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Hitting a moving target: Acquisition of sound change in progress by Philadelphia children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

Julie Roberts
Julie Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Vermont
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Abstract

Recent work in the acquisition of dialect has shown that children acquire patterns of stable variation and completed sound changes at a very early age. The present study looks at the acquisition of new sound changes by 3- and 4-year-old children. The results were consistent with previous findings in that, with critical exceptions, the children had acquired the changes. These results underscore the point that the dialect transmission period begins early – before the age of maximal peer group influence. In addition, as Labov (1994) suggested, one possible explanation for the frequent finding that women lead in changes from below is the asymmetry of the early childcare situation, which could advance female-dominated changes. The finding that children begin to learn their community norms at a very early age supports the possibility that this childcare asymmetry affects the progress of sound changes over time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1997 , pp. 249 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

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