Comparing lexical and phonological development: a longitudinal study of two child learners of English
Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In this thesis, I compare the lexical and phonological development of two child learners of \nEnglish (Georgia and Charlotte) from the English-Davis corpus, available through the Phonbank \ndatabase (http://phonbank.talkbank.org/). I analyze the structure and content of the children's \nexpressive vocabularies at each relevant phonological milestone, which I compare to their \ndevelopment of consonants in syllable onsets. Very few correlations are found between the \nstructure of the children's lexicons and their individual patterns of phonological development. \nThese observations pose a challenge to the Lexical Restructuring Model (Metsala 1997), which \nposits the lexicon as the primary force driving children's phonological development. Instead, the \ndata reveal that patterns of phonological development are best understood in terms of the \nperceptual-articulatory phonological categories they involve, independent of the learners' \nlexicons. These findings are discussed in light of the PRIMIR and A-map models of language \ndevelopment (Werker & Curtin 2005; McAllister Byun, Inkelas & Rose 2016).
Author: Sarah Blackmore
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2777657487