child directed language we tend to use a lot of nicknames and pet names when we're talking to children we also tend to ask a lot of questions so we use far more questioning than making of statements and we also use question tags and with our question making we use very exaggerated intonation to make it very clear that hey this is a question we also tend to exaggerate our pronunciation and just try to articulate our words very very carefully and then the other thing we do is we'll expand on things and explain things so we'll do a lot of reading commentary when we're teaching when we're talking to children to kind of teach them the whys and the wherefores of what we're actually doing so these are some other features of child directed language a very unique kind of child directed language is one that I'm sure you're familiar with and this is baby talk so baby talk is so distinct it's actually often not considered part of child directed language it's considered its own category in and of itself so baby talk has all of the exaggerations of intonation and pronunciation but Baby Talk involves a lot of nonsense words and then mimicking the sounds that the baby is making so adults look like it's when they're using baby talk we all know that but it's a very distinct way of communicating specifically to babies and so that's considered distinct from child directed language there are a few other features about how we talk to children that researchers have identified these are not considered part of child directed language but they are still very interesting so the first thing that researchers have identified is that when children are part of a larger group and the children are trying to introduce a change of topic or a new topic for the conversation they're not very successful so they tend to get ignored when they try to bring a new topic into a conversation and likewise if children are holding the floor with a group of people they tend to get interrupted more okay so a child is talking and adults or teenagers or seniors find it acceptable to interrupt and take the floor from that child who was talking and we also tend to talk about children in their presence more than we do with the other age categories so we kind of talk about that child even though the child is right there so we're talking about them rather than talking to them or talking with them and finally we tend to use a lot of very directive or instructive language when we're talking to children so do this don't do that and so on so these are four other features of how we talk to children that are quite interesting let's go back to child directed language for a moment researchers have not only tried to uncover the features of child directed language but they've tried to uncover the assumptions behind it so when we're speaking to children why do we choose to speak so why does this thing called child-directed language exist in the first place so here are the some of the assumptions that they've uncovered the first assumption that we have when we use child directed language is that children are in some way incomplete speakers of the language so one of our roles when we're speaking to children is to actually help them develop that first language or learn that first language so children are incomplete speakers and our job is to instruct them in the language so that they can effectively and efficiently learn that language another assumption behind child directed language is that there's a power difference between us as adult speakers or teenage speakers and senior speakers and the children to whom we're speaking so child directed language really reflects this power differential that exists so we use child directed language to remind the child hey I've actually got more power than you and my language use reinforces the idea that I have that power so don't you forget it so there's this whole power differential that comes in to child directed language and there's one final argument for why we use child directed language and it's a little bit of the of an opposite to the idea of we use child directed language for power purposes and this is the idea that we use child directed language to demonstrate caring so children are a vulnerable age group so any individuals within that age group we consider them to be vulnerable and it's our job if we're not in that age group to take care of them and so one of the ideas are the assumptions that researchers think is behind child directed language is that we're acknowledging that vulnerability and we're also saying hey I know you're vulnerable and I'm going to care for you so there's this whole caring assumption that comes with the use of child directed language the next age category is teenagers there is no such thing as established by researchers anyway as teenager directed language because the language we use to talk to teenagers is not anywhere near as distinct as the language we use to talk to children and so the the language we use to talk to teenagers kind of alternates back and for between how we talk to children and then how it would talk to adults and this really reflects the in-between position that teenagers occupied they're not quite children but they're not great adults and sometimes they act like children and sometimes act like adults so the way we talk to teenagers kind of goes back and forth between those two when they do something stupid we talk to them as if they're children and then when they do something you know that shows they're mature and they've got a lot of Independence and they're really thinking we talk to them as if they're adults one thing you might notice about the length we used to talk to teenagers is that you kind of uncovers or reflex the the ongoing power struggle or control struggle that goes on with this age group because they're trying to get independence and establish themselves as unique individuals and very separate from their parents and separate from their families but also they're trying to say you know I am also a part of this family so the language we use to talk to teenagers can often reflect this ambiguity in terms of the power structure that's going on so and once again this goes back to sometimes we talked to them as a third children and sometimes we talk to them as if they're adults I won't spend any time talking about how we talk to adults because as I mentioned a few times the whole adult age category is considered the standard for any particular language so how we talk about adults how we talk to outs this is all considered standard language usage so I'll move right on to the final age category which is the seniors age category how we talk to seniors has been the focus of a lot of research and it's very similar to the research that's been conducted on child directed language in fact the language we use to talk to seniors has its own name as well we call it elder directed language or EDL an elder directed language is very similar to child directed language so we speak at a slower pace when we're talking to seniors