LINGUIST List 13.2458

Fri Sep 27 2002

Sum: Age as Sociolinguistic Category

Editor for this issue: Steve Moran <stevelinguistlist.org>

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  • Mary Shapiro, Age as Sociolinguistic Category

    Message 1: Age as Sociolinguistic Category

     Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 14:55:47 -0500
    From: Mary Shapiro <mshapirotruman.edu>
    Subject: Age as Sociolinguistic Category


    In a previous issue (Linguist 13.2296), I queried readers about studies (or even speculative/theoretical musings) that treat age as a sociolinguistic category (rather than as evidence for historical change). Here is a summary of the messages I received, with many thanks to those who responded: Emma Moore, Paul Foulkes, Bronwen Evans, Michael Newman, George Aubin, Chad Nilep, James L. Fidelholtz, Rusty Barrett, Lise M. Dobrin, J.L. Speranza, & Neil Norrick. Special thanks to Klaus Schneider, who is in charge of linguistic sub-projects for a new "multi-disciplinary gerontological research group at Bonn University, involving linguists, psychologists, and neurologists, but also ethnologists, historians, and theologists."

    Specific references:

    Cheshire, J. 1987: Age and generation-specific use of language. In Ammon, U. et al. (eds.): Sociolinguistics. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 760-767.

    Coupland, N. 1991: Sociolinguistic issues in ageing. Ageing and Society 11, 99-102.

    Coupland, N. et al. 1991: Language, Society and the Elderly. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Eckert, P. 1997: Age as a sociolinguistic variable. In Coulmas, F. (ed.): The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 151-167.

    Evans, Nick. ?? The last speaker is dead -- long live the last speaker! from the volume Linguistic Fieldwork by Newman and Ratliff.

    Hamilton, H. (ed.) 1999: Language and Communication in Old Age. New York:Garland.

    Hummert, M.L. et al. (eds.) 1994: Interpersonal Communication in Older Adulthood. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Williams, Ann & Kerswill, Paul (1999). Dialect levelling: continuity vs. change in Milton Keynes, Reading and Hull. In Paul Foulkes and Gerard Docherty (eds.) Urban Voices. London: Arnold.

    Nussbaum, J.F./Coupland, J. (eds.) 1995: Handbook of Communication and Aging Research. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Weigel, Rebecca and Carl Schniederman, Consistency of Selected Morphological Rules in Black Children as a Function of age. Journal of Communication Pathology 1975(1), (Sept) 11-17.

    Youseff, Valerie, Age-grading in the Anglophone Creole in Tobago. World Englishes 2001 (20): 29-46.

    Less specific and/or as yet unpublished references:

    There is also a chapter on Age (maybe by Eckert but I can't remember) in the Handbook of Language Variation and Change (Blackwell 2002 ed Chambers, Trudgill, Schillin-Estes).

    "There are discussions of this in Labov's two volumes Principles of Linguistic Change."

    "Carmen Llamas from Aberdeen, UK, has worked on age."

    Lesley Milroy and Rusty Barrett are working on a real-time study of AAE in Detroit comparing Wolfram's interviews from the 60's with current interviews. A pilot study found strong evidence for age-grading (rather than language change).

    Neil Norrick is looking at narratives by older (80 and over) tellers, especially with regard to what they consider worth telling, either funny or significant in their past."