Date: 01-Feb-2006
From: Liang Chen <chenuga.edu>
Subject: Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts
AUTHORS: De Bot, Kees; Makoni, Sinfree TITLE: Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts SERIES: Bilingual Education and Bilingualism PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters YEAR: 2005 Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2704.html
Liang Chen, University of Georgia.
SYNOPSIS
This book deals with language and aging in multilingual contexts. While the three empirical studies reported in the book were not conducted within any particular theoretical framework, issues related to language and aging were discussed in the general framework of Dynamic Systems Theory. The authors strongly recommend a multilingual and multicultural perspective toward issues related to language and aging, contending that ''[A]s with monolingualism, the assumption of mono-culturalism in any society is wrong, and that applies to the elderly population as much as it does [to] other populations'' (p. 77). The book contains 10 chapters, a preface, and a bibliography.
Chapter 1, ''Introduction: Language, Aging and Multilingualism'' (pp. 1- 4), sets the stage for the rest of the book via its discussion of four issues: the definition of aging, the definition of language, the role of memory in language use, and multilingualism. Aging is seen as ''a change on three interacting dimensions: biological, psychological and social'' (p. 1). Just as aging is seen as a system in development, so language is presented as a complex dynamic system and language use is described as a ''very advanced and complex skilled behavior'' (p. 2). Multilingualism is defined as ''being proficient to a certain degree in more than one language'' (p. 3).
Chapter 2, ''Language and aging: A Dynamic Perspective'' (pp. 5-15), first provides a brief introduction to Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), in which a dynamic system is defined as ''a system of interacting variables that is constantly changing due to interaction with its environment and self reorganization'' (p. 5). The authors then suggest that DST and DST perspectives on the development of complex systems provide a reasonable framework for the study of language and language development (particularly language in aging), as ''language shows all the characteristics of a dynamic system'' (p. 7). If we were to adopt a DST perspective on language and language development, several related conclusions would follow. First, language development takes place across the life span. Second, different levels (i.e., physical, psychological, and social) of change in aging form a dynamic and interactive system themselves, and language change in aging is a result of such dynamic interactions.
Chapter 3, ''Language and Communication with the Elderly'' (pp. 16- 26) reviews some sociolinguistic research on language used by and in conversation with elderly people. The review focuses on three aspects of the life setting that relate to language: attitudes towards the elderly and aging, changes in communication patterns within and between generations, and the use of special registers (''elderspeak'') with elderly people. This type of research on language and communication with the elderly is important in fostering the use of effective communication strategies in interactions with the elderly, and plays a role in the perspectives on eldercare. While there is a large body of research on language used in interaction with and by elderly people, many questions remain unanswered. For example, the ways in which cultural differences might affect the evaluation of elderspeak by the elderly themselves remains unclear (p. 21), as do the linguistic characteristics by which younger generations classify individuals as old (p. 22). The chapter ends with a discussion of communication with elderly people in multilingual nursing homes, where residents with different mother tongues may have limited opportunity to interact in their preferred language. As the authors point out, ''a fairly new trend in research on aging is geared towards elderly in multilingual settings, in particular for elderly in nursing homes in which their preferred language may not be spoken to them, either because no one speaks it, or because staff and residents speak different languages'' (pp. 25- 26).
Chapter 4, ''Language Use and Language Skills in Healthy and pathological Aging'' (pp. 27-43), suggests that a sociolinguistic perspective on language and aging be complemented by psycholinguistic research on language use and linguistic skills in the elderly, and that both approaches take multilingualism into consideration. To this end, the chapter focuses on the linguistic characteristics of elderly person's language, and reviews research on production and perception of language at the phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic level in both healthy and cognitively impaired elderly people. Production data from the healthy elderly suggest deterioration in verbal fluency and articulation, word finding problems in decontextualized tasks, a tendency to avoid using complex sentences, and superior narrative skills (though narratives may suffer from the elderly person's reduced effectiveness in conveying information). Age clearly affects phonological production: there is a strong correlation between specific voice characteristics and age. Apart from some minor effects (possibly due to task or cognitive and physical changes) language comprehension is generally well preserved in normal aging. In pathological aging (mainly dementia), language production sees decline in word retrieval, grammatical complexity, propositional content, and in the use of conversation building devices; however, language comprehension at both syntactic and discourse levels is well retained. No conclusions can be drawn from the meager information on phonological skills (either production or perception) in cognitively impaired elderly people.
