25 November 2020

From categorisation to characterisation: children’s perceptions of regional accent variation

Ella Jeffries

Adults can categorise speakers via variable properties of speech, e.g. inferring regional accent from a speaker’s segmental pronunciations. Linguistic discrimination in the form of ‘accentism’ then derives from the associations that listeners make between a speaker’s accent and negative social judgements. In adults, these associations are often implicit and may not manifest as explicit attitudes (McKenzie and Carrie, 2018).

The focus of my work is on understanding how these sociolinguistic perceptions and judgements develop amongst children. My previous research (Jeffries, 2019) has found that children from as young as 3-4 years old are able to group speakers by the segmental variables that separate regional accents. Furthermore, children with more exposure to regional variation were found to have an advantage in such a categorisation task. These findings have potentially important repercussions for how social judgements based on accent develop in childhood. In this talk I will focus on the methodology of the new study I am pursuing with my colleagues, Dr Laurel Lawyer and (nearly Dr!) Amanda Cole, named ‘Accent the Positive’. This project (funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant) aims to determine to what degree accent stereotypes are already present in children starting primary school, as little is known about how and when these associations form. The research design involves measuring 5-year-old children’s neural activity (ERPs) while they take part in an adapted Implicit Association Test (IAT), providing two measurements of potential unconscious bias. The paradigm tests children’s implicit attitudes towards Standard Southern British English (SSBE), compared to two non-standard regional accents: Essex (a local, regional accent), and Yorkshire (a non-local, regional accent).