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In:Variation in Language Acquisition: Unity in diversity
Edited by Laura Rosseel and Eline Zenner
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 34] 2025
► pp. 24–44

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Chapter 1
A holistic view on children’s acquisition of sociolinguistic competence

Perception, production and metalinguistic awareness

 | University of Salzburg
Published online: 4 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.34.01kai
Abstract
This paper presents and summarizes findings on children’s acquisition of different dimensions of sociolinguistic competence in the Austrian-Bavarian ‘dialect-standard continuum’. Data on the discrimination of dialect and standard speech, on the use of language varieties in different communicative situations, on metalinguistic knowledge and on attitudinal preferences were collected from children between the ages of 3 and 10 years. The present integration of findings allows us to hypothesize about the links between implicit, explicit, linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge, and the developmental trajectory of sociolinguistic competence as a whole. Acquiring sociolinguistic competence appears to be an integral part of language acquisition from the outset, but over the course of development there are qualitative changes from implicit to more explicit knowledge and to greater metalinguistic awareness.
Article outline
  • 1.Dimensions of sociolinguistic competence
  • 2.Data and setting: Bavarian-speaking Austria
  • 3.Discrimination of varieties
  • 4.Metalinguistic concepts
  • 5.Attitudinal preferences
  • 6.Variation in production
  • 7.Summary and conclusion: A holistic view on children’s sociolinguistic development
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (64)
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