More than just accent? The role of dialect words in children's language-based social judgments

Recent research suggests that young children are capable of distinguishing between phonetically dissimilar spoken accents yet have difficulty in distinguishing between phonetically similar accents. The current studies aimed to determine whether the presence of dialect-specific vocabulary enhances young children's ability to categorize speakers. In Study 1, 4- to 7-year-old children performed tasks in which they matched speakers based on the dialect-specific vocabulary the speakers used. Participants were successful in matching speakers based on vocabulary at a rate significantly greater than chance. In Study 2, participants performed a task in which they inferred a speaker's future dialect-specific vocabulary use based on the speaker's previous vocabulary use. Participants were able to infer a speaker's vocabulary use at a rate significantly greater than chance, and participants also showed social preference for and selective trust of speakers who used the participants' native dialect vocabulary over those who used a non-native dialect vocabulary. These interesting results suggest that when accent differences are too subtle for children to categorize speakers, dialect-specific vocabulary may enhance young children's ability to categorize a speaker. The results of preference and selective trust questions also suggest that children as young as 4 years use their knowledge of a speaker's vocabulary to guide their preferred social interactions, choosing to interact with others who speak similarly to them.