Major Life Events Impact the Way People Speak

"No one expects a teenager and a senior citizen to sound the same, but the question of exactly how age influences our language use is more complex than it might at first seem. A fascinating new study probes how specific life events and experiences might have more of an impact on your linguistic choices than your chronological age per se."

"It's not the process of biological aging by itself that is likely to cause us to shift our speech patterns, adopt new words, or change our attitudes about languages and dialects. Instead, it's far more likely that the types of behaviors, experiences and activities we are involved in at different points across our lives trigger these shifts, regardless of the exact age at which we experience them."

Age often correlates with linguistic differences, but chronological age alone does not fully explain language change. The process of biological aging is unlikely to directly cause shifts in speech patterns, vocabulary adoption, or dialect attitudes. Differences arise when people engage in different behaviors, experiences, and activities at various life stages. Major life transitions — for example moving from high school, where nonconformity and slang are valued, into the workforce, where more standard language prevails — tend to influence which speech features individuals adopt. Specific major life events trigger measurable changes and shape language patterns across the lifespan. Dialectal variation coexists with standard forms in societies, and social contexts mediate linguistic change.

Read at Psychology Today