Effects of Language Background on the Development of Sociolinguistic Awareness: The Perception of Accent Variation in Monolingual and Multilingual 5- to 7-Year-Old Children

Abstract

As a result of complex international migration patterns, listeners in large urban centres such as London, UK, likely encounter large amounts of variation in spoken language. However, although dealing with variation is crucial to communication, relatively little is known about how the ability to do this develops. Still less is known about how this might be affected by language background. The current study investigates whether early experience with variation, specifically growing up bilingually in London, affects accent categorization. Sixty children (30 monolingual, 30 bilingual) aged 5–7 years, were tested in their ability to comprehend and categorize talkers in 2 out of 3 accents: a home, unfamiliar regional and unfamiliar foreign-accented variety. All children demonstrated high, above-chance performance in the comprehension task, but language background significantly affected the children’s ability to categorize talkers. Bilinguals were able to categorize talkers in all accent conditions, but although all children were able to understand the talkers, monolingual children were only able to categorize talkers in the home-foreign accent condition. Overall, the results are consistent with an approach in which gradient representations of accent variation emerge alongside an understanding of how variation is used meaningfully within a child’s environment.

Sociolinguistic Awareness in Galician Bilinguals: Evidence from an Accent Identification Task

“…Much less research has examined accent identification in the context of bilingual communities. Evans and Lourido (2019) replicated Wagner et al (2014)'s study with monolingual children in London, U.K., but also showed that bilingual children were able to discriminate talkers in all three conditions (native vs. regional, regional vs. L2 and native vs. L2), suggesting that early experience with variation benefits identification of talkers from different language backgrounds. Arguably, bilingual children had more exposure to variation in a community where that variation is useful in identifying talkers and navigating relationships (Evans and Lourido 2019, p. 156), and this most likely led to an earlier development of sociolinguistic awareness in comparison to monolingual peers.…”

“…This idea is similar to explanations of how children develop awareness of regional accent variation. Wagner et al (2014) argue that children have a gradient representation of accent variation in which the native accent forms the core set of experience and other accents are categorised in relation to that core (see also Evans and Lourido 2019). One possibility is that such gradient representations not only form the basis of adult representations, but that they continue to be used in adulthood.…”

Regional dialect perception across the lifespan: Identification and discrimination

“…Beyond specific exposure to particular varieties, overall exposure to variation may also contribute to performance in dialect perception tasks. For example, Evans et al (2016) observed higher accuracy in the regional dialect condition of their ad hoc identification task for multilingual children than for monolingual children. They interpreted this result in terms of exposure to variation: multilingual children have more exposure to language variation in their environment and may therefore exhibit better performance in tasks that require them to associate phonetic variation with social groups.…”

“…Previous work using ad hoc identification tasks suggested that 5- to 6-year-old children could not successfully identify regional varieties (Floccia et al, 2009; Girard et al, 2008; Wagner et al, 2014; cf. Evans et al, 2016). The results of the current study support those findings: children in Experiment 1 did not succeed with any contrasts until 6–7 years old, and were not consistently successful until 10–11 years old.…”

“…Likewise, 5- and 6-year-old listeners tested by Wagner et al (2014) in the United States could not successfully categorize talkers who spoke Midland American English versus Lancashire British English, although they were able to identify Midland American English and non-native Indian English speakers with above-chance accuracy. Similarly, Evans, Madigan, and Tome Lourido (2016) found that monolingual children in London were able to distinguish more accurately between London English and non-native Singaporean English than between London English and Yorkshire English in an ad hoc identification task, although multilingual children in London showed similar success with both tasks. Thus, as in the research with adults, the varieties that children are asked to identify have an impact on performance; 5- and 6-year-old children are able to succeed in ad hoc identification tasks involving their native variety and a non-native variety, but exhibit limited success in tasks involving their native variety and another regional variety of their native language.…”