Language and Age

Question 1

Study: Gary Ives [findings x4]

Answer 1

1. 100% of pupils asked in West Yorkshire felt that age affected language
2. Taboo is part of teen vernacular
3. Dialect is prominent in speech
4. Slang is typical in speech of young people

Question 2

Study: Eckert (1998) [findings, significance, example]

Answer 2

1. There are three ways to classify age; chronological (years old), biological (maturity), and social (life events)
2. Therefore, there is heterogeneity even in terms of age as everyone is at a different stage of life
3. Interestingly, the filler ‘like’ reduces with age as young people encounter more formal domains e.g. business meetings as they enter the world of work

Question 3

Study: Cheshire (1987) [findings]

Answer 3

1. Language responds to life events that affect the social relations and attitudes of individuals

Question 4

Cheshire’s (1982) Reading Study also plays a role. Why?

Answer 4

The use of non-standard forms among young people varied by peer group, showing that peer groups played a role

Question 5

Study: Bingham (2012) [findings]

Answer 5

1. After the age of 18, life events affecting language are more likely to occur, meaning that Eckert’s ‘social age’ becomes much more important

Question 6

Research: Stenström [features]

Answer 6

Common features in teenage talk:

• irregular turn-taking & overlaps
• indistinct articulation & shortenings
• teasing, name calling and verbal-duelling
• slang, taboo
• language mixing (loanwords etc. from other cultures)

Question 7

Research: Eckert (2003) [slang]

Answer 7

Slang is used to establish a connection to youth cultures and to set themselves off from the older generation

Question 8

Research: Eckert (2003) [linguistic change]

Answer 8

Linguistic change is far more common in teenagers, e.g. lexical change (neologisms)

Question 9

Study: Ignacio Palacios Martinez (2011) [findings x2]

Answer 9

1. Teenagers tend to be more direct when they speak, whereas adults are more concerned with another speaker’s face needs
2. Negatives are more common in the speech of young people (also non-standard forms e.g. multiple negations)

Question 10

Study: Berland (1997) [findings, examples x2]

Answer 10

1. Social class was a more important factor among different groups of teenagers;
   a) ‘innit’ more common among working class groups
   b) ‘yeah’ more prominent in middle class groups

Question 11

Study: Odato (2013) [use of ‘like]

Answer 11

There are three stages in the use of ‘like’:
1. Infrequent and only in some positions i.e. at the beginning of a clause
2. Used more frequently and in various forms
3. Used in even more forms such as preceding a prepositional phrase
Therefore, children copy older people and wait until they know for sure it can be used in a particular position

Question 12

Research: Ives (Textspeak) [findings]

Answer 12

1. Text-speak was originally dominated by abbreviations, such as lol, wtf, and cba, two of which have taboo. This suggests rebellion plays a key role
2. However, many teenagers ‘grow out of it’

Question 13

Research: Zimmerman

Answer 13

There are a variety of new domains that can influence the language of young people;
1. Media
2. Press
3. Music
4. Graffiti 
etc.

Question 14

Articles on Text-Speak (3)

Answer 14

1. Daily Telegraph - ‘students are now so used to writing in text-speak that they can’t easily remember proper language rules’
2. The Sun - text speak is turning children into ‘a generation of illiterates’
3. BBC Website - text speak can help children learn how sounds and print relate to each other

Question 15

Study: Department of Education (Ongoing) [findings]

Answer 15

1. No evidence of language impairment caused by using text abbreviations