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Chapter 8
Development of Speech Sounds and Cultural Variations in Speech & Language Production
Chapter Overview
The preceding chapters have focused primarily on language development, but frequent references have been made to
speech, and occasionally, speech sounds. It should be emphasized that for the child with normal hearing and typical
development, the speech sound system does not exist apart from language. The child acquires it and learns its
underlying rules at the same time that she acquires language.
Learners must be reminded, however, as we noted in
the opening chapter, that speech is not a synonym for language and that speech can exist apart from language, as it
Learning Outcomes
• Describe speech sounds using phonetics and distinctive features.
• Explain the emergence of speech sounds during the prelinguistic and one-word
stage.
• Discuss the development of speech sounds in two-word utterances and beyond.
Key Terms and Concepts
• Phoneme, p. 324
• Stop, p. 327
• Fricative, p. 327
• Affricate, p. 327
• Nasal, p. 328
• Lateral, p. 328
• Glide, p. 328
• Voicing, p. 328
• Marginal babbling, p. 331
• Babbling drift theory, p. 331
• Discontinuity theory, p. 331
• First words, p. 333
• Whole-word templates, p. 333
• Vowel processes, p. 339
• Coarticulation, p. 341
• Retentive coarticulation, p. 341
• Anticipatory coarticulation, p. 341
• Linear and nonlinear theories of speech production, p. 342
• Decreolization, p. 346
• Aspect, p. 349
• Hispanic English (HE), p. 350-353
• Asian English (AE), p. 353-355
• Native American English (NAE), p. 355-356
Points of Emphasis
1. Words are strings of speech sounds or phonemes, which are the building blocks of speech.
3. We begin by distinguishing between sound differences that matter and those that do not matter.
a. A phoneme is a speech sound that is recognized as a specific sound and is distinctly different from all other
4. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses symbols that differ from our English letters for some sounds.
5. The most basic approach for describing consonant speech sounds is the three-fold classification system used in
traditional phonetics. Each consonant is identified according to place of articulation, manner of articulation and
7. The idea of classifying speech sounds by contrast eventually led to a more elaborate system of describing speech
sounds known as the distinctive feature approach.
a. Distinctive feature theories view speech sounds as consisting of several constituents that make them
different from each other.
8. During the first year we see growth patterns that prepare the infant for speech production.
a. During the first 2 months, reflexive fussing, crying, grunt-like sounds, and vegetative sounds occur. These
quasi-resonant nuclei sounds have a low pitch and a muffled resonance quality.
b. It is at the end of the 2-4 month period that the vowels begin to become fully resonant nuclei with a full
range of frequencies and resonant characteristics.
f. There is a central controversy regarding the relationship between babbling and true speech.
i) According to babbling drift view, caregivers selectively reinforce child vocalizations, so that children’s
emerging phonological system is gradually shaped to fit the phonological system of their caregivers’
language. That is, children’s babblings drift into adult speech.
ii) Opposing this view is the discontinuity theory where babbling and true speech are two entirely separate
stages of development. Whatever relationship they might have to one another is almost coincidental.
The acquisition of true speech sounds, according to this view, is a slow and deliberate process.
iii) Both of these views have problems.
h. Children use whole-word templates in the early stages of the acquisition of first words.
i. Stoel-Gammon’s (1985) research revealed that at least 50% of her subjects in this age range used the
phonemes /h/, /w/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /m/, /n/, /k/, /g/, /f/, and /s/ in the word initial position of words in their
spontaneous speech and /p/, /t/, /k/, /n/, /r/, and /s/ in the word final position.
9. Emergence of speech sounds is defined as customary production, which means about half of children tend to use
these sounds in at least two word positions.
10. Mastery of speech sounds generally proceeds in this order: nasals, stops and glides (3-4 years), fricatives and
affricates (ages 3-8). A sound that presents trouble for some children is the /r/.
a. Sounds that are considered mastered appear in the speech of 90% of children at a given age.
11. Consonant clusters are created using /l/, /w/, /r/ and /s/ with other consonants.
a. As is true of phoneme development, cluster development is first focused on those containing stops, with
clusters involving fricatives emerging later. In addition to these trends, clusters containing two sounds
develop earlier than clusters containing three sounds. Clusters, therefore, are mastered between the ages of 4
to 8 years, with most children using mature productions during their fifth year.
12. The best indicator of sound system development is the extent to which others are able to understand the child and
there is data that informs us about intelligibility expectations.
a. During the child’s second year, she should be understood about 50% of the time. During her third year she is
13. Phonological views of development
a. The generative phonology theory introduced the rule level as part of the representation the learner develops
about phonemes as they are combined into larger units. Phonological rules pertain to the regularity that
14. When speech sounds are joined into words, they lose some of their individual characteristics.
a. We call the influence sounds have on one another in context coarticulation.
15. Languages also conform to particular patterns of stress that influence the degree of emphasis we put on syllables
16. We are still searching for a theory of phonological acquisition that addresses all relevant aspects of development.
17. A dialect typically corresponds with differences among groups of people who happen to be united by culture,
social class, or region.
a. The dialect spoken by any given group of people is neither superior nor inferior to the dialect spoken by any
other group of people.
18. Social/cultural dialects
a. The most studied and most controversial dialect in American English is African American English (AAE).
(1) When the pidgin becomes the primary language of a group of people, it is called a creole
language. At this point, the original nondominant language ceases to exist.
(2) As the language evolution continues, the creole language becomes increasingly similar to the
language of the dominant culture, a process called decreolization.
iii) There are at least 29 linguistic rules of AAE that vary from SAE rules. Many of these rules overlap the
rules of other dialects of SAE, especially the dialects of the South. See Table 8.3 on p. 348 for a
summary of selected characteristics of SAE and AAE.
