Sociolinguistic Variation in Children's Language: Acquiring Community Norms (Studies in Language Variation and Change)

Sociolinguistic Variation in Children's Language: Acquiring Community Norms (Studies in Language Variation and Change)

by Mercedes Durham (Author), Mercedes Durham (Author), Jennifer Smith (Author)

Synopsis

How we vary our speech is fundamental in signalling who we are, where we're from and where we're going. How and when does such variation arise? Here, leading experts Jennifer Smith and Mercedes Durham address this question through a sociolinguistic analysis of the speech of preschool children in interaction with their primary caregivers. Bringing together two fields of linguistic research - variationist sociolinguistics and first language acquisition - the study focusses both qualitative and quantitative analysis of a range of variables to show when and how variation is acquired by young children, and the effect the caregiver's interaction has on this process. In doing so, they tackle a fundamental question in language research: when and how do children acquire the highly complex patterns of variation widely attested in adult speech?

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 232
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 30 Apr 2019

ISBN 10: 1107172616
ISBN 13: 9781107172616
Book Overview: Investigates when and how preschool children acquire the vernacular norms of the community they come from.

Author Bio
Jennifer Smith is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Glasgow. Her research is in language variation and change, concentrating on the origins and development of dialect from infancy onwards. Mercedes Durham is a Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Cardiff University. Her research looks at how linguistic variation and language change are acquired, transmitted and viewed by individual speakers and across successive generations.