Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 4; June 1999

Staying vaguely young

Julie Moore, Cambridge University Press

Page 1 of 2

A couple of years ago in a class of mixed nationality students on a holiday course in Britain, I had a young Korean student named Jae. He was nineteen years old and much like any average British teenager, dressed in jeans and cool leather jacket, similar taste in music, films, computer games and, by all accounts, 'one of the lads'. He was in an upper intermediate class and relatively fluent and confident in his English conversation. One day we were discussing journeys to college in class, he explained that he had to catch several different buses to get across the city each day. When I asked him if he minded all that getting on and off of crowded buses, he replied that it wasn't too bad but that carrying so many heavy books was "a bit of a bother". At which I couldn't stop a hint of a smirk sneaking across my face. Had he said something wrong, he asked. Had he made a mistake with grammar or vocabulary? Well, had he? The phrase "a bit of a bother" is certainly a perfectly natural phrase in English and it did convey the intended meaning, but … well, it just sounds like something my grandmother might say! I tried to explain this to him and suggested that maybe "a bit of a pain" or "a pain in the neck" or even " a pain in the arse" would suit him better.

Recognisable age stereotypes:

And this wasn't just an isolated incident, over the years my students have become quite accustomed to my response of : "Mmm, yes, but you sound a bit like my grandmother". Sometimes it's just a case of the choice of a rather old-fashioned or dated word or phrase which can be labelled as such and a slightly more up-to-date alternative given. Often though it's much more difficult to put your finger on. Just what is it in the way a person speaks which gives you such clues about their age? Comedians and writers play on it all the time creating characters which you can identify as being quite obviously from a particular age group just from their style of speech. For anyone familiar with current British tv you've only got to think of Mrs Merton or many of Harry Enfield's characters, they ring true not just because of their appearance, because of what they say or even their accent, it's HOW they say it.

Investigating the age gap:

So when I found myself searching for a topic of research for my MA dissertation last year, I decided to look into the question of how age affects language use. I recorded conversations between groups of native speakers in different age groups (16-25, 30-50 and 70+) and set about analysing their language.

I had expected to find obvious differences in choice of vocabulary and indeed, there were several words and phrases which stood out, especially at either end of the age range. As you might expect, there was a certain amount of in-group slang amongst the younger group, in some cases new coinages and in others new usages of more common words.

Young in-group slang:

• pants (adj = terrible, useless)
• cool (= good)
• currying (an activity which goes along with drinking)
• can't be arsed
• to rock (as in 'he rocks' = 'he's very good')
• the dog's nuts (= excellent, the best)
• out of order (= not acceptable)

Similarly, there were several words and phrases used by the older speakers which stood out as dated or more frequently words which you might expect to find nowadays in more formal written contexts which still linger in the casual spoken style of the 70+ age group.

Dated:

• television/radio set
• beastly
• if you please
• chap
• to trifle with
• and so forth

Now formal in speech:

• furore
• inadvertently
• to decry
• prosaic
• pernicious
• to enhance
• serendipity
• one (as a pronoun)

Far more striking, however, were the differences between the way the groups presented their ideas and opinions and structured their conversation.

A Bit of Theory:

Several linguists have identified a split in speech styles (or 'codes') between speakers from different social classes and educational backgrounds (Bernstein - 'restricted and elaborated codes') and between communication in simpler, less developed societies and that in more advanced communities (Kay - 'non-autonomous and autonomous speech'). In both cases the two styles are characterised by vague, inexplicit language (lower social classes/less developed societies) and by more careful structured, explicit communication (higher social classes/ more developed societies). It was exactly the features identified in these studies that also seemed to fit the language used by the teenagers and the adults in my own data.

NB - Teenagers aren't stupid!

Before I go into some of the differences I found, it needs to be pointed out that all the young people involved in the study were at a college of higher education studying for A'levels in subjects which included English, Economics, Politics and Sociology. Presumably their studies involved the discussion of what we might term 'high brow' or 'intellectual' topics which would require appropriately high-level vocabulary and the need for carefully structured argument. They were also, of course, frequently required to write essays in an even more careful, explicit, structured style. So we need to bear in mind that presumably they did have a wide vocabulary and the ability to produce careful, structured language and what we are looking at here is their CHOICE of style for casual conversation, not a reflection of their linguistic abilities.

What they said:

Let me start with a couple of samples, both from discussions about soap operas. The first comments from a 19-year-old about the characters on Eastenders and the second from a woman in her 40s about the appeal of Coronation Street.

A: D'you have favourites, people you like, people you don't?
B: Erm, well you, coz, sort of the way they're portrayed, y'know, like, the [unclear] and things like that. I mean, you don't, sort of, hate them and stuff. I presume you've watched Eastenders and that?
A: Yeah, years ago.
B: Cindy Beale and stuff like, absolutely hate her now because she's such a cow.

A: Why d'you think you like that opposed to the other soaps?
B: I just find it more realistic and it's not as depressing and it, there is a certain amount of comedy in it, it's classed as comedy drama, so there, they deal with issues, not necessarily in a terribly realistic way, I s'pose, but y'know, they'll have a comedy, for example, the storyline at the moment is about Jack, who's the sort of pub landlord, trying to give up smoking and the antics that he gets up to, he's out the back having a quiet cigarette, erm on the other hand, erm, there's been, erm, a, a death of an infant from meningitis. And you've got these two storylines running along and Coronation Street's the only programme that I know that can deal with comedy and really serious issues at the same time.