we speak at a higher volume we use simpler vocabulary simpler sentences shorter sentences we'll use a lot of repetition we won't make any quick topic changes or will do a lot to signal okay a top change is coming up so this should sound similar because it is it's very very similar to child directed language there are a few other features of how we talk to seniors and these once again will sound familiar just as we use pet names or nicknames with children we use pet names and nicknames with seniors so we might call them sweetie or honey or Deary or any other term that indicates our affection for them we might use an honorific that says you know what because of your age I'm placing you in this honored position one that irritates me is some people like to use the pronoun we when talking about a senior instead of using you so instead of saying would you like lunch some people might say Oh would we like lunch today dearie I have no idea what people do that and then finally we we actually sometimes ask and then answer the question when we're talking to seniors so instead of saying would you like lunch today we might say oh we would like lunch today wouldn't we so I sort of ask a question and then I actually answer it for the senior as well so these are a few other interesting features about how we talk to seniors here are a few more features about how we speak to seniors that are going to sound familiar once again so when seniors are speaking within a group of people and they try to change the topic or introduce a new topic they are very often ignored when seniors are speaking within a group of people and they're holding the floor and speaking they very often get interrupted seniors very often get talked about in their presence as if they're not even there and finally seniors are very often given instructive or directive feedback this should all sound familiar because we do exactly the same thing while we're talking to children so what are the assumptions behind how we talk to seniors or our elder directed language so first of all researchers have uncovered the assumption that our elders or seniors are frail they're probably not in good health and they've got this vulnerability the same as children do but there's another assumption that's different from the ones we have when we're talking to children and that the assumption that the senior has lots of really interesting life experience has accumulated a lot of wisdom it just has a lot of really interesting stuff to share with us there's also an assumption that perhaps the seniors health difficulties are making communication difficult so maybe the senior has is hard of hearing for example or has some memory loss so can't communicate effectively so there's an assumption that those health issues might affect ability to communicate we also have these two opposing assumptions and sometimes one is one comes into play and one doesn't and these are the assumptions of power versus caring so remember back to our discussion on child directed language and there is an assumption okay the adult has power over the child but the adult also cares for the child and we've got the same dynamic going on with elder directed language so there is an assumption that the slightly younger and perhaps fit or healthier adult has more power than the senior so there's a power differential between an adult speaker and a senior speaker for example but then there's also the opposing assumption that you know when we talk to seniors a lot of how we talked to them is done to demonstrate that we care about them and we respect them and we value them so there's this power caring set of assumptions going on that that often seem like there might be an opposition but they are often both at play at the same time so this begs the question are child directed language and elder directed language the same thing and if you look at it they are very very similar so they both have slower pacing higher volume simpler vocabulary simpler grammar and so on a lot of the conversational dynamics are the same the ignoring when the person tries to change the subject or change the topic the interrupting these of directed language and so on so researchers are concluded there are a lot of similarities between child directed language and elder and language you know a lot of it comes from this power differential and also the caring factor and just the idea that these two speaker groups are vulnerable so they are lacking in power in society and therefore we talk to them in a specific way but there is one difference between child-directed language and Elder directed language and that is that with child directed language we know that the child is still trying to develop his or her first language so there's a huge instructive element to child directed language we're doing a lot of repetition were explaining words introducing new vocabulary to try and help the child develop his or her language that instructive piece however is not there with elder directed language because we know they already know the language so we don't have to teach them the language but we do sometimes have to have these other pieces come in or these other pieces do come in when it comes to power and caring so that is the key difference between child directed language and elder directed language there is this really important instructional element or instructive element to child directed language that we don't put into elder directed language as a quick review we've looked at the language we use to talk about people in the different age categories we've looked at the language use of people in those age categories and then we've looked at the language we use to talk to people in those different categories so those categories being children teenagers adults and seniors I'll leave you with a few questions because this whole interaction of language and age really does raise some intriguing questions so the first question that it raises in my mind anyway that all that I'll pose to you is does our language use when it comes to these different age categories reflect how our society views people in those specific categories and my second question is this does our language use when it comes to the different age categories reflect the power of the people in those specific age categories so just a couple of questions to leave you with on the topic of which hand age [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Advance Consulting for Education

Views: 4,829

Rating: 4.9375 out of 5

Keywords: Advance Consulting for Education, ACE, Teaching English, English as a Second Language, Teaching ESL, ESL, EFL, TEFL, TESL, TESOL, Teaching Tips, Teaching Techniques, Teaching Strategies, Teacher Professional Development, Teacher PD, Professional Development, The PD Exchange, The Professional Development Exchange, www.thepdexchange.ca, language use and age, language and age, www.aceducation.ca, Dianne Tyers

Id: Mn_RoIiIE4g

Length: 34min 37sec (2077 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 31 2018