AN ABSTACT OF THE THESIS OF
Samhita Deb, for the Master of Arts degree in Applied Linguistics, presented on December 6, 2000, at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
TITLE: THE ACQUISITION OF THE PHONOLOGY OF BENGALI -A LONGITUDINAL CASE STUDY
MAJOR PROFESSOR: Geoffrey S. Nathan
The study is a longitudinal investigation of the phonological acquisition of a Bengali child from 20 to 27 months. The goals of the study are to examine the nature of phonological acquisition, the role of adult target form and the difference between production and perception in child phonology.
The study consists primarily of the data analysis and is a description of developing phonology of Bengali child. The study aims to show the role of phonological processes and the constraint of realization rules in child phonology. Acquisition of consonants is also discussed from the perspective of point of articulation. It has also showed the developmental pattern of the early production and later production of the same phonological units in the child phonology. From these analyses, it is found that the child phonology corresponds to adult form.
There is a mismatch between perception and production and phonological errors dominate in early part of acquisition and disappear thereafter. Substitution is a characteristics feature in child phonology. The child is able to perceive the difference which she is not actually producing. But the order of development in perception is not necessarily identical with production. Overall perception is consistently better than actual production.
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