Speech Science Forum - Ella Gregory

Developmental socio-phonetics is a growing field of research which examines how children acquire the ability to perceive and produce phonetic variation that is socially meaningful. Although stemming from sociolinguistics, few studies in this field have incorporated the semiotic theory that is core to much of current sociolinguistic research. As such, little is known about children’s ability to make use of the social, cultural and situational meanings associated with phonetic variants. In this talk, I present my PhD work investigating the sociolinguistic competence of 9–11-year-old children. In the first half of my talk, I look at children’s perceptual abilities related to accent variation, exploring the extent to which children can distinguish groups of phonetic variants that are socially meaningful and link these variants to other socio-cultural meanings. In the second half of my talk, I look at production across 4 variables (TH-fronting, /t/-glottaling, /l/-vocalisation, ING), examining whether children of this age use phonetic variants to take call on social meaning and take stance in interaction. Overall, I find evidence that 9–11-year-old- children can demonstrate socio-phonetic skills akin to what is seen in adult research but that this is constrained by individual differences, local context, and the phonetic variable at hand. This work expands our understanding of the socio-phonetic capabilities of pre-adolescent children whilst bringing forward new insights into how systems of sociolinguistic knowledge develop.