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!

Good grief you’re exhausting.
I’m Irish and you’re easily the most offensive thing on this thread. I my opinion.

DS has a local NE accent, although not as thick as mine. He went to a childminder from being 1-7, she was quite well spoken and I wonder if he picked up a how he still speaks now at 11 from that environment. However DP is Irish and he's picked up none of her accent.

Find this interesting too. My grandmother was Geordie moved to London young yet still I have the odd word that apparently is Geordie eg the way I pronounce "worry". I think the odd words creep in we moved to South Coast and my children have pronounciation of odd words which irritate me immensely eg "because" I have told them they are having elocution lessons to iron these out 😂

Keep tugging that forelock.

👍🤣

On the subject of speaking other languages with an accent, I was told by a German friend that I speak German with a noticeable Black Forest area accent. I was nonplussed by this til I remembered my German teacher at school telling us that she spent her year abroad as a student in that part of Germany. Presumably she picked up the accent and we mimicked her.
My DH on the other hand, was brought up bilingual and didn't go to nursery etc so spent more or less all of his time from 0-5 years old with his Mum, but he speaks her language technically accurately but with a very English accent - he is never mistaken for a native speaker, either here or in that country. His sisters are technically less proficient but have far more authentic accents and don't seem to be immediately identified as English by local people in the same way that DH is.

Fucking hell, that’s some leap from Camilla to An Gorta Mór!

I’ve heard plenty of accents described as thick. And plenty of people too. The two are not the same. Kindly, how about a nice sit down and a cup of tea?

My son's friend (P) has lived here since he was 1 so almost 16years and before he acquired language.

Ps parents were very keen to get involved locally and have made lots of local friends. They aren't insular.

Most of Ps friends have a broad local accent which is very distinctive.

P's parents still have distinct Polish accents.

P also speaks with a very strong Polish accent.

Ps sister who is about 10 I think has the local accent.

So strange.

DSD has a strong Bolton accent but never lived there. Picked it up from her mother even though she lived in Spain for 14 years. Her dad's accent is not Bolton but is Lancastrian. Apparently her Spanish accent is local to where she lived.

My accent is neither my dad's or mum's or where I grew up, though all three are very distinctive. I think I picked up RP from the TV and stuck with it.

I am from Hastings (South East) and my DP is from Stoke (Midlands) but for the most part out 2yr old DD has a North Manchester twang! It is where she is growing up and her nursery school carers and peers all have quite a strong Manchester accent so I suppose she is picking up the lingo of her home just as we did! 🙂

Oh! I've just described an accent as "broad" does that mean I'm calling the people with that accent fat?

The traveller culture is very strong and the DC are likely to see members of their community as their peers, with whom they share norms such as speech patterns, over and above the other people they engage with. When exposed to different accents there is typically an element of choice and of direction at play in terms of what is adopted by children. For example, i was never allowed to pronounce certain words in the local way by my parents, and as a result have a softer regional accent than many local people.

I studied linguistics for a long time.

The basic answer is people are convergent or divergent. People-pleasing types tend to converge their accent to the local one/the person they're speaking to. This is also why some kids pick up American accents from YouTubers they like and watch a lot.

Divergents stick with the same regardless of where they live, with their accent usually originating from their childhood peers rather than parents (in the case of it being their second language they usually end up with a similar sounding accent to their main teacher/source of the language). I have an aunt who is a Scouser, moved to Australia 40 years ago and still sounds just as Scouse.

Obviously there are exceptions to this based on sounds. Every baby can hear every sound in every language individually until they're a few months old. After that it narrows to the ones they hear. So that's why, for example, a lot of Asian cultures pronounce "l" as "r", because they literally can't hear a different "l" sound - they lost it as a baby.

If you're interested in child language acquisition specifically, there are lots of interesting books and studies on that.

Fair enough…I am a HSP, as are around 20% of population, so that maybe means I’m more susceptible to adapting to social norms.

I expect a lot of kids though fall into this as the norm though. We are social creatures, and there are few people age 11 who don’t want to “fit in” especially when trying to make new friends.

Thick as in thickness, dense. Not meaning stupid. A “thick accent” is a very normal term where I’m from and it isn’t remotely insulting.

I have a thick Glaswegian accent 🤷🏻‍♀️ I wouldn’t take offence if someone else described my accent as such.

Sigh. I speak with what most would consider RP and I spent most of my childhood growing up in a 'council estate' where no one else spoke like me. I don't consider it an accent as you've described it there because to me accents are regional- the way I speak gives no indication of where I'm from. You considering RP as 'prestigious' is also subjective. Take that chip off your shoulder.

The OP describes her own accent as "thick". You notice "strong French regional accents". She notices "strong British or Irish regional accents". If the OP had used the word "strong" instead of "thick" would you have answered the OP rather than take offence at use of the word?

I’ve found there tends to be a distinct Glasgow South-Asian accent, even in colleagues and friends who were born and raised in Scotland, speaking fluent English and often with it being their first language.

I’ve wondered about this. We sponsored a Ukrainian family who arrived here with no English at all (except for Mum). Within a year the children spoke fluent English with a very heavy local accent. Three years on and they don’t have even a slight hint of Ukrainian to their accent, you’d think they’d been born and raised here.

I think it would be different if they’d already spoken English when they arrived. Mum spoke a bit of English and she still has an obvious Ukrainian accent.

I love accents they definitely do make a person. I'm Scottish through and through. My daughter is Scottish but mixed race (Pakistani) her dad is fluent but speaks his mother tongue a lot and did to my daughter growing up so she picked both languages..... it did work lol! She knows the basics but understands more than she speaks. She's 100% sounds like me. He had a son with her wife and he's been speaking to him in his mother tongue and my daughter speaks to him in Scottish. He will go to the local school but let's hope he picks up more than my daughter did 😂😂😂

Yes, I can testify that it really is. However, I did. I have, and have always had, what could be described as a thick RP accent. (Though not quite as thick as my mother’s, and my mothers isn’t quite as thick as her mother’s… so we’re improving.)

I retained it through comprehensive school in an area with a completely different accent, despite horrendous bullying, including by most of the teachers. I think because I felt it was dishonest to try and change it, somehow? Plus I always felt so visible that any attempt to tone my accent down would have been instantly noticed and pounced on. I pretty much coped by not speaking to anyone but a few trusted friends.

Overthinking this a bit? 'thick' just means heavy and immersive. I have a 'thick' RP accent - which gets some stick occasinally.

No a 'thick accent' is for any strong accent, not just Irish?

I think that children who speak English with a heavy regional accent will retain this, as opposed to children who are learning English for the first time who will automatically learn the words as they are spoken locally.