Talk:Age-graded variation

Thoughts on the initial version

• Very well sourced and pretty easy to follow, I appreciate the paragraph summaries. The style of writing in this article is consistent, well done. While everything is mainly clear, I'd appreciate some illumination on the age grading curve, and a little more detail on the adolescent peak, and further explanations of graphics.

Hamzajaka (talk) 17:02, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

• Good page, credible sources. A more detailed discussion of graphs would be nice. In terms of presentation of material, one might want to regularize the headings under the "Types of Age-Grading" section. For instance, the name of each variation could be accompanied by its approximate geographic region. M.karie (talk) 20:40, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

• As others have said, this page has good sources, and because of the consistent style, it is easy to read. I think it would be useful for those who have no prior exposure to linguistics and sociolinguistics if there was more discussion of the graphs and if the use of the term 'community' was less ambiguous. Perhaps you could list some examples of communities in the Origins section; these could be the communities you mention in your examples. --Jtnh (talk) 02:30, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• This page presents really interesting information, and on the sentence level it is easy to understand. I would suggest some reorganization, though, in the two major sections: "Origins" and "Types of Age-Grading." I'm not really sure what the purpose of the "Origins" section is. Are you trying to differentiate age-grading as it was first practiced and as it is now? That isn't really addressed within the section. In the "Types of Age-Grading Section" I'd recommend fixing the formatting so that the subsections on children are clearly distinguishable from the other two major sections that follow. Also, is there any data available to back up the claims in those last two sections ("Adults" and "Older Adults/Elderly")? Those sections seem a bit thin. kdinatale (talk) 23:15, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

• Overall, this is well-organized and clearly structured. I did feel that some parts of your explanation of age-graded variation were vague or not sufficiently supported, particularly in the "origins" section. Your explanation seems to indicate that age-grading is a process by which individual speakers change their linguistic patterns. While this seems plausible, I wonder if it has actually been supported by any longitudinal studies of individual speakers. If not, then a cross-sectional study of a single population could be affected by cultural and historical trends relevant to each different age group. It seems that there is a crucial difference between "speakers using different forms as they age" and "speakers of different age groups using different forms." Tinydancer.egreen (talk) 16:55, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• First of all, I think this group has done a brilliant job in creating such a legitimate Wikipedia page on age-graded variation. The page provides a fairly good explanation of the concept, which enables me to quickly get a grasp of what age-graded variation is after reading it. However, as several people have suggested earlier, some minor reorganizations of the categories of age-graded variation would be helpful. Especially, the group could consider separating the discussions of empirical studies from the analysis of different age groups. (I didn't notice the sub-category in the Contents table when I first commented.)

  In terms of content, I think the examples are very straightforward in illustrating the theory. The following are some of my personal thoughts/questions. There's a part in the 'Zed' vs. 'Zee' that seems to have confused 'age-graded variation' with the 'apparent time theory'. The high proportion of 'zee' used among young people is contrasted with an older group, which might not be the issue that age-graded variation is dealing with. Another part I have some trouble following is the discussion of 'glottal stop of Glaslow.' Is the substitution of glottal stop for [t] a naturally acquired feature during childhood, which is then abandoned in maturity? The sentence, 'variation between the glottal stop and /t/ is mostly seen within the middle class due to pressure from adults,' is also unclear on stating which age group of the Middle Class is getting the pressure from adults. The last thing I want to point out is that, according to the page, adolescents exhibit a peak in adopting variations to 'differentiate themselves from the adult population'; however, the older adolescents in the 'LOL' study are said to limit their use of 'LOL' due to the increasing usage of this term by a younger group. This seems to be contradictory to previous justification of the adolescent peak. It might be more logical to explain the decreasing use of 'LOL' by older adolescents as a signal of gradual inclination toward the adult group as they gain maturity. --Danleiseveny (talk) 23:00, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• I like the overall presentation of your page. In the very first paragraph, there was one sentence which was worded a bit strangely: “Researchers need to be aware of this phenomenon when carrying out apparent-time studies that examine language changes as they occur by comparing the speech patterns between different age groups.” In the Classic Age-Grading Pattern section, I think it would be beneficial to include another chart that illustrates the adolescent peak that you mentioned. Perhaps make it more clear that the “Zed vs Zee,” “Glottal Stops in Glasgow,” and “Lol” parts are subsections underneath “Children/Adolescents.” -EmmaKylie (talk) 00:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• First of all, I thought the page was very well written and easy to follow! It definitely supplemented my knowledge about age-graded variation. Some suggestions:
  1. In the introduction, you guys mention that speaking in a community modify their language "potentially reverting to less prestigious speech patterns". I think you guys should define what you mean by prestige here. In the classic age-grading section, you guys also bring up prestige ("Nonprestigious forms may ..."). I think it would be overall very useful if there was some backstory to this word.
  2. Hyperlinking "apparent-time studies" to the apparent-time hypothesis page would be useful in my opinion!

