Variable use of /t∫/phoneme in Chilean children and their mother in contexts of dyadic interactions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4151/S0718-09342026012101370Keywords:
sociolingüística del desarrollo, sociofonética, variación, español chilenoAbstract
Adhering to the principles of variationist sociolinguistics, the present study aims to examine variable usage patterns of the affricate palatal phoneme /t∫/ in Chilean Spanish-speaking mothers and their children. Given this is a salient trait of this Spanish variety, its study has a long and robust tradition. However, research focused on Chilean children and child directed speech (CDS) is still unexplored. Using the Corpus Conversacional del Español de la Región de O’Higgins (CCEOH), this study analyzes 1,521 occurrences collected during recording sessions in which children interacted with their mothers in their own homes. Our results show that both children and their caregivers are variable in their production of the affricate palatal phoneme /t∫/, producing both affricate and the fricative [∫] variants. Additionally, the findings reveal a gender distinction such that young boys produce a much higher rate of the nonstandardized fricative variant when compared to young girls and also their mothers. At the subsegmental level, which examines only the affricate variants, we find that young boys also tend to produce shorter durations of the occlusion than young girls. These findings contribute to the literature by showing that already, at 6-7 years of age, Chilean children are distinguishing variable use of /t∫/ phoneme by gender.
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