The Effect of Age on Language Use: the Difference Between Adults` Language Use and Teenagers` Language Use

The effect of age on language use provides an interesting research area inside sociolinguistics. An average person can differentiate for example children?s language from adolescents? language, but s/he is not aware of the causes of this difference and sociolinguistic variation. Of course, language use is affected by other numerous factors, like social class, occupation, gender. Teenagers? talk involves a lot of slang words which emphasise the rebellion against childhood and adulthood. Later, in adulthood standard English comes into prominence. Slang is the main feature at this age. Adults generally use standard language but their occupations and jobs can affect their language use. Based on this evidence I was curious to see whether youngsters use more slang words than older people. I have examined four television programmes, and the result has been surprising. My research sought the following research questions:1. Does the speech of the youth on television contain more slang words that of the adults? 2. Is the difference in the number of slang words used by youngsters and adults considerable? The last chapter, the pedagogical section.