I thought the discussion on the different types of age-grading, especially 'zee' and 'zed', was really interesting! MildlyImpressed (talk) 01:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Great page! I thought the explanations were clear and the page was easy to follow. I would reword part of the paragraph for "The Classic Age-Grading Pattern" when you say "Nonprestigious age-graded linguistic features tend to peak during adolescence 'when peer group pressure not to conform to society’s norms is greatest.'" and then "When people reach middle age, they tend to follow societal norms more because that is when the societal pressure to conform is greatest." which sounds a little bit redundant. Perhaps you could make the ideas in that section flow better? Otherwise, I thought the rest was great! I like the examples you used for "Types of Age-Grading," especially Lol. Hehe. Elizalinguistics (talk) 02:14, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Very well done page. Clearly written with a good overview of age-graded variation. I learned something new already - I didn't know that most people pronounce it "zed"! Thanks! I think that the Children/Adolescents section is particularly well-covered and well-written, perhaps the best section of the page. I think that the three varied examples that you offer here serve well to help the reader understand the phenomenon. I liked the 'Origins' section. I would, however, include Labov's definition of age-graded variation, or at least the closest thing to a definition that you can find, since you mention that his definition is the one that we use today. I also think that further discussion of, or a link to something that discusses the changes marking developmental/maturational stages in the individual's life could be helpful. The first sentence of the Age-Grading Curve could be given more background/introduction (e.g. "When graphing the use of linguistic variables across different age groups..." or something along those lines). It feels as if we're jumping into graphs and patterns sort of abruptly here. Overall, very well done! Hope this helps! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacksoncato (talk • contribs) 04:08, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think one of the strengths of this page is its use of "Wikipedia style," in that it is clear and coherent enough that someone with no sociolinguistics background could understand it, but is thoughtfully cited and well-researched. The examples are illustrative and helpful. One thing I noticed was in the first graph showing the Age-Graded curve, it doesn't say whether it's the curve for a non-prestigious or a standard form. Though it's easy enough to tell if you understand the concept, it might benefit the page to explain the graphs a bit more. Another area that I had some trouble with was the section on Scottish glottal stops. The way it was written made it seem like all children learn and use the stigmatized form before learning that it is stigmatized. If that is the case, then who are they learning it from? If that is not the case, then the section is a bit unclear. Frannieu12 (talk) 05:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• I like that this page is easy to follow and concise. Some sections could benefit from elaboration or at least hyperlinking (if a page is available), as MildlyImpressed suggested, particularly to some key terms and concepts: apparent-time studies, prestige, and the adolescent peak. A person with little or no previous knowledge of sociolinguistic theories might not understand the full meaning of the explanations without some further description. Overall, however, it seems that the ideas are summarized well, and the explanations are clear and comprehensible. Some other people have suggested more in-depth descriptions of the graphs, and I agree that this could be helpful. I want to mention also, though, that graphs are indeed helpful and appreciated. Sabrinadleong (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Great job with this page! I think that the writing is very clear, concise, and the page is overall very informative! I feel like I've already learned something new! As mentioned in a few of the comments above, I do think that some explanation of the graphs would be extremely helpful. Also, I feel that the concept of the 'adolescent peak' is an important key concept here and that it was glossed over. I think that there is more to say about this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KarisaRussell (talk • contribs) 07:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• The page is well structured and very easy to read! Also well-sourced, and the concrete examples and sources were very clear. As mentioned above, more in depth explanations about the graphs would probably make things clearer, and the "Adult/Older Adults" sections seem small in comparison with the detailed section of "Children/Adolescents". Otherwise, great page! Catclawnym (talk) 07:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Well done, age-graded variation wiki group! I thought that you did a nice job of defining the key concepts of age-graded variation, and I liked that you provided links to linguists who contributed to the research. There were a few places, such as "age-grading is when individuals change their linguistic behavior throughout their lifetimes," that could be phrased in a more academic way (the "when" caught my attention in this respect). Also, because you mentioned different behavior among adolescents of different ages, I might like to see a graph that reflected those variations (for the first figure you included). (Along these lines, you said that "nonprestigious age-graded linguistic features tend to peak during adolescence," so maybe show that in the graph?) Since your wiki page will be accessible to non-linguists, I might mention the word "allophone" in the glottal stop section... or provide a link to that concept if you do not want to explain it too much. I also feel there were a few times when / / was used in a place that would necessitate [ ], so maybe double-check that. Finally, as others have said, I would love to see the last two sections expanded upon. Great page categorization and organization... I look forward to seeing the updated page!! :) danielle.a.bells (talk) 08:37, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Very clear page! I liked that you guys made it easy for non-linguists to follow the concepts presented here. Perhaps you could add a bit about how age-graded variation is used in the context of the apparent-time hypothesis? It might be nice to show how this variation is useful in collecting linguistic data and creating conjectures for sound change. All the examples under Types of Age-Grading are clear and help add to the understanding of age-grading variation. The chart is a helpful addition to the "Lol" section. It's good to see data back up the prose. It may be helpful to add specific examples (perhaps past studies) to boost the Children and Adults sections. The part "potentially reverting to less prestigious speech patterns" in the first paragraph seems a bit like a value judgment. I would cite a source for this or maybe change it. "Age-graded changes recur at a particular age in successive generations and are regular and predictable changes." This is a bit unclear. Maybe break the two ideas into separate sentences (changes occur at particular age vs regular and predictable), then expand on each. Overall, nice page! Yaylinguistics (talk) 17:52, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Good job! Age-grading is certainly an interesting phenomenon and your page certainly makes it accessible to those who would like to learn about it without having a lot of prior linguistics knowledge. A few things: I think it would be good to clarify what you mean by "prestigious forms" or "prestige." Perhaps a link to a page on prestige, if such a page exists? To someone who does not know what linguistic prestige is, this could make the article difficult to understand. Also, the first paragraph of your Origins section is a little awkward "Age-grading is when individuals change their linguistic behavior throughout their lifetimes, but the community as a whole does not change." Maybe this should have a single individual and maybe the clauses should be switched? It took me a few rereads to figure out what exactly this sentence was supposed to mean, and I already have an idea of what age-grading is. "Age-grading involves the use of stable sociolinguistic variables, or features that are not currently undergoing any linguistic change. Linguistic features that are age-graded typically have a high degree of social awareness and can be consciously controlled." It might be good to explain what exactly you mean by features, because this sounds like you are talking about phonetic features, but then you go on to give examples of lexical items. Also, you might want to explain why it would different for something to be "consciously controlled," because a layperson may not even have it on their radar that some aspects of speech are more conscious than others and wonder why you are implying that some speech is consciously controlled while other speech is not. Efgoodrich (talk) 22:16, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• The organization of this page is quite good, although I agree with some others that the Origins section requires some changes. It begins with who first introduced age-grading, but then continues with a summary of what age-grading is, which does not seem to fit as well into a section titled "Origins". Additionally, the page skims over age-graded variation seen primarily in older populations, which I think is quite important, especially given that you begin the page by stating that "Age-grading is not limited to changes later in life"—implying that this is somehow the expected meaning of "age-grading". Additionally, you make the concept quite accessible to a wide audience, although I will point out that the use of the terms "post-tonic" and "pre-tonic" in the sections on glottal stops in Glasgow is a sudden use of impenetrable jargon. Aydpar (talk) 05:23, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Your page gives a very straightforward explanation of Age-graded variation. I think the two most noticeable strengths of your page are its succinct definition of the term (the first two sentences are brief and clear) and its numerous examples, each of which is backed up with one or multiple helpful citations. As others have suggested, you may want to reconsider certain choices you made regarding heading names and organization. For instance, I would not consider the information under “The Classic Age-Grading Pattern”—at least as you presented it—directly relevant to the origin of the term, though I may in that case be misunderstanding the connection between the two. Also, the article could use some additional proofreading to catch minor errors (such as italicizing the words better, city, dirty, football, hitting, and water in the “Glottal Stops in Glasgow” section). Overall, a good job! Jeffbutters (talk) 05:53, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• This page is very easy to read, barring some jargon (as was mentioned previously). I have a problem with the organization and structure of the page; namely that the distinctions between the "children/adolescents" subgroups and "adult" groups are not clear. Another thing I would like to have clarified: you state that elderly people revert to less conservative forms, but I think some examples would be good. It is not clear from the article whether they return to using forms from their youth or whatever. I would also like to see more about adults and the elderly; I think that the youth/adolescent section overwhelms them. I also have a problem with the first sentence, as stated above, and would like to see that clarified. Overall, I just think some sentences should be clarified and reconstructed, some structural reorganization is needed, and an expansion of the last two sections would be helpful. Other than that, good page and you're off to a great Wiki start (: Artichoke666 (talk) 06:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)Artichoke666