Chapter 5, ''Resources in Language and Aging'' (pp. 44-59), looks at the role of cognitive resources (e.g. memory, attention, speed of processing), education, the social and linguistic environment, and multilingualism in language use and language development. From a DST perspective, all these resources interact within the complex skill of language.
Chapter 6, ''Multilingualism, Aging, and Dementia'' (pp. 60-77), argues that those conducting research on language in aging should devote more attention to multilingual perspectives, and should consider the use of multiple languages in the diagnosis and treatment of elderly people.
Chapter 7, ''Bilingual Aging in Older African-Americans'' (pp. 78-96), reports results from an empirical study on the effects of aging, education, working memory, and physical status on verbal and category fluency in African-Americans. According to the authors, this type of research is significant (both socially and scientifically) for several reasons. First, the number of older African-Americans is increasing rapidly. Second, elderly African-American people as a group are more susceptible to late-life dementia due to their relatively low level of education. Third, there is very little research on language in aging within this population. Fourth, these types of studies may bring insights into the impact of bilingualism on aging. The authors take a broad conceptualization of bilingualism, treating the two dialects--namely, African-American vernacular English (AAE) and the so-called Standard American English (SAE)--as two languages. Fifty- three African-Americans aged between 46 and 97 were tested on a combination of health, cognitive and language measures. Tests administered included the Bilingual Aphasia Test, which uses verbal and category fluency as language measures; the Digital Span Test, which is used to assess attention and working memory; the Assessment of Activities of Daily Living, which measures health status; and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), which measures mental health. Research participants were assessed in both AAE and SAE, although the assessments were conducted separately. Results indicated that language performance (narrowly operationalized as verbal and category fluency) did not necessarily decline with age, and that the performance of the subjects on verbal fluency was better when assessed in SAE than in AAE. Results also showed that higher levels of education went with higher fluency scores.
Chapter 8, ''The Effects of Age and Education on Narrative Complexity in Older Chinese in the USA'' (pp. 98-117), reports on a study on the effects of age and education on grammatical and narrative complexity in elderly Chinese. The research participants were twelve Chinese people, aged between 63 and 78, who lived in New York City. Among them, eleven were born in mainland China, and one was born in New York. Researchers elicited two narrative samples from each participant by asking them to describe the Cookie Theft Pictures from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination, and to narrate their most unforgettable childhood memory. Results indicate that (a) education correlates with syntactic complexity but not necessarily with narrative complexity, and (b) age is not correlated with narrative complexity, but is correlated with syntactic complexity. Because narrative complexity is not ''necessarily compounded by education'' (p. 117), the authors suggest that narrative assessment might serve as a useful diagnostic tool to assess cognitive functioning or impairment.
Chapter 9, ''Language in an Epidemiological Study: The North Manhattan Aging Study in New York City'' (pp. 118-132), presents raters' judgments of different levels of communicative abilities present among African-American, Latino, and Caucasian elderly people in North Manhattan. A total of 2,014 elderly people took part in the first assessment; 1,381 took part in the second assessment 18 months later; and 996 of them took part in the third assessment, which took place 36 months after the base assessment. A questionnaire was compiled from some widely used protocols in mental testing in aging research, and administered to the subjects by trained interviewers. These interviewers also rated the communicative abilities of the subjects. The interviewers and subjects were matched for race and ethnicity. Results suggest that (a) the communicative abilities of the elderly people in this study are generally preserved, despite clear indication of word finding difficulties in language production; (b) raters' judgments about the communicative effectiveness of subjects are influenced greatly by the educational status of the subjects, and (c) these judgments varied across the three different ethno-racial groups, even when the subjects and raters were matched for race and ethnicity.
