Diversifying language acquisition research can be (partly) achieved in urban societies and with simplified methodologies: Insights from multilingual Ghana

Abstract

There is a large consensus (e.g., Cristia, Foushee, Aravena-Bravo, Cychosz, Scaff & Casillas, 2022; Kidd & Garcia, 2022) that diversification in language acquisition research is needed. Cristia et al. (2022) convincingly argue for studying language acquisition in rural populations and recommend combining observational and experimental approaches in doing so. In this commentary, we identify that diversification efforts must also include children growing up in non-western urban societies and that combining experiments with more easy-to-obtain data on language exposure can be a solid method to start with.

Vowel harmony preferences in infants growing up in multilingual Ghana (Africa).

“…Based on the first author’s observations, infants growing up in Ghana are exposed to two or more languages simultaneously from birth by their parents and other family members, such as grandparents, uncles, and aunts, who may use different languages as their preferred one. Some infants are born into a compound house where the people speak different ethnic languages that infants, because of shared caretaking practices, are exposed to from birth (see Omane, Benders, Duah, & Boll-Avetisyan, 2023, for a description of how infants are raised multilingually in Ghana). Some of these languages have VH (besides Akan, the most common indigenous language in Ghana, e.g., Anum, Dagaare, and Dagbanli), while others do not (e.g., Ga, Ewe, and Ghanaian English).…”