Brief assignment in presentation style about how adolescents & adults in particular older adults communicate unsatisfactorily.

1. Where Youth DISCOURSE and Adults Collide Sherilyn Carr ID # 00048321 LDP Assignment 3 Due 9 October, 2009

2. Collision of worlds / words Youth don’t understand older adults “what they went through isn’t the same” (13 yr old) “times have changed” (18 yr old) Older adults don’t understand youth “they haven’t experienced the things you have that have influenced your thinking” (72 yr old)

3. Why don’t they understand each other when surely they’re speaking the same language?

4. But it’s not the same language! How would you ask the following to get ready to go to the shops? A 2 ½ year old child A teenager A 40 year old A 65 year old How do you react in the following situations where you are delayed? in a supermarket queue at the doctors surgery waiting for a friend waiting for your partner

6. Adolescent Registers continued Syntactically Non-standard use of discourse markers such as “like” which may be used in a variety of ways: approximative, exemplificatory, metalinguistic, hesitational/linking (Stenstrom, Andersen & Hasund, 2002, p 117) Semantically Use of coined words, slang etc to provoke and otherize outsiders while retaining bonds with peers (Stenstrom, Andersen & Hasund, 2002, p 67-68)

7. Similarities in the responses “what they went through isn’t the same” (13 yr old) “they haven’t experienced the things you have that have influenced your thinking” (72 yr old) Use of pronouns “they” to divide into us and them groups “you” and “yours” to include the listener as part of the speaker’s group

8. Similarities in the responses continued “what they went through isn’t the same” (13 yr old) “times have changed” (18 yr old) “they haven’t experienced the things you have that have influenced your thinking” (72 yr old) Views of the world around them their agreement that the experiences of life are different for both age groups

9. Similarities in the responses continued Views of the world around them continued their presumption of the other age group being ignorant

10. Okay, they can be different – why? “Oneself-identity is inextricably bound up with one’s language, for it is in the communicative process – the process of sending out messages and having them “bounced” back – that such identities are confirmed, shaped and reshaped.” (Brown, 2007, p 69)

11. Youth vs. Adult Registers

12. Is there any hope of avoiding collision? We use a variety of language registers throughout life Need to recognise the register of adolescents as valuable As with new student-centred method of education (Study Guide, 2009, p 21) perhaps adults need to relinquish their domination over youth

13. References Berko Gleason, J. & Bernstein Ratner, N. (2009). The development of language (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education Brown, H.D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching (5th ed.). (pp. 57-75). White Plains: Longman Maushart, S. (12-13/09/2009). No pain, no gain. (p 9) Brisbane: The Weekend Australian Magazine. Stenstrom, A.-B., Andersen, G., & Hasund, I.K. (2002). Trends in teenage talk: Corpus compilation, analysis and findings. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Study Guide. (2009). Study guide for language, discourse & power. Massey University, School of Language Studies.

16. Appendix B – newspaper article