Preference for native-accented peers in monolingual and bilingual children acquiring Czech

Abstract

ABSTRACT The way a talker speaks influences how they are socially perceived. Social preferences based on language are present already in early childhood: children generally prefer to interact with those who speak the child's native language or native accent. Prior findings are inconclusive as to whether the accent-based social biases could be reduced by more varied language experience, including bilingual upbringing. This study reports a friendship-choice task administered to 49 5- to 6-year-old children acquiring Czech (26 monolinguals and 23 bilinguals). The results showed that both monolingual and bilingual children had a preference for native-accented peers. In bilingual children, however, this native-speaker preference was reliably smaller than in monolingual children. These findings demonstrate that foreign accent is a strong cue for friendship choice even in the linguistically homogeneous, Czech-speaking society, and that the effect of foreign accent is attenuated by a child's bilingual language experience.