• I like the variety of examples you gave in the 'Types of Age-Grading' section. However, I think it would make more sense to restructure the section by adding a separate 'Examples' section for the more specific cases like "lol" and glottal stops in Glasgow. Alternatively, you could discuss the specific cases under the appropriate 'Types of Age-Grading' subsection (so "lol" would be discussed under 'Children/adolescents'). Also, a more appropriate name for the 'Origins' section may be 'Definition', 'Characteristics', etc., unless you are able to find more historical information on the concept of age-graded variation, in which case the section could be split into two. The article is generally well-written and easy to follow. I would include more hyperlinks, especially for technical terms like "apparent-time studies". Drbazzi (talk) 06:34, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Very well presented page! I enjoy reading the examples given to illustrate your points, especially the "lol" one. While reading, it was almost visual for me to picture younger people texting lol and older generations using haha. In the introduction/overview, I think it would be helpful to elaborate just a little bit more on the Apparent Time Construct--just to give the readers some background and to understand why Age-graded variation is very important. On a side note, the last part of Other adults/Elderly reminds me of the in-class discussion and our imagined scenario of a "valley-girl" who still kept the same speech style in 50 years at age 70. I think it is not only people's conservativeness that is driving the change, but matching the different social expectations of certain personas such as "what it means to be a valley girl" vs. "what should an old woman be/sound like". Structure wise, I agree with some comments above that some titles of the bullet points don't seem to belong to the "Types of age-grading". (They could be put under a category of "examples" instead.) It was very clear in the overview of the contents though. Overall, the page is very informative and mind-opening! Great job :D Crfrances (talk) 07:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• A very clearly written page that concisely summarizes the topic of Age-Graded Variation. I particularly like the "Glottal Stops in Glasgow" section as it demonstrates why this topic is important for scholarly research by finding a linguistic variable and showing how (and partially why) it has social meaning. I also appreciate your inclusion of a graph, but my suggestion of adding clarifying information echoes what others have already stated. Is there a practical application for this type of study? If so, would you consider including what that is? Again, good job on the page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by GvargasLing150 (talk • contribs) 15:44, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Clear and well-thought article. The "Lol" title might be better replaced with "Acronyms" or chatspeak. Also, when citing authors such as J.K. Chambers or Labov, perhaps link to their respective wikipedia pages and/or give a short description of their backround. Perhaps link to more items in the "See Also" section? "Internet Linguistics" and "Language Change" seem relevant as well.

