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Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Acquisition across the Lifespan
Edited by Anna Ghimenton, Aurélie Nardy and Jean-Pierre Chevrot
[Studies in Language Variation 26] 2021
► pp. 11–20

Chapter 1
Child language acquisition and sociolinguistic variation

ORCID logo | University of Glasgow
The majority of studies conducted on first language acquisition concentrates on the acquisition of standard varieties, where deterministic, or invariant, forms are the focus of research. At the same time, research in sociolinguistics has shown that language is full of variable forms which are governed by a series of interacting social and linguistic constraints on variant choice. Such variation is interesting from the perspective of acquisition because of the apparent challenge it presents to a young child: learning a language is alreadyhighly complexbut what happens when variation is added to the mix? The initial chapters in this volume focus on the analysis of variation in the speech of young children in a number of different languages worldwide and across different contexts of use in both production and perception. In doing so, they provide an excellent contribution to questions surrounding the acquisition of vernacular norms in the initial stages of acquisition and in later life.
Keywords: variation, acquisition, sociolinguistic
Published online: 16 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.26.01smi
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