Abstract
This study asks two questions: (1) Do older adults modify their language based on age of the listener (audience design)? (2) Does social contact affect audience design in older adults? Older adults (n = 34; mean age = 82) engaged in an instructions task with two fictive listeners (a child and an adult) to test these questions. Results show that older adults used a greater total number of propositions and rapport-building devices and a lower type–token ratio when giving instructions to the child compared to the adult listener. Adults with more social interactions used more propositions when talking to a child. In addition, satisfaction with interactions was significantly positively related to task-tracking devices and negatively related to rapport-building devices by older adults. These results suggest that audience design and social relations are worth further study in language maintenance in older age.
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