agau4779 (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Congratulations on producing the first page -- and a very nice page at that. Lots of useful comments here. Let me mention some of the most important ones, and some issues that caught my eye:
  • It is clear that you (pl.) understand the concept of age-graded variation, but I think that the difference between age-graded variation, which is temporally relatively stable, and age-based differentiation due to language change, could be made clearer for the uninformed reader. As it is, the reader doesn't encounter a mention of temporal stability until the second sentence of the 'Origins' section.
  • Several people have commented usefully on organization and section headings, and I tend to agree that some reorganization and retitling could be helpful. For example, distinguishing 'Types of Age-grading' from 'Examples of Age-grading' might be a good idea, as someone has suggested. Also, 'Origins' is probably less important than 'Definition', although having an 'Origins' section is fine, if you decide you want to keep it.
    • Having a 'Types of Age-grading' section would also give you a place to put your brief but interesting discussion of the 'adolescent peak', and possibly expand it a litttle.
  • The role of age-grading in interpretation of apparent-time studies is alluded to in the introductory paragraph, but not picked up again. This is actually a very important point, and I think merits a (brief) discussion in the main body of the article.
  • People have made a number of very useful suggestions regarding linking to other pages. I would follow up on most of these. Nice link from Variation (linguistic), btw!
  • First sentence: "... potentially reverting to less prestigious speech patterns." As someone else observed, this is a little out of place, since this is just one (and not even the most common) type of age-grading phenomenon.

