'Critical' Age

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:48 PM 3/10/00 -0800, you wrote:
>"Aaron E. Drews" wrote:
> >
> >
> > 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?
> >
>
>Well, I have a theory (which is mine and belongs to me - a-hem! The next
>thing I
>will type will be my theory - a-hem!), and that theory is:
>
>It seems that a lot of "young people's" vocabulary comes from a school/hanging
>out environment.  It seems that new language is more likely to develop when a
>group of folks are thrown into the same situation.  There is no more
>stable time
>than school to produce this sort of environment.  Once folks leave school, the
>only opportunity to be immersed in a large group experiencing something
>similar
>is work.  Workplaces produce jargon, but it tends to be specific to the
>type of
>work.  The reason young people's language is more universal is that their
>immersion experience is more universal.  School covers a wide range of topics,
>so it makes no sense to develop language around one of those topics.  Instead
>the language centers around their common activities, like attending school,
>going out with friends, buying things, sports and activites, etc.
>
>I notice no-one mentions college-speak, but it definitely exists.  It is a
>less
>universal experience, however.
>
>Now, I realize that this is probably not an original theory.  I'm sure
>there are
>studies somewhere which confirm this.  This is merely a theory based on
>observation.
>--
>Andrea Vine, avine at eng.sun.com, iPlanet i18n architect
>Guilty feet have got no rhythm.
>-- George Michael

Check out the work of Penelope Eckert, Jenny Cheshire, Suzanne Romaine, and
many others, who've studied teenagers' use of language--and not just
vocabulary/jargon but, more interestingly, phonological and even syntactic
change.  Lots of work out there.