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Preschool children's categorization of speakers by regional accent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2019

Ella Jeffries
Ella Jeffries*
Affiliation:
University of Essex
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Abstract

This study reports on an experiment with twenty preschool children (3;1–4;7) in York, UK to investigate the earliest stage of children's socioperceptual development. The children discriminate between different groups of speakers based on their pronunciation of phonological regional variables diagnostic of the North and South of England. An improvement across the age range uncovers a developmental stage when children are able to interpret variation as socially meaningful. This is comparable with developments in sociolinguistic production during the preschool years, as previous studies have found. Three measures associated with linguistic input (children's age and gender, local versus nonlocal parents) have an impact on the children's performance. The results are interpreted through an exemplar theoretic account, highlighting the role of input and the combined storing and accessing of both linguistic and social information.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , October 2019 , pp. 329 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

I would like to acknowledge the AHRC for funding this research through their doctoral studentship award scheme. Thanks go to Professor Paul Foulkes and Dr. Carmen Llamas for their support and supervision during this research. I would like to thank Professor Monika Schmid and three anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Thank you also to all the children for their participation and the teachers and parents/carers who enabled the participation to happen.

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