Influence of Hindi Cartoons on the Language Development of Pakistani Urdu/English Schoolchildren

Abstract

Not surprisingly, children expand their linguistic repertoire with the maturation of their cognition and their daily activities such as watching cartoons influence their language development. Many if not all parents fear that the Hindi cartoons are contaminating the linguistic repertoire of their children. Eventually, Pakistan Media Electronic Regularity Authority has banned Hindi dubbed cartoons. However, it is quite paradoxical that they always wish to improve the English language skills of their children but they have negative grounding towards the Hindi language. With this background in minds, the present study was carried out to examine the influence of some popular Hindi cartoons (such as Doraemon, Motu Patlu, and Chota Bheem) on the phonological development of children from middle and upper-middle class schools located in Lahore. By taking the Labovian apparent hypothesis as a theoretical lens, a sample of 84 Urdu/English bilinguals of different age groups was selected to investigate a prevalence of most commonly occurring phonological variants (such as /kʰ/ for /x/, /g/ for /ɣ/, / d ʒ/ for /z/, and /f/ for /pʰ/) in their speech. The study revealed that the influence of the Hindi phonology remained temporary on the language development of the participants. They were open to the usage of Hindi phonemes unless they developed alternatives phonological system in their first language (Urdu) and second and the most prestigious language (English). The participants who were around 10 years of age were found relatively less prone to using the Hindi phones. We may not rule out completely whether or not the above-mentioned phonological variants were part of their linguistic repertoire when they reached to puberty. It was observed, on the other hand, that some low-level phonological variations recycled invariably in the speech of the participants. Hence, the study suggests investigating these variations beyond this age bracket. The study takes a diametrically opposite stance and suggests an exposure to multilingual vocabulary as a correlate of cognitive development during the early childhood education.