Variation and contact-induced change in Javanese phonology among multilingual children in Indonesia
As Indonesian becomes more dominant in Indonesia, regional heritage languages, such as Javanese, may be
increasingly influenced by phonological transfer. The extent of these effects may depend upon a speaker’s region and social
background, as well as age of acquisition and proficiency in various languages. This study investigates the impact of these
factors on the Javanese production among multilingual children in East Java. Specifically, we analyze the distinction between
dental and retroflex coronal stops (/t̪/ /d̪̥ /, /ʈ/, /ɖ̥/), which phonemically contrast in Javanese, but not in Indonesian. The
data were elicited from 95 children in Malang, a large urban center, and Blitar, a smaller city. The findings indicate that
Javanese is shifting to a two-way contrast comparable to that of Indonesian; female and Malang speakers lead in this change. These
findings highlight the significance of social factors in children’s language acquisition, and illustrate ongoing changes in
Javanese.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical background
- 2.1Cross-linguistic phonological influence and language acquisition
- 2.2Children’s acquisition of sociolinguistic variation
- 3.Javanese coronal stop consonants
- 4.Field sites
- 4.1Malang and Blitar
- 4.2Research setting
- 5.Participants and method
- 6.Findings
- 7.Discussion
- 8.Concluding remarks
-
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