Vocalic Intrusions in Consonant Clusters in Child-Directed vs. Adult-Directed Speech

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Nina Gram Garmann¹  Pernille Hansen²  Hanne Gram Simonsen²  Elisabeth Holm¹  Eirik Tengesdal²  Brechtje Post⁴  Elinor Payne⁵ 

[1] Department of Early Childhood Education, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University;MultiLing – Center for Multilingualism in Society Across the Lifespan, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo;Department of Humanities, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences;Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom;Faculty of Linguistics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

关键词: child-directed speech (CDS);    consonant clusters;    language acquisition;    Norwegian;    prosodic-phonetic biases;    vocalic intrusions;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.688002

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In this paper, we investigate a prosodic-phonetic feature in child-directed speech within a dynamic, complex, interactive theoretical framework. We focus on vocalic intrusions, commonly occurring in Norwegian word initial consonant clusters. We analysed child-directed speech from nine Norwegian-speaking mothers to their children, aged 2;6, 4, and 6 years, and compared the incidence and duration of vocalic intrusions in initial consonant clusters in these data with those in adult-directed speech and child speech. When viewed overall, vocalic intrusion was found to be similar in incidence in child- and adult-directed speech. However, closer examination revealed differential behaviour in child-directed speech for certain conditions. Firstly, a difference emerged for one particular phonetic context: While vocalic intrusions in /Cr/ clusters are frequent in adult-directed speech, their presence is near-categorical in child-directed speech. Secondly, we found that the duration of vocalic intrusions was longer in child- than in adult-directed speech, but only when directed to 2;6-year-olds. We argue that vocalic intrusions in child-directed speech may have both a bonding as well as a didactic function, and that these may vary according to the age of the child being addressed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY