[Linguistics of ageing, linguistic Gerontology--Why? (author's transl)].

Intercourse between the young and the old is accompanied by difficulties in finding the right word. Authentic observations will be presented. These every-day experiences have prompted the search for the felicity conditions of verbal interaction between members of different age groups. This concern is called linguistics of ageing (or, etatolinguistics). It is called linguistic gerontology (or, gerontolinguistics) if older people are involved in the verbal interactions to be investigated. Papers from the fields of intelligence psychology, language psychology, and language sociology have indeed reported differences in verbal scores between groups of different ages. What has not been answered as yet, however, is the question whether these differences are, or may be, responsible for the difficulties arising in verbal interaction between different age groups. A review of hypotheses as to why verbal scores differ between different age groups in the way they do will reveal that this problem has not as yet been solved either. In conclusion, a programme for further research will be outlined.