Accent acquisition in young children

[argyllherewecome]

I'm a teacher but have been off work sick so I've had loads of time to think (for a change!). Anyway, this is something that has fascinated me for ages and I'm sure there are posters here who know about this.
My school is fairly diverse. Most children with ESL parents come into school either with no English or basic words that have a distinct mother tongue accent. They lose this within several years usually, and by then they have a local accent.

I've noticed though some children do not adopt a local accent.
Irish Travellers: despite being born and raised here they nearly exclusively all have a very thick Irish accent, and this doesn't change over time. There are a few other children that have parents or a mother at least from different parts of the country, and they keep a very strong regional accent from them, which doesn't change much over time. This is an exception rather than a rule though.

Any language experts that can explain how this happens? I'm the embarrassing sort of person that goes somewhere for a few days and I pick up accents!

My father was from Cumbria, my mother from south Staffordshire. I grew up in Norfolk. When I started school, I immediately changed from having a Mommy (typical pronunciation in the West Midlands) to having a Mummy and wearing pumps to wearing plimsolls. However, l never picked up a Norfolk accent although, apparently, sometimes the letter o sounds more like an ooh - very Norfolk. I also slip into Norfolk phrases and sayings every so often. Otherwise, I know that certain words have a more Midlands/northern sound courtesy of my parents. The letter u as in butter is a giveaway. I put this down to a lifetime of hearing problems in that the familiar voices of my family were easier to hear and mimic when I was small.

I know what you mean but a bit harsh - perhaps OP should have said “strong” accent? I think we know what they meant, maybe a gentle “strong would be a better term than thick for an accent” would have been the polite way to correct?

How utterly ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with describing an accent as "thick". It's perfectly normal, unproblematic terminology.

And as for the idea that travellers don't integrate because they are stigmatised. Sure 😁

I'm sure the Irish Traveller community is very grateful that you are so offended on their behalf.

Op means thick as in strong, stop looking for something to be offended by.

Oh, and @StillLifeWithEggs, please stop trying to find offence when none was intended in the first place. You know exactly what was meant.

Both my DC have a generic northern accent, not the local scouse accent.

Both DH and I have northern accents (Yorkshire and Lancashire).

I dont know why the DC haven't picked up the local accent.

@StillLifeWithEggs is evidently unaware that ‘thick’ has other meanings apart from ‘stupid’.

Could it be people whose first language is English keep the parental regional accent, as they are not learning a new vocabulary?

Funnily enough that particular PP is comfortable with using the word "strong" to describe an accent, but for some reason she has yet to articulate, the word "thick" when used to mean exactly the same thing is very bad and deserving of much finger wagging.

This is interesting! My DH is Welsh born and raised, when he speaks in Welsh it is with a very strong local accent, but when he speaks English it's BBC newsreader and also gets the 'you don't sound Welsh' comments 🤣

I've lost my broad Lancashire accent after living here for 15 years and sometimes sound a bit local myself, am very interested to see what DD's accent will be like.

My friends children all speak as if they went to Roedean rather than a local comprehensive. My friend has a pronounced Liverpool accent, father very strong German accent. It's fascinating.

I went to drama school and in those days you had to learn RP. I had to go to special.lessons as it was hard to remove my regional accent.

I was bought up in the east end. My 2 siblings have very heavy cockney accents, mine is very RP. One parent came from Europe and spoke very little English, the other from the UK and had a heavy accent from their own country. I don’t know why my accent developed differently to my siblings.

My thick Northern accent is thick even to me. I know it’s a northern accent, I can hear how in annunciate words. There’s no judgement in that (it’s my own accent), it’s just prominent/pronounced/noticeable/distinct…

I think any accent other than RP can be thick, as it’s a deviation from the set RP standard.

Accents are so strange! Some of it may also relate to identity. 1st generation children who have a different language at home may have a strong urge to fit in so a strong motivation to pick up the local accent. More insular communities may incentivise the opposite.
Some also may be the personality. I'm like the OP and pick up accents easily, to the extent where I've been outside the UK for a decade and now embarrassing apparently don't sound like English is my first language any more 🙈🙈. My child is bilingual in English and Portuguese, but due to the quite international circles we move in she can switch between European portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, and British English/American English. No idea what 'real' accent she'll end up with.

Do you think "thick" means stupid?

In this context I'm pretty sure the OP means strong, broad, distinctive, or noticeable.

I'm quite proud of the fact that I have a "thick" Manx accent - or at least that's what my English friends tell me. (Well I at least hope that they mean distinctive or noticeable...)

Get off your accent horse

I’ve taught many children who speak English as an additional language and I think it makes a difference if a child is bilingual. Speaking a completely different home language at home and the local dialect/ accent at school seems very usual. However for those who speak a different (dialect of) English at home and within a close community of similar speakers it’s different. I think, in part, it comes down to identity and your sense of belonging.

What’s a Thick Irish accent?

Yoh do realise there’s more than one accent in Ireland? Just like every other country?

🙄 Bet you could start an argument in an empty room

We live in the south east but DH is from the northwest. He does not have a particularly strong accent but does have the short ‘a’ sound in bath and grass etc instead of the longer south east one and a hard ‘g’ at the end of words.

DS (3.5) born and bread south east and has hints of Estuary English…. But always the short an and often the hard g. Very interesting! DH had paternity leave when DS was 9-12 months and I went back to work, I’ve always wondered if that was it? Is that the age when children really start listening to speech?

I moved out of Liverpool before I was 10 and had a really thick scouse accent and even though I’m still Merseyside I didn’t realise how scouse I still was until a few years ago, when some woman in a queue invited me to her caravan for a drink but told me she hated my accent 😂

You're not understanding the context of the word 'thick' here. It is not to mean 'stupid'. Rather, it means a 'strong accent'.

As an example: 'That's such a thick accent you could cut it with a knife'.

I was born in London and then lived in Cornwall from ages 2-13. Not a hint of a Cornish accent ever. I’ve sounded like Barbara Windsor all my life.

We moved from London to the West Midlands when my daughter was 4. Dh has a Black Country accent (although diluted from living in London for 10 years and having to tone it down for work). Dd is 11 now still has her slightly posh west London accent, no hint of Black Country (dh would nip it in the bud anyway, his accent held him back).

My almost 5 year old was born here. She has the same slightly posh west London accent as her sister and a bit of Babs like me when she’s being lazy.

My husband detests the accent here and the colloquialisms and won’t stand for the children picking them up. He’s devastated that for many reasons, we had to move back here.

My friends son moved here from age 5 from southern Europe. Kept a mild lilt all through primary school and dropped it overnight when they started secondary school to sound way more local accent youff

I think it’s social networks and degree of assimilation. I have a non-British accent and my dc have a fairly non-descript British accent, as in they have lived in a region their whole lives but do not have a strong regional British accent, but definitely don’t have my accent even though I’m their primary parent. They have lots of friends plus Dh who speak with similar fairly non-regional British accents. I don’t have a strong attachment to my home country, language, family and have worked hard to assimilate.

I'm sure OP does.
I've been spoken of as having 'an English accent' by Americans, despite there being dozens of English accents. British people often talk about 'an American accent' when a southern drawl is a very different thing from a NY accent. Generalising isn't the same as insulting.

I think we all know what OP meant, but some people just seem to want to start a fight.