Age and Language Theories

Unni Bernland - 1997

• Social class is an important factor in teenage speak
• Working-class groups used 'innit' more; middle-class groups used 'yeah' more
• Both genders used 'innit', 'right', and 'yeah' in equal measures
• Boys used 'okay' more than girls

Penelope Eckert - 1998

• There are different ways of defining the concept of age:
  • Biological age - physical maturity
  • Chronological age - number of years since birth
  • Social age - linked to life events

Penelope Eckert - 2003

• Slang is used to:
  • Establish a connection to youth culture
  • To set teens off from the older generation
  • To signal coolness, toughness, or attitude
• Adolescents are a more diverse linguistic group than any other age group
• We cannot assum that everyone is the same
• Typical features of teenage speech include:
  • Use of 'like' and okay'
  • Rising intonation
  • Multiple negatoin

Vivian de Klerk - 2005

• Young people have the freedom to challenge linguistic norms
• They seek to establish new identities
• The patterns of speech that teens previously modelled on the speech are adults are slowly eroded by the patterns of speech of their peer group
• They need to:
  • Be seen as modern, cool, fashionable, and up-to-date
  • Establish themselves as different
  • Belong to a group which distinguishes them as members of a distinctive social group
• These are all generalisations

Zimmerman - 2009

• The following factors are instrumental:
  • The media and the press (now - more social media/influencers/talk shows)
  • New means of communication
  • Music
  • Street art and graffiti (now - less so)
    • Teen speech may influence street art and graffiti too

Ignacio Palacios Martinez - 2011

• Teenagers use negatives in speech more often than adults
• Teenagers tend to be more direct when speaking; adults are more conscious of what they say and how they say it, so as not to threaten a speaker's negative faces needs
• Typical negative words and phrases used by teenagers were:
  • 'No way'
  • 'Nope'
  • 'Nah'
  • 'Dunno'
  • 'I couldn't give a toss'
  • Multiple negation
  • Non-standard use of 'never'

Douglas S. Bigham

• Important life events are more likely to happen post-18
• Bigham dubbed this age 'emerging adulthood'

Christopher V. Odato - 2013

• Children as young as 4 used 'like' as a discourse marker - notably, this is the age of starting primary school
• There were three main stages identified
  • Stage 1 - children use 'like' infrequently, and only in a few syntactic positions (mainly at the start of a clause)
  • Stage 2 - children use 'like' more often and in more positions. Girls tended to move to this stage aged 5, boys aged 7
  • Stage 3 - children use it frequently in other positions, such as before a prepositional phrase. Girls tended to move to this stage earlier than boys
• Children probably wait until they heat enough evidence that 'like' can be used in a certain syntactic position before they use it there
• This will take longer for the less frequent forms

Gary Ives - 2014

• Looked at a school. in Bradford, where 95% of students are Pakistani, mostly Mirpuri
• When pushed, a group of teenage obys said they spoke a certain way due to their location, to hide what they're saying from others, and to form a specific sociolect at school
• There was a distinction in language use based on postcode
• One boy said that most slang words he used were related to music, such as rap, hip-hop and Urban music
• Certain key words and phrases united the group
  • Sick
  • Heavy munch
  • Shotta
• Referred to Punjabi as a 'secret language' used with friends
• Some other people were interviewed
  • An Indian girl said she never mixed Guajarati with English, but would if there were more Indian people in her friendship group at school
  • Two members of staff said they code-switched
• The most common Punjabi words tended to be taboo - some were quite extreme

Gary Ives - 2014

• Language was used to create a group identity
• The teens spoke differently to their parents and differently again to 'elders'
• Lexis was influenced by many things
  • Mirpuri heritage
  • Pop culture
    • Films
    • Music
    • The internet
    • A comedian call Jimmy Hard Nails
  • The area and postcode they lived in
  • Being born in England
  • Age
• Language was used to exclude others
• Language acted as a unifying mechanism

Gary Ives - 2014

• Lexis included:
  • Bare
  • Calm
  • Bruv
  • Replacing Standard English verb forms
  • Changing a noun to a verb
  • Changing an abstract noun to a less abstract form
• Many of the words had Afro-Caribbean, Jamaican, and Black American backgrounds
• The language is still used by white British teenagers
• Language use is not about ethnicity, but location
• Language is synonymous with group identity
• Teenagers may be attracted to or immersed in particular aspects of a culture, which consciously and purposefully influences their use of langauge

Anna-Brita Stenstrom - 2014

• Irregular turn-taking
• Overlaps
• Indistinct articulations
• Word shortenings
• Teasing and name-calling
• Verbal duelling (where teenagers try to out-do each other)
• Slang
• Taboo
• Language mixing (using language from other cultures)