The Age of Classifying Age

[Kayla L.]

Hello everyone. Below is my response to a chapter we read in class on Language and Age. I look forward to hearing your responses!

Age is a curious topic in which some envision a span of various life stages and others are enveloped with the lingering fear of growing older. Often when looking at the influence of age on any given topic, in this case language, more factors than age alone affect that topic. It is then difficult to decipher what is affected by age independently; however, perhaps it is not necessary to study this distinction since it is not a reality of how speech works in our society. Alienating age would remove all of the other factors and leave a result that does not mirror the very people that are being studied.

A variety of factors affect linguistic choice, and several aspects encompass one factor. Mooney and Evans mention the influence parents have on children at a young age and how that impact shifts to peers as they grow. Deeper analysis can be uncovered here by considering how these two role models overlap. People of the same generation typically have similar verbiage because they are constantly surrounded by others their own age in school. Other factors affect the youth’s language, too, such as location and socio-economic status. In addition, there is another form of age that affects the speech of the children: the parents’. A co-worker and I are fifteen years apart, but our parents are the same age. She and I often think alike with certain philosophies, such as discipline or appropriate interactions with the public, and suggest it has to do with the identical age of our parents and the way they chose to raise us based on their generation. It would be an interesting idea to see if our language was similar due to this factor as well.

Mooney and Evans mention metalanguage and assess what diction is used by certain individuals to describe language and what conclusions can be drawn based on their speech. A fascinating point of interest is evaluating the language the authors use to explain and present these points. One section in particular that stood out greatly was how the authors described the “Early Life Stage” (primary years), the “Adolescent” (teenager years) stage, and even the “Later Life Stage” (elderly) in detail with multiple subcategories spanning pages. However, the “Middle Life Stage” (spanning from 20-65) is written in two short paragraphs with a sentence that states, “Research has focused on this age group” (166). For something that has a substantial amount of research, it is curious they did not estrange this age specifically to discuss why it has such great influence. In contrast, the short paragraphs mention that the rest of the textbook is centered typically on the middle-life stage. Perhaps it is because the Middle-Life Stage is “unmarked” (always talked about) that Mooney and Evans do not give it further air time; instead, they focus on more newly-studied stages that are typically given less attention which reflects the theme of the entire text.

It is interesting how wide the “Middle-aged” stage is when there are so many steps of life that fall underneath that umbrella. Of course, this is the working age as Mooney and Evans mention, but the life stage of one who has just entered the work force varies greatly from one who is approaching retirement. Since chapter seven mentioned adolescence is a newer category and focus, perhaps more narrow categories will be made in the large range of “middle-aged”. This language portrays a tone of dismissal for this large part of a person’s life, easily casting it away as “typical”. This medium is not the only place adulthood is lumped so vaguely, for it is often mentioned with such large, generic terms.

The comments provided for the Adolescent Stage and its subcategories are quite intriguing since I teach students who fall directly under that grouping. It is entirely true that teenagers create their own lingo—whether it be slang or abbreviations—and the purpose of this creation is most definitely due to their marginalization. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it like that before, but it makes complete sense. Teenagers feel as if they should have more rights and are teeming on the edges of adulthood, but they lack the maturity and growth to have those responsibilities. Instead, they create exclusivity and identity by forming these new terms and speech. This reality is also demonstrated in the research example of older teen speech becoming more similar to that of adults rather than those two years their junior.

“Age and technology”, “age and rights”, “age and beliefs” are often discussed and analyzed, but language spans all of these categories. It is pertinent to understand the language that is used by certain age groups and why that may be the case. With a process of study that is constantly changing, the large category of “middle-aged” may be broken down to better represent the multitude of people in it. The influx of technology is encouraging new speech not only between adolescents, but also various ages of people. Language is a factor that is constantly changing and the many aspects that affect this factor should continue to be analyzed, but it should not be forgotten that many aspects work in tandem.

Discussion Questions
• Would it be beneficial to create more subcategories in the current large “middle-aged” category? If so, what categories would be appropriate and why?
• What forms of “social media slang” has been observed between older adults? How does this break the stereotype of “technology speech” and adolescence?

Works Cited
Mooney, Annabelle, and Betsy Evans. Language, Society and Power: an Introduction. Routledge, 2015.

[Yunxing R.]

Hi Kayla:
It is a pleasure to participate in the forum and I can read the response about language and age from you. To be honest, there is a little difficult for me to understand this essay.(Though, I major in English, I am not good at it. Even so, I have always had a great passion for it and I want to improve my English level through college study.) So I will try my best to understand it and share something with you. Meanwhile, thanks for the sharing.
Here is my response to your essay:
I really enjoyed reading the essay which is clear and well-found. You totally talked about that the influence of different age stages on linguistic choice. I think the first sentence of the first paragraph is a good beginning of the essay. It attract me to keep reading. Though, It is not a interesting story, I still want to explore. You gave many evidence and examples to support your perspective, and it does allow us to compare and think. what you mentioned about the teenagers’ marginalization and their own lingo created by them is also very common around me. We teenagers like to use some Internet buzzwords to distinguish those people who are old-fashioned or older than us. That’s really immature but it fits our characteristics. I want to show you some top words of the year on social media from the Chinese magazine Yao Wen Jiao Zi (literally meaning “Biting words”). 1. Koi Fish: It means best wish and good luck.It started with an online lottery scheme sponsored by Alipay mobile payment system in October. "Xinxiaodai," a 26-year-old IT engineer based in Beijing, who won the lottery, was dubbed as the "national koi." The tradition continues on the internet, as "reposting koi" has become a trend on Weibo(a social software like the app,instagram).2.Buddha-like:Being Buddha-like denotes a lifestyle of being plain, does not care about winning, losing or anything and taking things as they are. The adjective can combine with almost any noun, such as Buddha-like teens, Buddha-like passenger, Buddha-like parents or Buddha-like shopping. The wide use of the term shows the passive and listless attitude of teenagers.
So, thank you again for sharing, and if you have any questions on what I wrote, please let me know.