Missing the targets and being misunderstood
Child phonology and interactive problems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v1i2.217Keywords:
owel realization, conversational breakdown, listener knowledge, speaker knowledge, clinical profiling, educational achievementAbstract
Effects of vowel variation on interaction are considered, with particular relevance to their role in conversational breakdown. The effect of speaker knowledge and experience is noted as a variable in developmental progress which must inform profiling decisions, and the need for appropriate taxonomies of speech varieties is emphasized as a precursor to clinical and educational assessments. It is noted, too, that a shared sociolinguistic background between speaker and listener does not always resolve difficulties arising from non-target realizations, casting some doubt on ideas that assessors always possess a guaranteed sense of phonological variability and its effects. Hence, an informed understanding of phonological variation, rather than merely awareness that such variation exists, is advocated.
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