4 - Z and his development

Summary

Family background

Zachary Voyne Smith, usually known as ‘Zachary’ or ‘Zak’ (‘Z’ hereinafter), was born on 30 August 2001 in London, England, and lives in St Albans, Hertfordshire. His father, Amahl Smith, was the subject of APh, and is finance director of a grant-making charity. Except for two years in the USA he has lived and worked in Southern England and his speech approximates reasonably closely to RP. Z's mother, Anne Smith (née Bradley), was born and brought up in Ilkley, Yorkshire, and is chief executive of a small medical charity. Her speech is characteristic of educated Northern Britain: her accent is essentially similar to RP except for the use of [æ] for RP /ɑː/ (cf. Wells, 1990: xii). There are also some intonational and lexical differences, but these are not relevant to the present study. Both parents work part-time so that they can devote appreciable time to their children.

Z has one sibling, a younger brother Joshua, also known as ‘Josh’, who was born on 7 April 2004 when Z was 2 years 8 months old.

Apart from the family there has been social, including linguistic, input to Z from friends, from the local community playgroup (from age 2 years 6 months), and from nursery school (from age 3 years 5 months). No specific effects of this input are noticeable in Z's speech.