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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. 45–63

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Chapter 2
Sketching children’s variation-based attitudes

A pilot study on the French Variable Liaison

 | CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2
 | Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
 | CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2
 | Université de Grenoble-Alpes
Published online: 4 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.34.02bon
Abstract
Language-based attitudes are expressions of favor or disfavor towards a linguistic entity that may be evoked via variation-based categorizations. This pilot study investigates children’s choices between normative or non-normative realizations of French Variable Liaisons (FVL), in relation to their sociodemographic characteristics. First, a reading task of the stimuli, including adults and children was conducted to identify which FVL were produced in a highly controlled situation. Second, these stimuli were used in a matched-guise experiment involving 62 children (aged 6 to 12 years), who selected utterances depending on whether they thought its producer was an intelligent or friendly person. A generalized linear mixed model reveals effects of the FVL type and an interaction between SES and the children’s speaker categorizations (intelligence or friendliness).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociolinguistic variation in acquisition: A window to the complexity of social cognition
  • 3.The linguistic variable under investigation: The French Variable Liaison (FVL)
  • 4.The present study
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2Material: Stimuli
    • 5.3Study design and procedure
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Preference and categorizations
    • 6.2Analytical model
    • 6.3FVL_TYPE
    • 6.4Interaction between SES and DESCRIPTOR
  • 7.Discussion
  • References
References (41)
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