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

Smith, Jennifer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1316624285 ISBN 13: 9781316624289

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2024

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?

About this title

About the Authors

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• ISBN 10: 1316624285
• ISBN 13: 9781316624289
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 234