Resumen de Approaching language and aging from a biolinguistic perspective
Aging can make a unique window into the biological underpinnings of the human language. On a theoretical note, aging can provide valuable insights into both the relationship between neurocognition and language, and the cognitive architecture of the language function itself. From a practical point of view, observing aging language can allow to better understand the basics of human communication, and, altogether, such findings might provide us with the possibility to enhance biolinguistic models. The aim of this chapter is to start from the study of aging language to contribute to two specific questions about such biolinguistic models: linguistic cognition and linguistic architecture in humans. In addressing the first, I will take on patterns of aging language to approach our understanding of the place of language in the global human cognition. In addressing the second, I will draw on these same patterns to discuss what aging can show us about the hierarchy of language functions when neurobiological and cognitive declines are in place. At the end of this chapter, I will come to some interesting conclusions about the robustness of language function against other cognitive functions in aging, and about how our neurocognition is particularly concerned with the preservation of such robustness.
