TY - JOUR
T1 - Stop contrast acquisition in child Kriol
T2 - evidence of stable transmission of phonology post Creole formation
AU - Bundgaard-Nielsen, Rikke L.
AU - Baker, Brett J.
AU - Bell, Elise A.
AU - Wang, Yizhou
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2024/11/1
Y1 - 2024/11/1
N2 - Many Aboriginal Australian communities are undergoing language shift from traditional Indigenous languages to contact varieties such as Kriol, an English-lexified Creole. Kriol is reportedly characterised by lexical items with highly variable phonological specifications, and variable implementation of voicing and manner contrasts in obstruents (Sandefur, 1986). A language, such as Kriol, characterised by this unusual degree of variability presents Kriol-acquiring children with a potentially difficult language-learning task, and one which challenges the prevalent theories of acquisition. To examine stop consonant acquisition in this unusual language environment, we present a study of Kriol stop and affricate production, followed by a mispronunciation detection study, with Kriol-speaking children (ages 4-7) from a Northern Territory community where Kriol is the lingua franca. In contrast to previous claims, the results suggest that Kriol-speaking children acquire a stable phonology and lexemes with canonical phonemic specifications, and that English experience would not appear to induce this stability.
AB - Many Aboriginal Australian communities are undergoing language shift from traditional Indigenous languages to contact varieties such as Kriol, an English-lexified Creole. Kriol is reportedly characterised by lexical items with highly variable phonological specifications, and variable implementation of voicing and manner contrasts in obstruents (Sandefur, 1986). A language, such as Kriol, characterised by this unusual degree of variability presents Kriol-acquiring children with a potentially difficult language-learning task, and one which challenges the prevalent theories of acquisition. To examine stop consonant acquisition in this unusual language environment, we present a study of Kriol stop and affricate production, followed by a mispronunciation detection study, with Kriol-speaking children (ages 4-7) from a Northern Territory community where Kriol is the lingua franca. In contrast to previous claims, the results suggest that Kriol-speaking children acquire a stable phonology and lexemes with canonical phonemic specifications, and that English experience would not appear to induce this stability.
KW - Creole
KW - first language acquisition
KW - linguistic variation
KW - phonology
KW - voicing contrasts
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85167513554&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0305000923000430
DO - 10.1017/S0305000923000430
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85167513554
SN - 0305-0009
JO - Journal of Child Language
JF - Journal of Child Language
ER -