The Role of Chronological, Biological and Social Ageing in Speech Production

背景：语言学和言语科学中最有力的发现之一是年龄对言语产生的影响。衰老的生理和认知影响表现为处理速度的变化（Cerella 1985），抑制控制（Hasher & Zacks 1988）和关节运动减慢（Wohlert & Smith 1998）。与此同时，社会语言学研究早已证明，大多数与年龄有关的发音差异更可能是社会性的，而不是生理性的（Labov 1972）。虽然言语产生和社会语言学研究都考察了年龄的不同方面，但它们从根本上仍然依赖于实足年龄：出生后的年龄。然而，众所周知，相同实足年龄的说话者可能有不同的“生物年龄”，以不同的速度经历身体衰退（Dawson 2020）。除此之外，一个人的“社会年龄”，如他们的社会网络的年龄和他们从事的活动和行为的种类，也是社会语言变异的更好的预测因素（Eckert 2000）。因此，言语和不同类型的衰老之间的真正关系仍然知之甚少，这取决于实足年龄在任何特定研究中如何抓住潜在的兴趣维度。

Background: One of the most robust findings in linguistics and speech science is the effect of age onspeech production. Physiological and cognitive effects of ageing are evidenced by changes inprocessing speed (Cerella 1985), inhibitory control (Hasher & Zacks 1988) and slower articulatorymovements (Wohlert & Smith 1998). At the same time, sociolinguistic research has longdemonstrated that most age-related differences in pronunciation are more likely to be social thanphysiological in nature (Labov 1972). While speech production and sociolinguistic research bothexamine different aspects of age, they remain fundamentally premised upon chronological age: thenumber of years since birth. However, it is known that speakers of the same chronological age mayhave different 'biological ages', undergoing physical decline at different rates (Dawson 2020). Inaddition to this, an individual's 'social age', such as the age of their social network and the kinds ofactivities and behaviours in which they are engaged, is also a better predictor of sociolinguisticvariation (Eckert 2000). Consequently, the true relationship between speech and different kinds ofageing remains poorly understood and depends on how well chronological age captures theunderlying dimension of interest in any particular study.