Language, age and aging

ARIANE MACALINGA BORLONGAN

OF the primary variables linguists look at to study the social correlates of language use, it is age that remains less susceptible to human intervention; sex/gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status are the others. It is now possible to have gender reassignment surgery. While one is more likely to retain his/her racial color, being born in another culture or society could make that person acquire the new culture or society’s norms and not that of his or her parents. Of course, through hard work, one can climb the socioeconomic ladder. But not even science can stop aging. Yes, science can now reduce the physical manifestations of aging, but age will continue to go up nonetheless.

Right after my undergraduate studies at age 19, I immediately did my PhD, and that sudden transition from having teenage classmates to adults approaching mid-career made me notice differences in norms and themes in conversations between the two groups. I also went on to take up a position at the university around that time, which exposed me to the language of more senior academics. And truly, language changes as one ages.

Physiologically, it is, of course, easy to distinguish a sound produced by a toddler, teenager, adult and senior. While, of course, it is hard to be precise with exact age just by hearing someone’s voice, one should not go wrong judging someone’s age range (+/-10 years).

Talking about forms, or possibly how close to the purported “standard” one’s language is, we can also make a commentary with regard to language and age. Early childhood is characterized by basic and simple forms, and even overgeneralizations, as children may apply the regular form of the past tense even to irregular verbs, e.g. “swimmed” as past tense of “swim,” instead of “swam.” As children grow older, parents are often apprehensive about rebellious and vulgar language spoken by teenagers and learned from peers. Yet, as university students transition to working age, they are forced to polish their language and make it more polite. It is said that the early working years compel individuals to adhere to standard forms and norms to be more accepted at work and in the wider society. But as they age further into their senior years, they relax in their language use. This is why our grandfathers and grandmothers sometimes feel entitled to say whatever they want. They have gone through life, and conforming to standards in order to be accepted is no longer their concern.

Obviously, the changes I have pointed out run within a single lifetime. But admittedly, there are changes observed across different generations. The Tagalog particles “po” and “opo” are fine examples of generational change in language use. Older generations use these particles as politeness markers, or words utilized to convey respect toward the person being spoken to, often an older person. But younger generations limit using the two particles to (1) relatives whom they do not meet frequently and/or who are living far away; (2) people of higher status, such as teachers and superiors; and (3) strangers. To the younger generation, the two particles are also markers of distance, of relational distance, that the other is someone not close or familiar to them.

Language indeed varies with reference to various social groups and social variables. It is important to be able to recognize how language varies across the lifespan and across generations. This only goes to show that, while language is indeed a stable system, it is also changing. And that is only because they are instruments of dynamic beings — humans.

Ariane Macalinga Borlongan is one of the leading scholars on English in the Philippines and is also doing pioneering work on language in the context of migration. He is the youngest to earn a doctorate in linguistics, at age 23, from De La Salle University. He has had several teaching and research positions in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland and Singapore. He serves as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. He is presently an associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan.