Infants' Discrimination of Familiar and Unfamiliar Accents in Speech

Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
Joseph ButlerRobin Panneton

Abstract

This study investigates infants' discrimination abilities for familiar and unfamiliar regional English accents. Using a variation of the head-turn preference procedure, 5-month-old infants demonstrated that they were able to distinguish between their own South-West English accent and an unfamiliar Welsh English accent. However, this distinction was not seen when two unfamiliar accents (Welsh English and Scottish English) were presented to the infants, indicating they had not acquired the general ability to distinguish between regional varieties, but only the distinction between their home accent and unfamiliar regional variations. This ability was also confirmed with 7-month-olds, challenging recent claims that infants lose their sensitivity to dialects at around that age. Taken together, our results argue in favor of an early sensitivity to the intonation system of languages, and to the early learning of accent-specific intonation and potentially segmental patterns. Implications for the development of accent normalization abilities are discussed.

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Citations

Mar 5, 2016·Frontiers in Psychology·Ranka Bijeljac-BabicThierry Nazzi
Jan 16, 2014·Journal of Child Language·Tessa Bent
Mar 19, 2014·Developmental Science·Alejandrina CristiaEmmanuel Dupoux
Jul 1, 2017·Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·Michael C FrankDaniel Yurovsky
Jul 5, 2017·Developmental Science·Sarah C Creel
Feb 26, 2013·Child Development·Christine KitamuraCatherine T Best
Aug 30, 2013·Journal of Child Language·Laura WagnerJohn K Pate
Feb 28, 2021·Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·Nikola PaillereauKateřina Chládková
Mar 5, 2021·Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science·Carolyn Quam, Sarah C Creel
Feb 24, 2021·Cognition·Konstantina Zacharaki, Nuria Sebastian-Galles
May 29, 2021·Cognition·Loretta GaspariniNatalie Boll-Avetisyan

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