'Critical' Age

[Aaron E. Drews]

On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

}Aaron,
}
}A never-ending problem for us sociolinguists (who usually work with
}apparent-time rather than real-time data). How do we distinguish between
}age-grading (the fact that one age group uses one form, another another)
}and language change (in which the younger age-groups' forms are the "wave
}of the future")? Indeed, quite a lot of work has been done on just this
}problem. For a good start, read pp. 76-81 in Chambers and Trudgill's
}"Dialectology," 2nd ed., Cambridge , 1998.

This is basically what the tutorial was about (and I think it was based on
C&T's first edition) and we spent a lot of time on it.  My question isn't
about age-grading and change in the language, per se.  It's more about
age-grading and the idiolect.


}
}dInIs (who certainly fits one of the "age-grading" patterns. The closer I
}get to my dotage, the more I sound like the Louisville teenager I once was.)


My question: is there a 'critical age' when we stop acquiring new forms
(mostly lexical items, since the critical age for other aspects of the
grammar are more or less established).  dInIs obviously stopped aquiring
new forms when he left high school.  I stopped around 18, too.

One example in C&T lists 5 different age groups for Appalachian 'done':
8-11; 12-14; 15-18; 20-40;  40+. These categories strongly suggest a
critical age of 18-ish and any new forms we acquire after 18 are flukes.

It looks like I've answered my own question, but only based on three
examples, two of which are self-reports.  Has anyone ever said "after 18,
the use of innovative forms rapidly declines"?  Has anyone actually tried
tying in the critical period hypothesis to sociolinguistics? Or has it
only been hinted at as part of a bigger age-grading issue, as in C&T?

--Aaron

________________________________________________________________________
Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                  Departments of English Language and
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron       Theoretical & Applied  Linguistics

"MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
        --Death