When you are old, will language also age?
——Language problems in the aging society and the construction of linguistics for the aged in my country
Host language
The individual human life has the process of birth, growth, maturity, and aging, and the corresponding language also has the process of occurrence, development, stability, and decline.
The language ability of the elderly shows obvious loss, decline or even loss in some aspects, which seriously affects the happy life and even basic survival of the elderly, and to a certain extent restricts the effective development of national elderly care services.
The "National Plan to Actively Respond to Population Aging in the Medium and Long Term" pointed out that population aging is an important trend in social development, and it is also my country's basic national conditions for a long time to come.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" and the outline of long-term goals for 2035 put forward the implementation of a national strategy to actively respond to the aging of the population.
Promote and strengthen the language research of the elderly, master the basic laws and influencing factors of the erosion and decline of the language ability of the elderly, and build a subject of linguistics for the elderly that attaches equal importance to basic research and serving the society. This is not only an important content of scientific research, but also academic research serving the country. Responsible for the mission of the cause.
——Liu Chuqun
At present, the trend of global population aging is becoming increasingly significant.
According to the latest standards of the United Nations, a region with a population over 60 years of age reaching more than 7% of the total population is deemed to have entered an aging society.
In 2020, there will be about 255 million people over the age of 60 in my country, accounting for 17.8% of the total population.
Not only China, but most countries in the world are entering an aging society, especially in developed countries, where the aging situation is particularly severe.
Correspondingly, the language problem of the aging society cannot be ignored.
1. Pay attention to the language problems of the elderly
After entering the old age, the language problems faced by individuals are mainly the degradation of language ability and clinical language barriers caused by physiological and pathological aging, as well as language communication problems caused by changes in social roles.
Deterioration of language ability caused by physiological aging.
Physiological aging refers to the physiological degeneration process that occurs after maturity, including cognitive aging of the brain, which degrades the language ability of many elderly people.
Physiological aging is inevitable. The most significant phenomena are the changes in sound quality caused by the aging of the pronunciation organs, the difficulty of language understanding caused by the deterioration of sensory abilities (such as hearing and vision loss), the phenomenon of open mouth and forget words caused by cognitive aging, and the complex syntax Decrease in degree, lack of focus in conversation or easy side-tracking, decreased reading comprehension or written expression ability, etc.
Of course, the degradation of language ability of different individuals is different.
If an individual can maintain physical and mental health, living ability and social participation to the utmost after entering the old age, it can be regarded as "successful aging", at this time the individual's language ability is relatively relatively good or declines slowly.
Clinical language disorder caused by pathological aging.
Pathological aging refers to including suffering from senile diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, Parkinson's disease, hypertension and diabetes) and other reasons, resulting in changes in brain tissue structure and cognitive decline, language impairment and obstacles, which can be manifested At multiple language levels including phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Taking neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease as an example, the language barriers of elderly patients gradually increase with the development of the disease. The early manifestations are difficulty in vocabulary extraction, problems in understanding difficult words, etc., and hollow speech content in the middle and late stages. , The foreword is not followed by words, syntactic errors increase, and discourse comprehension and syntactic processing disorders appear; later in the course of the disease, the patient's language fluency is severely impaired, and the patient will talk to himself or repeat meaninglessly, and appear delirium speech or agitation. Less words, silence, etc. occur.
The language communication problems formed by the changes in social roles cannot be ignored either.
Individuals have unique social roles in old age and are accompanied by corresponding psychological characteristics. Therefore, the characteristics of language communication and social communication are different from other age groups.
Related issues involve the language communication of the elderly in health care, elderly care, senior education, community activities, etc., the relationship between the language communication and identity construction of the elderly, intergenerational communication, successful aging, etc., the elderly's social participation and Identification of language fraud, the construction of the image of the elderly in the media discourse, the language communication and social participation of the elderly of special groups, and the hospice care and language comfort of the elderly.
2. It takes many efforts to solve the language problem of the elderly
Language problems are closely related to the physical and mental health, living ability and social participation of the elderly. Individuals, families and society need to form a joint effort to solve the language problems of the elderly and meet the corresponding actual needs.
Make full use of language activities to promote individuals to achieve active ageing.
Language is an important medium for individual development, interpersonal communication and social participation.
Families and children can make full use of language activities to help the elderly establish a positive outlook on ageing, improve self-identity, and promote social participation.
Studies have shown that there is an important interaction between language and aging. Continuous learning and interaction between mother tongue and foreign language, reading and writing throughout the life course can effectively improve cognitive ability and delay aging.
