The social and linguistic in the acquisition of sociolinguistic norms: Caregivers, children, and variation

Abstract

Despite the assumption in early studies that children are monostylistic until sometime around adolescence, a number of studies since then have demonstrated that adult-like patterns of variation may be acquired much earlier. How much earlier, however, is still subject to some debate. In this paper we contribute to this research through an analysis of a number of lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic variables across 29 caregiver/child pairs aged 2;10 to 4;2 in interaction with their primary caregivers. We first establish the patterns of use -both linguistic and social -in caregiver speech and then investigate whether these patterns of use are evident in the child speech. Our findings show that the acquisition of variation is highly variable dependent: some show age differentiation, others do not; some show acquisition of style shifting, others do not; some show correlations between caregiver input and child output, others do not. We interpret these findings in the light of community norms, social recognition and sociolinguistic value in the acquisition of variation at these early stages.1 We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council for award no RES-000-22-0447 and the British Academy for award no. SG/45936. This research was also supported in part by the program Apprentissages, connaissances et société funded by the ANR (French national agency for research). We thank Paul Foulkes, Jean-Pierre Chevrot, and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. We would also like to thank Moira Smith, our invaluable on-site fieldworker, and the caregivers and children of Buckie who so warmly welcomed us into their hooses.Brought to you by | Purdue University Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 5/28/15 11:59 PM 286 J. Smith et al.

Children’s Deviation in the Acquisition of Variable Linguistic Gender Patterns

“…Labov, 1964;Roberts, 1994;Roberts, 1997a;Roberts & Labov, 1995;Kerswill, 1996;Chambers, 1992Chambers, , 2002Foulkes, Docherty & Watt, 2005;Smith, Durham & Fortune, 2007;Tagliamonte & Molfenter, 2007;Smith, Durham & Richards, 2013). Some studies have examined the pattern of acquisition of sociolinguistic variation by children (e.g.…”

“…Some studies have examined the pattern of acquisition of sociolinguistic variation by children (e.g. Smith et al 2007;Smith et al 2013) as well as the order in which social and linguistic constraints are acquired (e.g. Labov, 1989;Roberts, 1994;Tagliamonte & A previous study (Habib, 2017) compared the use of the variable (q) (realized as the rural uvular voiceless stop [q] or urban glottal stop [ʔ]) in the speech of the same parents and children and showed that although children do not acquire the frequencies that exist in their immediate environment, they acquire the linguistic gender differences in their community; boys, like men, use the rural form [q] much more than girls.…”

“…In sociolinguistic research, while the primary caregiver is considered the most influential person in the initial developmental stage of a child"s speech (Labov, 2010:8;Smith et al 2013), it is observed that children can deviate from their caregivers" speech and adopt the speech that is most common or acceptable by the community (Labov, 2010(Labov, , 2012 or the speech of their peers (Labov, 1972:304;Romaine, 1995;Kerswill & Williams, 2000;Chambers, 2002;Starks & Bayard, 2002;Ghimenton, Chevrot & Billiez, 2013). It has also been observed that children can adjust their linguistic behavior according to the social setting and situation (Patterson, 1992;Roberts, 1994Roberts, , 1997bDí az-Campos, 2005;Smith et al 2007;Khattab, 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, research comparing variation in the speech of children and their caregivers or parents has shown that children as young as three years of age can replicate the sociolinguistic variation patterns of their caregivers but do not necessarily replicate their frequencies (Smith et al 2007;Smith et al 2013). The replication of frequencies depends on the variable (Smith et al 2013).…”

“…The replication of frequencies depends on the variable (Smith et al 2013). In other words, children acquire the linguistic patterns or structures of adults, i.e.…”