Ldmanthroling (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• I've already mentioned below that I think this page is very well done. Great job on the research, and nice writing too. There is one big thing that it needs to improve it, though - page numbers! Wikipedia sourcing differs from academic sourcing in that we expect very precise citations. This is because of the trust factor - in academia, researchers are trusted to evaluate and summarise sources accurately and without bias. However, on Wikipedia, the article could have been written by anyone. Requiring citations to the nearest few pages enables us to ensure material is verifiable. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:42, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Education programme

Hello everyone! I'd like to add my voice to the above - this page is really well done. I'm guessing that this has been put together as part of an education programme - could anyone link me to the programme page? Best — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:34, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Um, hello? Could one of the people posting here leave me a link to the education project page? It looks like there has been some coordination happening at User:Ldmanthroling/150 Wikipedia groups, but it is most common to have pages like this in the "Education Program" namespace. (See Wikipedia:Course pages for a general outline of course pages.) The idea is that it's helpful to the community if you post which university the course is for, who the instructor is, what you're doing, and what users are taking part. If anyone could point me to a page that includes these details it would be much appreciated. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Mr. Strad. I'm currently setting up the relevant page. Hopefully you'll be able to check in there in the next few days.Ldmanthroling (talk) 12:21, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. :) I'll update the template at the top of the page when you've posted the link. (Or you can try and wrestle with it yourself if you prefer.) Just one thing before that, though. I've seen the name UC Berkeley pop up a few times in relation with this page - is this a UC Berkeley programme? Sorry if I'm appearing inquisitive, but it's always nice to know these things. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:36, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No harm in being inquisitive :). And yes, this is the first of several pages that students in the Berkeley sociolinguistics class that I'm teaching will be developing over the course of the semester.Ldmanthroling (talk) 11:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)