Expanding language acquisition beyond Indo-European languages: what we can learn from studying Akan

Thierry Nazzi (INCC, CNRS – Université Paris Cité)
 

Abstract

The sound inventory of all languages contains consonants and vowels. Nespor et al. (2003) proposed a division of labor according to which consonants are given more weight in lexical processes, and vowels in prosodic/syntactic processes. The proposal of a consonant bias (C-bias) in lexical processes led to many studies. While a C-bias was mostly found in adulthood (see Nazzi & Cutler, 2019, for a review), the crosslinguistic picture from developmental studies suggests a more nuanced picture. The present talk will present an overview of the studies conducted in infancy and toddlerhood. First, it will summarize two decades of studies conducted in French, that assessed when the C-bias is first observed in development, and then started testing whether the C-bias is an innate bias, or an acquired bias, and if so whether it is learned in link with phonological or lexical acquisition. Second, it will give an overview of the studies conducted in other languages, in order to assess whether or not the trajectory found in French generalizes to other languages, and if not, the linguistic properties likely to affect this trajectory. This will establish different developmental trajectories, and will make evident the need to further expand crosslinguistic studies on this issue. We will end by presenting briefly the project that is starting on the acquisition of Akan.

Profile

Thierry Nazzi is a CNRS Research Director at the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (CNRS - Université Paris Cité), working on the early acquisition of the phonological and lexical properties of infants' native language(s). By comparing acquisition in different languages, he is aiming to specify the mechanisms allowing these acquisitions. He also has an interest in language acquisition in bilingual acquisition, and his work on Akan in Ghana, in collaboration with Paul Omane and Reginald Duah, will start exploring multilingual acquisition. He is a co-founder of the INCC babylab, the largest developmental psychology platform in France, and has been a member of the Executive Board of the International Society on Infant Studies.