2.1.4

Phonological Simplification

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Phonological Simplification

A child will often use techniques to simplify the pronunciation of words. These include:

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Deletion

  • A child drops a consonant from a word when it is surrounded on one or both sides by vowels.
  • This usually (but not always) occurs at the end of words. For example, a child may say /dɒ/ instead of /dɒg/ - they have deleted the end-position voiced velar plosive (/g/) from the word.
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Consonant cluster reduction

  • This is when a child reduces a set of consonants that are all together. For example, in the word ‘spider’, they may reduce the ‘sp’ digraph (two letters) by removing the ‘s’ from the cluster.
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Addition

  • This is when a child adds a spurious consonant or vowel to a word. For example, adding the ‘y’ sound onto words like ‘dog’ to form the diminutive ‘doggy’.
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Substitution

  • This is when a child changes one sound for another (usually one easier to say). For example, children often substitute the voiced palatal approximant (/j/) for the voiced alveolar lateral approximant (/l/) in the word ‘yellow’.
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Assimilation

  • This is when a sound later on in the word has an influence on other sounds in the word.
  • For example, the /b/ sound in ‘rabbit’ might assimilate to the front-position of the word to form ‘babbit’.

Phonological Simplification - Child Mispronunciation

A useful theory when looking at children mispronouncing things is the ‘fis-fish’ phenomenon. The ‘fis-fish’ phenomenon proved that children can notice mistakes, but not recognise that they are making these mistakes.

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Berko and Brown

  • Conducted by Berko and Brown, the ‘fis-fish’ phenomenon happened when a child was talking to their caregiver about what they called their plastic ‘fis’.
  • When the caregiver repeated this to them, they were able to recognise that the caregiver had said ‘fis’ and not ‘fish’, but could not then pronounce ‘fish’. This shows that comprehension precedes competency.

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1Language Levels

2Language, The Individual & Society

3Language Diversity & Change

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