Chapter 10, ''Old and New Perspectives on Language and Aging'' (pp. 133-144), revisits some of the issues discussed in Chapter 3. It examines how changes in language skills and the availability of resources interact with changes in the life setting and, more particularly, with changes in communication patterns.
CRITICAL EVAULATION
There is an increasing body of literature on age-related changes in language use and language skills. The large body of research on language and aging, however, ''is dominated by researchers in North America'' (p. 60), and is heavily biased toward monolingualism. It is often the case that there is not even the slightest suggestion of a role for a multilingual perspective. The studies presented in the book are important in several respects. First, it is unclear whether having more than one language is an asset or a problem in aging, and to what extent. Therefore, the three studies mentioned above, in spite of their narrow definition of language skills, may represent an important step toward understanding language and aging in diverse bilingual populations. In addition, because adequate assessment and intervention with aging bilinguals is obstructed by the absence of basic information about the effects of normal aging on the bilingual condition, the studies reported in the book may provide important information regarding service delivery to bilingual elderly people. However, these studies are only exploratory in nature and have left more questions asked than answered. It is evidently the hope of the authors that the book will spark more vigorous studies oriented toward multilingual, multi-ethnic, and multicultural perspectives on language in aging.
No book can be perfect, and no book can make every reader happy. However, the book would make more readers happy if the authors had had a clearer idea of the readership in mind. The authors may have considered the book as an introductory piece on issues of language and age, as seven of the ten chapters are devoted to laying out the foundation for the three chapters on empirical studies. However, if it is introductory, one might expect that the presentation of the literature would be more reader friendly and assume that the reader had little background knowledge of the subject. This is clearly not the case. For example, Chapter 3 devotes one section to the characteristics of elderspeak and stresses that not all communication with elderly people can be placed under the elderspeak label (p. 22). However, the chapter does not adequately define elderspeak, leaving the uninitiated reader with no idea of its exact characteristics. On page 17, a distinction is mentioned between the ''despondent'' elderly and the ''Golden Ager'', but the authors neither provided a reference for this distinction, nor did they offer any explanation. Uninitiated readers would benefit from a step-by-step, clear, and organized introduction to the general issues of language and aging in multilingual contexts.
On the other hand, the authors may have considered the book as a more advanced scholarly work. With this in mind, the readers may feel a little disappointed in several regards. First of all, the research questions are not always well presented. The three chapters (seven, eight, and nine) that report on the empirical studies conducted by the authors leave one with the impression that too many questions are jammed in there to be solved within the space of a couple of pages of writing. Second, the interaction effects between the several variables (e.g., education, age, health status, working memory, language skills, language background, task formats, and languages in which a task is administered) are not always sorted out clearly when the final analyses of the data are presented. This is unfortunate, especially when the authors take a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective on language, thus acknowledging the inherent interactions between these variables. How do we know that the difference in language performance (e.g., verbal fluency) between people from different age groups is related to education, or to age, or to working memory, alone, rather than a combination of these factors? The authors leave many of these possibilities unaddressed. Another serious flaw occurs in the study of elderly bilingual Chinese in chapter eight. While the language background of the participants is not explicitly mentioned, it's clear that they may speak different dialects of Chinese. These different dialects are mutually unintelligible as far as spoken language is concerned. Therefore, the language these elderly Chinese used in narration may not have been their first language. Consequently, the correlation found between education, syntactic complexity, and narrative complexity may not exist, and the results may merely support a correlation between syntactic and narrative complexity on the one hand and familiarity with or proficiency in the language of narration on the other.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Liang Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education at the University of Georgia. His major research interest is language development across life span in diverse contexts.
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