Chapter 15 - Intergenerational Communication Practices

Abstract

This chapter explores important parameters of intergenerational communication, with a focus on older people being targets of overaccommodation, also known variously across studies as patronizing talk, elder speak, or infantilizing talk. The latter are considered as (interchangeable) forms in that they can be subsumed under or treated as exemplars of the more superordinate category of over accommodative moves. Overaccommodation is a construct derived from communication accommodation theory that has been operationalized in terms of a speaker perceiving to exceed or overshoot the level of implementation of communicative behaviors necessary for a smooth and successful interaction. The chapter begins with considering the different forms overaccommodation can take. Following this, it sheds light on its social effects and describes the variable ways it can be managed by recipients. It also presents the theoretical mechanisms proposed to underlie this process. Furthermore, it considers other forms problematic intergenerational communication may, including elderly-to-young overaccommodation, painful self disclosures, and off-target verbosity. Finally and consequentially, this chapter concludes with a discussion of how communicative practices are endemic in the social construction of successful and unsuccessful aging.