Speech production across situations and dialects:
Infants’ and children’s perception of accents
Early childhood
In the first experiment, we investigate whether infants learn speech sounds more effectively from a native-accented talker than from a
non-native one. Babies between 4 and 10 months of age are played utterances spoken by talkers with typical, standard Czech accent and by talkers with atypical, foreignized accent. Preliminary data (reported in this poster) suggest that the youngest, 4-month old, babies prefer listening to the typical over the foreignized accent while older infants do not seem to have such preferences. The four-month olds are now being tested on whether they not only preferentially listen to native-accented talkers, but also if they more efficiently learn new speech sounds from them.
This experiment is done jointly with Václav Jonáš Podlipský and Šárka Šimáčková (Palacký University).
Preschool age
In the second experiment, we test whether pre-school children have preferences for peers speaking their local over a regional dialect, and whether any such preference is modulated by the child’s own dialectal experience? Infants, older children and adults are known to favor native-accented over foreign-accented speakers: people prefer playing with, or trust more, a person who has a native accent than with someone who has a foreign accent. In this project we investigate whether similar preferences exist in children’s perception of regional accents of their language. Pre-school children from two regions, central Bohemia and Silesia, where distinct varieties of Czech are spoken, will be tested on their social peer preferences. Children will view photos of other kids and will hear utterances spoken in their own and in the other dialect. They will be asked to indicate which of two simultaneously presented kids they would like to play with. The project will show whether regional accent has similar effects as those previously reported for foreign accents, and if that effect is modulated by a child’s (multi-)dialectal exposure.
This experiment is done as a student internship project within the Open Science programme.