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Article published In:
Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 13:3 (2023) ► pp.327–374

Children as agents of language change

Diachronic evidence from Latin American Spanish phonology

ORCID logo | West Chester University
ORCID logo | Texas A&M University
This paper explores the operation of child language acquisition as a critical factor in some forms of language change. It proposes a sociohistorical model that incorporates the potential for young children to function as linguistic agents in certain environments, characterized by unpredictable variation in the input, lack of normative mechanisms, and the possibility for the emergence of peer networks among children. The model is then applied to explain a well-documented but poorly understood phonological change in the history of Latin American Spanish: the simplification of the system of sibilants in 16th-century Colonial Spanish. This change was nestled in ecological environments characterized by intense contact among L1 and L2 speakers of several varieties of Iberian and non-Iberian languages, as well as the rapid breakdown and reshaping of social networks. We argue that, in the absence of strong normative pressures, the advantages of certain options for early acquisition were crucial in the eventual creation and generalization of a new sociolinguistic norm. This study is methodologically innovative in that it combines not just archival evidence and sociohistorical information, but also present-day acquisitional data. The latter offers a piece often missing in sociohistorical accounts of language change.
Keywords: child language acquisition, language change, Spanish, historical sociolinguistics, sibilants
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Early theoretical approaches: Can young children lead language change?
  • 3.Recent findings from child acquisition of variation
    • 3.1Acquisition of spoken languages in unsystematically variable natural settings
    • 3.2Acquisition of new sign languages
    • 3.3Experimental studies of variation acquisition
  • 4.Young children as language change leaders: A sociohistorical model
    • 4.1Condition #1: Unsystematic variation without clear social correlates in the input
    • 4.2Condition #2: Lack of effective systems to impose conformity on community norms
    • 4.3Condition #3: Emergence of peer networks among young children
  • 5.Case study: Early Colonial Spanish (ECS) sibilants
    • 5.1Sibilants in medieval Castilian and ECS: An introduction
    • 5.2The ecology of sibilants in early colonial Spanish
      • 5.2.1The external ecology of sibilants in early colonial Spanish
      • 5.2.2The internal ecology of sibilants in early colonial Spanish
    • 5.3The better known: Sibilants in child language acquisition
      • 5.3.1Developmental constraints on the acquisition of sibilants
      • 5.3.2Sibilant systems cross-linguistically
      • 5.3.3Monolingual vs. multilingual child sibilant acquisition
      • 5.3.4Child acquisition and the diachrony of sibilant systems
    • 5.4The lesser known: Towards a new account of ECS sibilants
  • 6.Discussion and implications for historical sociolinguistics
    • a.Acquisition errors vs. acquisition-driven innovations
    • b.Usual vs. ‘unusual’ socialization patterns in child acquisition
    • c.Acquisition across the lifespan
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 21 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.21033.san
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Barrière, Isabelle, Valerie Shafer & Suzanne van der Feest
2024. Chapter 12. Variation in phonological and morphosyntactic development in multilingual pre-schoolers. In Multilingual Acquisition and Learning [Studies in Bilingualism, 67], ► pp. 324 ff. DOI logo
Moyna, María Irene & Pablo E. Requena
2024. Chapter 7. Tracing the emergence of the voseo/tuteo semantic split in Río de la Plata second person subjunctives. In Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 14], ► pp. 150 ff. DOI logo
Sanz-Sánchez, Israel
2024. Chapter 1. Language acquisition across the lifespan in historical sociolinguistics. In Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 14], ► pp. 2 ff. DOI logo
Sharma, Devyani
2024. Chapter 6. Language acquisition across the lifespan and the emergence of new varieties. In Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 14], ► pp. 127 ff. DOI logo
Shin, Naomi
2024. Chapter 2. Monolingual and bilingual child language acquisition and language change. In Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 14], ► pp. 44 ff. DOI logo
Moyna, María Irene & Israel Sanz-Sánchez
2023. Out of the mouths of babes: children and the formation of the Río de la Plata Spanish address system. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 9:2 ► pp. 189 ff. DOI logo
Riverin-Coutlée, Josiane, Enkeleida Kapia, Conceição Cunha & Jonathan Harrington
2022. Vowels in urban and rural Albanian: the case of the Southern Gheg dialect. Phonetica 79:5 ► pp. 459 ff. DOI logo

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