How do Teenagers talk to the Elderly?

 "I don't know no Jean's." "What do you mean you don't know any Jean's? Jean from over the road? Jean Baker? You went to school with her mother?" "Oh yes, is she called Jean?"

-Catherine Tate's "Nan"

It is no secret that teenagers tend to talk to the elderly differently from the way that they talk to their own age group.  Teenagers will talk differently due to convergence and divergence; Convergence being when speech styles of two or more speakers moving closer together during conversation, and divergence being when the speech styles move further apart during conversation. When teenagers talk to the elderly, they often display both convergence and divergence.

In 1986, researcher, Ryan et al, created a typology of four young to elderly language strategies. In his research he discovered that there is a clear reduction in meaningful communication between young and old people as the elderly are negatively evaluated in many situations. He also discovered that the elderly are often vulnerable to the social and psychological circumstances of isolation, neglect and negative stereotyping. However, he does state that these specific problems are not one sided, as both parties are often culprits responsible for this miscommunication.

The first language strategy that he discovered was that of over accommodation due to physical or sensory handicaps, in which a teenager would speak to handicapped recipients (usually with a hearing impediment) and adapt their speech beyond a 'normal' level. The second strategy was labelled by Ryan et al as dependency-related over accommodation where the younger person tries to control the relationship and induce the elderly into becoming dependent on them. This is referred to as 'overbearing, excessively directive and disciplinary' speech. The third strategy is age-related divergence. This is where teenagers emphasise the distinctiveness of their own age group by deliberately acting differently to the stereotype of the elderly person they are addressing. This divergence strategy is used as teenagers will try and differentiate themselves from the stereotype of older speakers (seen in physical or mental decline, slowing down with age and unable to keep up with modern social norms), and younger speakers will talk faster, use slang and share far more 'modern' ideas. The final strategy is called intergroup over accommodation and it is one of the most widespread young to elderly language strategies. The simple perception of a person's social category as being 'old' that also shows evidence of dependency is sufficient enough to provide teenagers with negative physical, social and psychological stereotypes.

This misunderstanding between generations happen due to younger people perhaps not wanting to sound like the older generation, as well as the older generations, not being particularly well educated on the social norms of today. Changes could be made, but despite this, the communication between the young and the elderly will always have issues due to ongoing troubles in learning about each other's language.

Megan Stratford