Language De-socialization: Introducing a New Concept

Abstract

This article presents the theoretical concept of language de-socialization, which refers to processes through which the declining linguistic and interactive capacities of an individual, as well as the loss of personhood as defined in a particular cultural setting, are managed in and through language. The article discusses de-socialization as an extension of a theoretical forebear, language socialization, which has been defined as how young children and others become communicatively and culturally competent within their homes, educational institutions, and other discourse communities, both local and transnational, and how language (in its many varieties and modes) mediates that process. However, language de-socialization is not simply the inverse of language socialization, because understanding language at the end of life requires expanded sensitivity to a range of topics that are not usually treated in linguistics, such as assumptions about abledness and impairment that underpin determinations of linguistic and communicative competence.