Query Details

Query Subject:	Age as Sociolinguistic Category
Author:	Mary Shapiro
Submitter Email:	click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):	Sociolinguistics

Query:	I'm looking for studies (or even speculative/theoretical musings) that treat age as a sociolinguistic category (rather than as evidence for historical change). Wolfram & Fasold at least raise this as a possible avenue for study in my (now ancient & outdated) version of ''The Study of Social Dialects in American English,'' but I would be interested in finding work that follows up on this. Labovian studies do tend to group subjects by age, but the point there seems to be to show historical change, not to investigate what W&F referred to as ''differences that relate to age-grading; there are characteristic linguistic behaviors appropriate for different stages in the life history of an individual.'' I would be particularly happy to discover studies that focus on older (senior) speakers. I will be happy to post a summary to the list if I get any replies. Thank you. Mary Shapiro Assoc. Professor of Linguistics Truman State University Kirksville, MO 63501 mshapiro@truman.edu
LL Issue:	13.2296
Date posted:	12-Sep-2002
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