Agism and Language in Old-Age Inequality

Nikolas Coupland (2007) has focused on “style” as a productive dimension of linguistic material. He highlights that sociolinguists have not adequately appreciated variation in style as a tool for conveying meaning in social interaction. Coupland shows that the common sociolinguistic reduction of style to social structural affiliations entails a cost to understanding how users agentically create meaning through choices of style.

Separately, Coupland bemoans that linguists have insufficiently studied discursive communication by and involving old people, disregarding a long tradition of largely psycho-cognitive studies of language prctices by and toward old people (But see linguists Pennebaker et al, 1995, Sankoff & Blondeau, 2007) . Excepting gerontologists, social scientists also tend to omit old people from research. General discourse rarely associates old age with matters of style, as if style-based variation is of no interest or awareness after a certain age.

Aging of the global population has been widely publicized, generally expressing fears about negative effects on society-at-large – i.e., on younger generations  - -underlying pervasive public attitudes of agism and disciplinary research inequality.

That agism is embedded in language, and detrimentally affects aging identity-formation often through linguistic practices, has been recognized (Miniciello et al, 2011) but only minimally examined, without serious attempt at proposing feasible correction. This theoretically Social Constructivist paper is motivated by the under-appreciated success of a similar, salient situation regarding “ableist” language and the stigmatized identity of disability. The Disability Rights Movement offers a model, led by disabled activists, eventually involving rehabilitation and other “helping professionals” and governmental policymakers. Long-term resistance by Aging and Disability field leaders to making that connection is now weakening. For data, I analyze style in online recruitment language from key disability activist versus aging service organizations showing agentic linguistic style changes that can undermine negative effects of agism.