(1) Some of the grammatical differences between AAE and SAE center on whether a rule is
obligatory.
(2) Some irregular rules in SAE are made regular in AAE.
(3) There are at least two differences between SAE and AAE in the production of negation.
(4) One of the most interesting characteristics of AAE is a syntactic device called aspect.
(5) There are vocabulary differences between AAE and SAE.
b. The history of Hispanic English (HE) is not as convoluted as the history of AAE because the historical
(2) Word order is an important aspect of English syntax, but Spanish uses more inflections on words
to convey meaning.
iii) The most common ways that Spanish speakers use English grammar include omission of forms (the
auxiliary verb is, pronouns, articles) and variation in use of forms (negatives, pronouns, questions,
noun–verb agreement).
c. To gain more respect for the problems inherent in describing Asian English (AE), allow yourself a brief
lesson in geography and then consider the languages spoken by the people who live in the countries that
comprise Asia and the Middle East.
i) There are not many ties, other than being in the same general geographic neighborhood, that bind all
these countries together and there is clearly no single Asian language that affects the production of
English to create what we are calling AE.
ii) See Table 8.4 on p. 355 for a comparison of selected characteristics of SAE and AE.
d. With 500 distinct tribal entities, each with a separate governing body, language, and culture, it is impossible
to discuss Native American English (NAE) as if this includes only one or a few variations.
i) Geography, lifestyle, and SES play a large role in the ways in which Native Americans learn and use
English.
ii) NAE is not a unitary variation of SAE. The dialectal variations of English spoken by Native
Americans reflect the phonological and syntactic influences of their tribal languages.
19. A regional dialect refers to a variety of language used by people living in a restricted geographic area, but within
that area several social dialects may be spoken by people who are grouped by factors other than geography.
a. Not all experts agree about the number of regional dialects.
b. There are five cultural hearths along the eastern and southern coasts of the United States from which most
regional dialects have evolved: Boston, Philadelphia, tidewater Virginia, Charleston, and New Orleans.
c. Regional dialects are characterized by differences in all components of language, including phonology,
grammar, and semantics, but the dimension most affected is vocabulary.
d. The dialect of New England and the Northeast region is most often characterized by what these people do
with the /r/.
e. The boundaries of the Northern and Midwest Region are difficult to define with great precision, but it may
be useful to think of this region as spreading from coast to coast, with the Ohio River as a rough dividing
line between North and South.
i) The dialects have been primarily influenced by only two cultural and linguistic hearths: New England
and southeastern Pennsylvania.
ii) The dialects of this region are remarkably free of influences from older English and other European
languages/American Indian languages.
iii) A number of slang and colloquial expressions are used throughout the country but are most common in
this region.
f. We tend to think of the speech of people who live in the southern states as representing a single dialect but
there are a variety of dialects in the South.
Discussion Topics
• If babbling does not occur as a precursor to true speech, what might its purpose be in the larger context of
communication development?
• The English alphabet is a phonetically-based alphabet, which means that there is correspondence between the
letters of the alphabet and the sounds they represent. Identify as many inconsistencies as possible between
letters and sounds. Why do you think these inconsistencies have developed?
• Discuss natural and marked sounds and why this distinction is important for understanding the development of
the speech sound. Given the definition of markedness, brainstorm sounds that may be marked or natural, then
follow-up in confirming this information via an online resource.
Suggested Activities
• Record samples of speech used by your peers in the course of a typical day. Analyze these samples to find
examples of words or phrases that have been compressed. For example: “What did you eat?” might be
compressed into “Wadjeat?” Identify the basic strategies that seem to be employed by speakers when they
compress.
• Using video recordings, listen to the vocalizations of several children under the age of one year. Identify
examples of vocal play, cooing, variegated babbling and jargon.
• Taking into account the essential issues that should be addressed in a viable and comprehensive theory of
phonological development, develop the basic tenets of such a theory
Assignment Suggestions
• Video Reflection 8.1 (p. 335): Watch the video to listen to a two-year-old produce speech, then answer the
question.
• Video Reflection 8.2 (p. 340): Watch the video to listen to a six-year-old child’s speech production, then answer
the questions.
• Video Example 8.1 (p. 342): Watch the video of Sophia, who is two years and eight months old, and Becca,
who is three years old, engage in parallel play. Listen to each child, focusing on the coarticulation of their
utterances. Along with the accuracy of speech sounds, what do you notice about their use of suprasegmental
aspects of speech, including the vocalizations of protest from Sophia?
• Readers may assess their understanding by completing these brief, self-check quizzes:
o 8.1 (p. 330): the sound system of English
o 8.2 (p. 334): the sound system of English during the prelinguistic and first-word stages
o 8.3 (p. 337): the development of the sound system of English during the two-word stage
• Chapter Review 8.1 (p. 362)
Websites to Explore
• The website from the University of Iowa Research Foundation features animated libraries of the phonetic
sounds of English, German, and Spanish. Available for each consonant and vowel is an animated articulatory
diagram, a step-by-step description, and video-audio of the sound spoken in context.
• Cambridge English Online offers a variety of games and learning activities to learn about phonetics on a page
called “Phonetics Focus.”
• ASHA’s website offers parent-friendly information regarding speech sound disorders, including articulation and
phonological disorders, on a page called “Speech Sound Disorders.”
• The blog posting titled “What are Phonological Processes” from the website Mommy Speech Therapy offers
parent-friendly language regarding phonological processes and expected speech intelligibility.
• Linguist Stephen R. Anderson from Yale University provides additional information regarding phonology
theories via a page titled “Phonology” on his website.
