Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts

Kees de Bot is Chair of Applied Linguistics at the University of Groningen. His research interests include psycholinguistic aspects of multilingualism, maintenance and loss of languages and language policy. More recently he has turned his interest to the application of Dynamic Systems Theory in applied Linguistics.Sinfree Makoni is an internationalist. He did his Phd in the UK and has held a number of professional appointments in the Africa and currently teaches in the US.  His main research interests are aging and health in multilingual contexts across the globe, and language in urban contexts.

Scholars investigating social gerontology during the past three decades have produced an enormous amount of empirical research studying a wide variety of issues related to the aging process. Language and aging in multicultural settings: A dynamic perspective is among the best written, most comprehensive, and most compelling books to be published during this period. The authors advance a dynamic and an integrative approach toward our understanding of the aging process that places Language at the very core of any competent understanding of the aging process. This book advances our understanding of aging, the role language plays in the aging process and is certainly a must read for any scholar interested in the aging process.

• Preface1 Introduction: Language, Aging and Multilingualism2 Language and Aging: A Dynamic Perspective3 Language and Communication with the Elderly4 Language Use and Language Skills in Healthy and Pathological Aging5 Resources in Language and Aging6 Multilingualism, Aging and Dementia7 Bilingual Aging in Older African-Americans8 The Effects of Age and Education on Narrative Complexity in Older Chinese in the USA(Sinfree Makoni with Hwei-Bin Lin and Robert Schrauf)9 Language in an Epidemiological Study: The North Manhattan Aging Study in New York City10 Old and New Perspectives on Language and AgingBibliography