Old people’s adaptation to what is unfamiliar to their schemata

Old people’s adaptation to what is unfamiliar to their schemata

Feten Boubakri

University of Gabes, Tunisia

Abstract

The present research studies the way old people refer to some unfamiliar items like the way they call certain technological devices and some types of food.  In this respect, a way is opened to see the relationship which exists between these items and the terms used on the part of old people to express them. In this context, this study shows that once these items are used, old people opt for generating the suitable linguistic structures to them relying on the sensory experience they are exposed to. It is found that the linguistic forms used by old people to refer to the newly known objects are usually influenced by certain feelings which are activated by one of the internal senses whether olfactory, tactile, auditory or mental. Then, old people opt for mapping this internal cognitive experience into the appropriate linguistic form to call these items. As a result, the way old people refer to the newly known items is a subjective process which depends on the way each person internally experiences them.

Key words: Lexeme, semantic meaning, sensory experience, cognitive processes