Developmental data on a French sociolinguistic variable: Post-consonantal word-final /R/

To begin, we review three theoretical problem areas in the field of research into phonological variation in children. Next, we present the results of a cross-sectional study of two groups of children, aged 6 to 7 years and 10 to 12 years, relating to the deletion of post-consonantal word-final /R/ in French (production and judgments of acceptability). In an experimental study, we then examine the mechanism involved in the learning of words with a variable /R/. Finally, the interpretation of the results within the framework of a cognitive conception of variation leads us to four conclusions: (i) children have a tendency to copy adult surface forms rather than to encode a variable rule; (ii) orthography causes the late encoding of certain variable /R/s; (iii) the establishment of linguistic factors precedes that of social factors; and (iv) age-related changes are not guided by the sociolinguistic value that groups consciously attribute to the variables.

[1]  P. Kerswill.  Children, adolescents, and language change , 1996, Language Variation and Change.

[2]  W. Dressler,et al.  Sociophonological methods in the study of sociolinguistic variation in Viennese German , 1982, Language in Society.

[3]  William Labov,et al.  Learning to talk Philadelphian: Acquisition of short a by preschool children , 1995, Language Variation and Change.

[4]  Susanna Tatiana Kunstmann.  GOMBERT, JEAN ÉMILE. Le développement métalinguistique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. 1990GOMBERT, JEAN ÉMILE. Le développement métalinguistique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. 1990. , 1992 .

[5]  Julie Roberts.  Hitting a moving target: Acquisition of sound change in progress by Philadelphia children , 1997, Language Variation and Change.

[6]  Brian MacWhinney,et al.  The Handbook of Child Language , 1995 .

[7]  William Labov,et al.  The child as linguistic historian , 1989, Language Variation and Change.

[8]  J. Roberts,et al.  Acquisition of variable rules: a study of (-t, d) deletion in preschool children , 1997, Journal of Child Language.

[9]  Jean-Pierre Chevrot,et al.  L'effet Buben : de la linguistique diachronique à l'approche cognitive (et retour) , 1999 .

[10]  Mark S. Seidenberg,et al.  Language Acquisition and Use: Learning and Applying Probabilistic Constraints , 1997, Science.

[11]  S. Romaine.  The Language of Children and Adolescents: The Acquisition of Communicative Competence , 1984 .

[12]  Willem J. M. Levelt,et al.  A theory of lexical access in speech production , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[13]  W. Wolfram,et al.  Structural variability in phonological development: Final nasals in Vernacular Black English , 1989 .

[14]  B. Laks.  Langage et pratiques sociales [Étude sociolinguistique d'un groupe d'adolescents] , 1983 .

[15]  Paul Kerswill,et al.  Electropalatography in the analysis of connected speech processes , 1989 .

[16]  J. Patterson.  The development of sociolinguistic phonological variation patterns for (ING) in young children , 1993 .

[17]  A. Kihm,et al.  Le Parler ordinaire : la langue dans les ghettos noirs des Etats-Unis , 1978 .

[18]  David Sankoff,et al.  Linguistic Variation: Models and Methods , 1978 .

[19]  Julia Lee Roberts,et al.  Acquisition of Variable Rules: (-t,d) Deletion and (ing) Production in Preschool Children , 1994 .

[20]  Édouard Bourciez,et al.  Phonétique française : étude historique , 1967 .

[21]  F. Gadet.  Variabilité, variation, variété: le français d'Europe , 1996, Journal of French Language Studies.

[22]  Developmental and sociolinguistic variation in the speech of brisbane schoolchildren , 1985 .

[23]  Rebecca Treiman,et al.  Effects of Dialect on American and British Children's Spelling , 1997 .

[24]  P. Kerswill,et al.  Creating a New Town koine: Children and language change in Milton Keynes , 2000, Language in Society.

[25]  Jean-Emile Gombert,et al.  Le développement métalinguistique , 1990 .

[26]  W. Labov.  Principles Of Linguistic Change , 1994 .