Ch. 12 - Adolescent and Adult Language Flashcards
Co-articulation
The influence of one phoneme on another during connected or running speech
E.g. cats /s/ is influenced by voiceless sound /t/; thus, /s/ is also voiceless. Compare to beads /s/ is influenced by voiced /d/ and therefore, becomes voiced /z/
Genderlect
Style of talking used by the genders
Language Development Through adulthood
Continues but at slower pace
LD is only hindered by poor health, trauma, illness, or disease
Along with LD, cognitive growth also continues
What is major area in which we see most growth?
Vocabulary development followed by social communication skills
Aging
Slow decline in both oral and written language comprehension, in the ability to understand syntactically complex sentences, and in the ability to make inferences
Hearing loss can exacerbate language decline
Hearing loss is more common in men
Language Development in Adulthood
Vocal acquisition has to do with what you are exposed to and what you are involved in…e.g. if you are a professional football player, your vocabulary words will mostly revolve around terms related to occupation
Pragmatics in Adults
Adults have ability to shift style and form of communication across many social settings
Style, form, and vocal used can vary across diff social situations
Funeral vs. party vs. classroom etc.
Pragmatics - registers
styles of speech
Include:
professional jargon with job, requiring specific language skills and communication rules that reflect the power structure within the workplace
Selective register styles: formal vs. informal we find in business vs. personal settings
Registers can be across cultures and social groups
One of the main differences in adults and children in the use of pragmatics is?
the development of narration and special styles of communicating that are found only in adulthood
In general style shifting or use of different registers is unconscious and rapid
Pragmatic Development in Children
Must first acquire relevant social pragmatics skills before they can develop distinct speaking styles
Have to gain awareness that they can adjust their speech in social settings
Children may not develop adult-like styles of speaking until they have acquired?
articulatory control
Middle and High School Years - conversations look like?
Spend a lot of time with peers
eye contact
nodding
neutral and positive facial expressions
Statements made in response to what has been said
sarcasm, jokes, double word meanings
What’s missing in middle and high school conversations?
Negative emotions, turning away, requests for clarification, failure to answer questions
Young Adult Conversational Characteristics
Mostly contingent responses - one response builds on the other
Few topic changes
Shading - modifying the focus of topic gradually from one topic to another
Gender - Boys vs. Girls Elementary Age
Begins in elementary school to reflect differences
Most notable are vocal use and conversation style
More similarities than differences - IMPORTANT - gender diff are largely quantitative rather than qualitative
Female Vocab
less cursing + coarse language
use of more descriptive words
more polite terms
use of emotional expressions
Male conversation styles
speak more in public than in home
direct
role of information provider
less likely to face conversation partner
eye contact is fleeting
conversation is opportunity for debate or competition
often silent, providing little feedback
topics changed often and rarely involve personal feelings
Female convo styles
indirect
seek consensus
more listening
role of facilitator
face conversation partner
finish other’s thoughts
Conversation used as a way to create intimacy
Greater sharing of feelings
use of convo to bond
topics more focused
avoidance of anger and disagreement
ask more questions
relinquish speaking turn more often
Genderlect
term for the style characteristics of men and women. Well established by adolescence
Conversational differences are due to?
way they were raised
parental speech differs for the sexes:
- daughters more imitated by their moms and talk to more often than sons
- fathers tend to use more imperatives and insulting terms with songs
preschool boys seem to be more aware of differences b/w male and female adults than do girls
Boy vs. Girl relationships
Boys:
less talking, more doing
large groups and more hierarchical
action and talking are used to avoid subordination
listening is seen as passive and submissive
Girls:
play in pairs
telling secrets
personal problems shared
Semantics in later life
With age, difficulty with retrieval and naming
by 40, significant declines in verbal fluency performance
level of education may give older people an advantage on tasks of verbal fluency
older adults tend to use more indefinite words such as thing or thing a ma bob to account for loss
Adolescents and adults use more complex sentences that are characterized by greater number of ?
Sentence forms
Vocab also becomes more complex and varied
Syntax + morphology - loss of complex sentence forms and the ability to understand some words due to ?
hearing loss
generation gap differences (vocal)
word finding difficulties
