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Children's perception of dialect variation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2013

LAURA WAGNER ,
CYNTHIA G. CLOPPER  and
JOHN K. PATE
LAURA WAGNER*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
CYNTHIA G. CLOPPER
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
JOHN K. PATE
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
*
Address for correspondence: Laura Wagner, Department of Psychology, 1835 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210. tel: 614-688-3260; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

A speaker's regional dialect is a rich source of information about that person. Two studies examined five- to six-year-old children's perception of regional dialect: Can they perceive differences among dialects? Have they made meaningful social connections to specific dialects? Experiment 1 asked children to categorize speakers into groups based on their accent; Experiment 2 asked them to match speakers to (un)familiar cultural items. Each child was tested with two of the following: the child's Home dialect, a Regional variant of that dialect, and a Second-Language variant. Results showed that children could successfully categorize only with a Home vs. Second-Language dialect contrast, but could reliably link cultural items with either a Home vs. Second-Language or a Regional vs. Second-Language dialect contrast. These results demonstrate five- to six-year-old children's developing perceptual skill with dialect, and suggest that they have a gradient representation of dialect variation.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 5 , September 2014 , pp. 1062 - 1084
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

[*]

Special thanks go to the Center for Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, OH for their generosity in allowing us to work with the children there; to Richa Deshmukh and Melissa Allen for their help in recording the dialect samples; to Sara Brummel, Kristin Rohrbeck, Sarah Bibyk, Cartha Sexton, Oxana Skorniakova, Emily Dorrian, Brittany Baker, Courtney Davenport, Kerrianne Morrison, and Melissa Forney for their assistance with this project; and to the Lacqueys reading group for their comments and input.

References

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