Families, communities, or institutions can integrate various resources through a variety of ways to guide the elderly in oral communication, reading and recitation, three-dimensional reading, written writing and other forms of language activities to help maintain or improve their language skills while achieving individual positiveness. Old age.
Pay attention to language markers of senile diseases and related language intervention.
Language is an early clinical marker of many senile diseases, and promoting language communication is also a practical need in the care of special elderly groups.
The elderly themselves and their families should pay attention to various language markers in life.
Such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, stroke, depression and other diseases have obvious language performance.
Medical and health care institutions, communities and social organizations should pay attention to the early screening and evaluation of certain diseases through the language performance of the elderly, carry out non-drug interventions such as speech therapy, and serve the language cognitive rehabilitation of special elderly groups to delay language ability Degenerate.
In addition, as the course of the disease progresses and cognitive decline, elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other diseases will experience rough speech and less silence. Caregivers have realities in how to communicate with the elderly in daily communication and emotional interaction. Demands require assistance from relevant agencies to improve the efficiency of communication with the elderly and improve the quality of the elderly’s social participation.
Meet the various realistic language needs of the elderly in social communication.
The elderly will involve language problems in all kinds of elderly-related matters and life scenes, and there are actual language needs, such as social participation in health care, elderly care, senior education, community activities, etc.
In an aging society, the language information dissemination of all parties in society should fully consider the characteristics of the language communication of the elderly, consider the fairness of social governance and language information resources for the elderly, and build a multi-dimensional, refined language service and information communication form for the elderly.
At present, one of the most prominent problems is that the elderly in my country have difficulty in using smart technology, and they are encountering a "digital divide."
The family and society must form a joint effort to solve problems, such as improving the language and information literacy of the elderly through various channels and forms, and actively carrying out the transformation of intelligent technology to "adapt to aging".
Relevant measures will help the elderly maintain good cognitive abilities, increase participation in the smart society, and realize the construction of an elderly-friendly social language information system.
3. Develop linguistics for the elderly to serve the aging society
How to improve the quality of life of the elderly and meet the needs of the elderly is an important issue that must be considered by all parties in an aging society.
The research on language aging and obstacles of the elderly is the basis for providing language training, delaying aging, and promoting active aging; the research on the language communication problems of the elderly in the aging society is the establishment and improvement of information exchange channels suitable for the physical and mental characteristics of the elderly. Way and the prerequisite for building an elderly-friendly society.
At present, in order to serve the language needs of elderly individuals and solve language problems in the elderly society, a specialized branch of linguistics for the elderly has been formed in the world.
The main tasks of the subject can be summarized as "One Body and Two Wings": "One Body" is to study the characteristics and mechanisms of language aging and obstacles in the elderly, and the "Two Wings" are to study and solve various language communication problems in the aging society, and to delay research and development. Or services or technologies that improve the degraded language ability of the elderly.
Developed countries with a high degree of aging have conducted in-depth research on the language problems of the elderly and the aging society and have a wide range of applications. However, there are still three obvious "imbalances" in the development of linguistics for the elderly in my country: First, the complexity of the language problems in the aging society The imbalance between the research on linguistics for the elderly; the second is the imbalance between the needs of the elderly in my country to improve their language quality of life and the scope and level of application of research results; the third is the level of development of foreign linguistics for the elderly and the current situation of linguistics in my country The imbalance between.
my country's elderly population has a large base and rapid aging rate, and the development of linguistics for the elderly has unique advantages.
At present, the "National Medium and Long-term Plan for Actively Responding to Population Aging" has elevated the response to aging as a national strategy, proposing to build a high-quality service and product supply system for the elderly, strengthen technological innovation capabilities to respond to population aging, and build elderly care, Social environment requirements for filial piety and respect for the elderly.
These are all related to solving the language problems of the aging society and providing language services.
The development of linguistics for the elderly in China must take the lead in overcoming the linguistic problems that urgently need to be solved in the development of the aging society, and actively serve the research on major strategic scientific research issues such as "brain science"; continue to carry out applied research and development, such as for the elderly Compilation of language proficiency scales, extraction of language markers related to senile diseases, use of artificial intelligence and big data to develop language barrier screening and diagnosis systems, etc.; serve the governance of aging society, actively carry out community language cognitive barrier screening, science popularization, and participation Informatization construction of an elderly-friendly community, offering language courses or activities to improve the language literacy and communication skills of the elderly, and promote active aging.
(Author: Huang Lihe, Tongji University, Associate Professor Department of Nursing Research Center on Aging and language)