Language and Age

Gary Ives asked 63 teens whether age was an impact on language use, 100% said yes.

there was a general assumption that as we got older, our language use would become more standard, and even posh.

Penelope Eckert argues that there are different ways of defining age, therefore discussions about language and age are difficult to have.

biological age: physical maturity

chronological age: the number of years we have been alive

social age: linked to milestones eg.: marriage

Jenny Cheshire: 'it is becoming recognised... that adult language, as well as child language, develops in response to important life events that affect the social relations and social attitudes of individuals'

teenspeak

some examples of teenspeak

bare

beef

peng

chatting rubbish/shit

taboo is part of teen vernacular

dialect is commonly used when speaking

slang is common

informal lexical choices are often linked by common themes or topics

Stenstrom

common features of teen talk include:

irregular turn taking

overlaps

verbal duelling

slang/taboo

language mixing (sometimes from other cultures or languages)

Theorists

Ignacio Palacios Martinez 2011 - use of negatives

multiple negation and non standard use of never

Unni Berland 1997 - use of tags 'innit', 'yeah', 'right'

Anita Stenstrom 2002 - non standard grammatical features

multiple negation, 'ain't', ellipsis of auxiliary verbs, non standard use of pronouns eg theirselves

what influences teen language?

converging and diverging from adult speech

Zimmerman 2009 argues that teen language is impacted by

the media and the press

new means of commnication

music

street art and graffiti

Vivian de Klerk 2005

young people have the freedom to challenge linguistic norms

seek to establish new identities

need to be seen as modern and cool

need to establish themselves as different