Language Variation in the United state: Languages, Dialects, and Speech Styles

In the US, the proportion of children who are raised learnin g more than one language is estimated to be about 20% ( S panish being the most common second language) US is unusual because of its large proportion of monolingu al speakers Spanish in The United States The Number of Spanish Speakers in The US has increased dramatically. In most cases, children raised in Hispanic-origin homes learn Spanish as their first language. According to selfreport, more than half the Spanish speakers spoke English very well.

The Phonology of North American Spanish

Besides the differences in the number of types of phonemes, Spanish and English differ in their phonotactic patterning (in the way sounds can occur within a word. Nearly all consonants of English can occur at the end of a word, while in Spanish, only five of the eighteen consonants occur in this position English has over twenty five different word-initial consonant clusters, many types of clusters can occur in word-final position. Spanish has twelve different types of consonants clusters in word-initial position, all formed of two consonants, and no clusters at the end of words. In English, great majority of words in childrens vocabularies are relatively short (composed of one or two syllables), in Spanish, words of one syllables are rare (three or four syllables) In English, Dialect differences lie mainly in the pronounciation of vowels, while in spanish, they occur in the pronounciation of consonants.

Phonological Acquisition in Monolingual children: Comparing Spanish and English.

The phonology of Spanish is somehow simpler than the phonology of English. Spanish has a smaller inventory of consonants and vow els, fewer words ending in a consonant, fewer types of word-initial consonant clusters, and no clusters at the end of words --> it makes the development in Spanish will be faster than in English. Correct production of the fricative /s/, the tap r of pe ro (but), and the trill r of perro (dog) occurs relati vely late for children learning Spanish. For children learning english, late-acquired consonants included the voices fricatives /, / and the liquids /l,r/

Phonological Acquisition in Bilingual Children: Comparing Spanish and English.

Phonological acquisition among children learning both Spanish and English will be slower than that of children acquiring a single language. Overall consonant accuracy was the same in both mono- and bilingual groups when speaking English, however accuracy levels were higher among monolinguals than bilinguals when speaking Spanish. Learning two languages is not more difficult than learning a single language, although some aspects of acquisition may take a bit longer.

Regional and Ethnic Dialectal Differences in English

Not only do people from different places and ethnic groups pronounce thing differently, they also hear speech sounds differently. Ethnic dialectal difference is also important e.g : AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and BAE (Black American English). Adult and adolescent speakers o f AAE may choose to use more or fewer of the distinctive AAE patterns, depending on who they are talking to and h ow formal the situation is. AAE tends to omit some General American English (GAE) word final consonants and simplify word-final consonant clusters

Pronounciation in Conversational Speech

The pronounciation of a word depends on the speech style being us ed. The pronounciation of words in conversational speech may differ fr om the way the same words are produced when they are read a loud carefully. e.g: have to = [hft] want to = wanna water = [wada] simplify various word-final consonant clusters, especially if the next w ord begins with a consonant (George an Mary : cann peaches) omit vowels in unstressed syllables, omit / / and /h/ (I see er ; Pus h em over here)