Evaluative perceptions of patronizing speech addressed to institutionalized elders in contrasting conversational contexts

Within a speech accommodation framework, speech modifications based on stereotyped xpecta-tions of elderly persons (such as patronizing speech) are hypothesized to convey less respect. Adult volunteers (N = 186) read scripts of a conversation between a nurse caregiver, using either patroniz-ing speech or a more neutral variant, and a 76-year-old nursing home resident, depicted either as alert or forgetful. Respondents viewed the nurse in the patronizing condition as significantly less respectful and less nurturant and the recipient as more frustrated. The patronizing nurse was also rated as significantly less competent and benevolent than her counterpart in the neutral condition. The ecological validity of the contrasts between scripts was confirmed by inferences that patroniz-ing speech was more shrill, louder, and produced with more exaggerated intonation. The communicative strategies that characterize encounters between younger and older people are attracting increasing in-terest in the research literature. For instance, slower speech, exaggerated intonation, higher pitch, increased loudness, repe-titions, tag questions and close-ended questions, and simplifica-tion of vocabulary and grammar are all adaptations that hav