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Article published In:
Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 9:1/2 (2020) ► pp.215–235

Dutch speech intelligibility in bilingual Turkish-Dutch children in Flanders

ORCID logo | Ghent University
| Ghent University
| Ghent University
ORCID logo | Ghent University

This study examines the Dutch intelligibility of a group of monolingual Dutch and bilingual Turkish-Dutch preschool children in Flanders, as rated by native Dutch listeners and measured by a Dutch intelligibility test. The intelligibility of the bilingual children is compared to that of the monolingual Dutch children, in order to examine whether age and/or task effects are similar or different in the two groups. The results revealed that intelligibility was affected by age, but showed no significant interaction between age and group. However, we found a significant interaction between age and task: children’s intelligibility increased with age for a word production as well as a sentence production task, but much more so for the latter than for the former. We discuss the results in relation to the children’s developing phonological systems, the age of exposure to Dutch and the nature of the test.

Keywords: intelligibility, early bilingualism, Turkish, Dutch, second language acquisition, age effect, task effect, exposure
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of the literature
    • 2.1Measuring intelligibility: A multitude of factors affecting the intelligibility of speech
    • 2.2Phonological development and intelligibility in bilingual children
  • 3.The present study
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Participants
      • 4.1.1Speakers
      • 4.1.2Listeners
    • 4.2Materials and tasks
      • 4.2.1Task 1: Word production
      • 4.2.2Task 2: Sentence production
      • 4.2.3Task 3: Story-telling
    • 4.3Procedure
    • 4.4Coding
    • 4.5Analysis
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Declaration of conflicting interest
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 8 January 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.19025.sim
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