Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers
Both children and adults demonstrate biases against non-native speakers. However, in some situations, adults act more generously towards non-native speakers than towards native speakers. In particular, adults judge errors from non-native speakers less harshly, presumably because they expect such err...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.855130/full |
| _version_ | 1818278597349081088 |
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| author | Alexandra Rett Katherine S. White |
| author_facet | Alexandra Rett Katherine S. White |
| author_sort | Alexandra Rett |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Both children and adults demonstrate biases against non-native speakers. However, in some situations, adults act more generously towards non-native speakers than towards native speakers. In particular, adults judge errors from non-native speakers less harshly, presumably because they expect such errors. In the present study, we asked whether 5-6-year-old children place less weight on errors from speakers with a foreign accent. In Experiment 1, 5- and 6-year-old children (N = 80) listened to pairs of either native or foreign-accented speakers (between-subjects) label objects. For native speaker pairings, children preferred information provided by grammatical speakers over information from speakers who made subject-verb agreement errors. In contrast, children chose between foreign-accented speakers at chance. In Experiment 2 (N = 40), children preferred information from grammatical foreign-accented speakers over information from foreign-accented speakers who produced word-order violations. These findings constitute the first demonstration that children treat speech errors differently based on a speaker’s language background. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T23:19:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4c3d063bbbac40cebef677d642fa4034 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T23:19:58Z |
| publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-4c3d063bbbac40cebef677d642fa40342022-12-22T00:08:19ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782022-04-011310.3389/fpsyg.2022.855130855130Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native SpeakersAlexandra Rett0Katherine S. White1Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, CanadaBoth children and adults demonstrate biases against non-native speakers. However, in some situations, adults act more generously towards non-native speakers than towards native speakers. In particular, adults judge errors from non-native speakers less harshly, presumably because they expect such errors. In the present study, we asked whether 5-6-year-old children place less weight on errors from speakers with a foreign accent. In Experiment 1, 5- and 6-year-old children (N = 80) listened to pairs of either native or foreign-accented speakers (between-subjects) label objects. For native speaker pairings, children preferred information provided by grammatical speakers over information from speakers who made subject-verb agreement errors. In contrast, children chose between foreign-accented speakers at chance. In Experiment 2 (N = 40), children preferred information from grammatical foreign-accented speakers over information from foreign-accented speakers who produced word-order violations. These findings constitute the first demonstration that children treat speech errors differently based on a speaker’s language background.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.855130/fullaccent-based expectationsforeign accentsgrammatical errorsspeaker reliabilityspeech errors |
| spellingShingle | Alexandra Rett Katherine S. White Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers Frontiers in Psychology accent-based expectations foreign accents grammatical errors speaker reliability speech errors |
| title | Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers |
| title_full | Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers |
| title_fullStr | Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers |
| title_full_unstemmed | Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers |
| title_short | Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers |
| title_sort | children treat grammatical errors differently for native and non native speakers |
| topic | accent-based expectations foreign accents grammatical errors speaker reliability speech errors |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.855130/full |
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