Chapter 10: The Challenge of Acceptance: Digitalk and Language as Conformity and Resistance

In the 1950s, adults were appalled by Elvis and his gyrations. While teens embraced the new sounds and movement, parents feared that rock and roll would lead their children to delinquency. Tensions between generations ran high, and a culture war ensued. For the adults, rock and roll was inappropriate. It was wrong. And teens resisted by joining the revolution and contributing to the evolution of music, of dance, and of language.

Historians of youth culture of the latter part of the 20th century trace similar tensions between generations with the rise of the Beat generation, Goth culture, or the hip hop movement. In every era, it seems, teens look for acceptance; they experiment; they evolve. Erikson (1968) suggested that adolescence, characterized by identity vs. role confusion, represents a stage of social experimentation in which teens “seem much concerned with faddish attempts at establishing an adolescent subculture” (p. 128). This subculture resists both childhood and adult identities, carving out new ways of being for the in-between crowd. Adults often do not embrace the social changes that ensue because, as Erikson asserted, “In regard to the social play of adolescents, prejudices similar to those which once concerned the nature of childhood play are not easily overcome. [Adults] alternately consider such behavior irrelevant, unnecessary, or irrational” (p. 164).