Accent acquisition: Investigating situational factors in phonological development of child language

Until recently, many researchers would have argued that a child’s linguistic capability, in regard to accent acquisition, is very limited (Labov, 1970; Wolfram and Fasold, 1974). However, recent studies have shown that, not only do children grasp adult-like varieties at a young age, but they also acquire the phonological features in tandem with their language acquisition (Smith et al, 2013). This research considers the effect of external social influences a child has when they acquire these varieties, whether they are from the caregiver, or if there are other factors, such as gender? Data was collected from two children; a girl (3;8), and a boy (5;4) and their parents. A comparison between the two children’s variety features and those of the adults were analysed to establish the parental influences of the two children. The findings, from this case study, show that the boy has started to use similar phonological variants to their father, rather than (as previous research has shown) the primary caregiver (Smith et al, 2013; Kerswill, 1996). This could suggest an influence of speaker sex on accent acquisition. However, the girl also uses some variants similar to her father, which could lead to further consideration of the role of sibling influence. Ultimately, this paper investigates the influence of environment on accent acquisition, and thereby contributes to a topic which currently has limited research, namely the consideration of situational influences on accent acquisition in L1 development. Kerswill, P. (1996). Children, adolescents, and language change. Language V ariation and Change. Vol 8 (2). pp 177-202. Labov, W. (1970). The logic of non-standard English. In Walliams, F. (ed.). Language and poverty: Perspectives on a theme. pp 153-189. Chicago: Markham. Smith, J., Durham, M. & Richards, H. (2013). The social and linguistic in the acquisition of sociolinguistic norms: Caregivers, children, variation. Linguistics. Vol 51 (2). pp 285-324. Wolfram, W. & Fasold, R. (1974). The study of social dialects in American English. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall.