Navigating Accent Variation: A Developmental Perspective

Johnson, Elizabeth K.; van Heugten, Marieke; Buckler, Helen

Abstract

Adult processing of other-accented speech is fast, dependent on lexical access, and readily generalizable to new words. But what does children's processing of other-accented speech look like? Although many acquisition researchers have emphasized how other-accented speech presents a formidable challenge to young children, we argue that the field has perhaps underestimated children's early accent processing abilities. In support of this view, we present evidence that 2-year-olds’ accent processing abilities appear to be in many respects adult-like, and discuss the growing literature on children's ability to cope with multi-accent input in the natural world. We outline different theoretical outlooks on the transition children make from infancy to later childhood, and discuss how the growing sophistication of infants’ accent processing abilities feeds into their social perception of the world (and perhaps vice versa). We also argue that efficient processing and meaningful interpretation of accent variation are fundamental to human cognition, and that early proficiency with accent variation (along with all of the implied representational and learning capacities) is difficult to explain without assuming the early emergence of abstract speech representations.

Citation

Johnson, E. K., van Heugten, M., & Buckler, H. (2022). Navigating Accent Variation: A Developmental Perspective. Annual Review of Linguistics, 8(1), 365-387. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-032521-053717

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 8, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Nov 29, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 14, 2022
• Deposit Date: Dec 6, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 7, 2021
• Journal: Annual Review of Linguistics
• Electronic ISSN: 2333-9691
• Publisher: Annual Reviews
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 365-387
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-032521-053717
• Keywords: accent accommodation; language acquisition; speech development; perceptual adaptation; linguistic diversity; developmental sociolinguistics; social cognition
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6908205
• Publisher URL: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-032521-053717
• Additional Information: Posted with permission from the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 8 ©2021 by Annual Reviews, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-032521-053717.