The perception of familiar and unfamilar accents by bilingual and monolingual children

In large urban cities, children typically grow-up in a diverse multicultural environment. Depending on their local language environment, children are often exposed to regional as well as foreign-accents. This study investigated whether children’s accent processing is affected by the variability in their ambient language environment. English monolingual and Sylheti-English bilingual children were assessed on their ability to identify sentences in three accent conditions: London-English (familiar to all), Sylheti-accented English (only familiar to the bilinguals), Spanishaccented English (unfamiliar to all). All children were most accurate in the London-English accent condition, however the groups differed with their dominant familiar accent: the monolinguals were more accurate at recalling the London-English sentences than the bilinguals, and the bilinguals were more accurate in the Sylheti-accented condition than the monolinguals. The results suggest that variation in linguistic experience in early life, give rise to differences in the processing of familiar and unfamiliar accented speech.