[Jenling] Do, 12.6. 14:00 Aleksandra Miaskowska: Sociolinguistic Aspects of Communication Among Polish-speaking Older Adults and the Language of the Internet

[Ivan Levin]

Dear all,

We are pleased to announce a talk by Aleksandra Miaskowska from Torun
University, who is joining us at the Slavic department on a scholarship
financed by the DPWS (Deutsch-Polnische Wissenschaftsstiftung). Aleksandra
Miaskowska is both a sociologist and a linguist by training, and we are
excited to have her here. Please let us know if you would like to join via
zoom by writing to ivan.levin at uni-jena.de!

*Thu *
*12.6.2026, 14:00 (s.t.), Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8, Raum 306 *
*Aleksandra Miaskowska (Torun): * *Digital Immigrants Aged 60+ in the World
of Social Media: Sociolinguistic Aspects of Communication Among
Polish-speaking Older Adults and the Language of the Internet*

This doctoral project investigates how Polish-speaking adults aged 60 and
above, often referred to as digital immigrants, engage with and adapt to
language use in social media environments. Titled Digital Immigrants Aged
60+ in the World of Social Media: Sociolinguistic Aspects of Communication
Among Older Adults and the Language of the Internet – A Comparative Study
of Facebook Users and Non-Users, the study explores both linguistic
behavior and media socialization processes within this underrepresented age
group. The project responds to the demographic reality of Europe’s aging
societies and draws on the tradition of language socialization research.
Language socialization is understood here not only as the acquisition of
linguistic competence, but also as a lifelong process tied to changing
social roles and technological environments. In this context, the project
addresses an observation by Penelope Eckert that age is a sociolinguistic
variable and as individuals age, they often become less receptive to
systemic linguistic change. Dominant approaches in the study of older
adults’ language tend to emphasize physiological decline and cognitive
limitations. Instead, this research explores secondary and reverse
socialization processes: how older users adapt linguistically to digital
platforms, and how their communicative behaviors reflect the norms of
online environments dominated by younger generations. The project builds
two corpora: one composed of Polish Facebook posts authored by users aged
60+, and a second consisting of offline Polish texts written by users and
non-users. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the study
investigates syntactic, morphological, and pragmatic features of these
texts, while also examining broader sociocultural implications. The
findings contribute to our understanding of how language, age, and media
intersect in an era of demographic aging and ongoing technological
transformation, highlighting the role of social media in today's
communication and ongoing language socialization process.

Looking forward to seeing you,

Ivan Levin, Ruprecht von Waldenfels
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lserv.uni-jena.de/pipermail/jenling/attachments/20250604/3f1a50d6/attachment.html>