The acquisition of pharyngeals by Arabic-English bilingual and monolingual Arabic children: A case study

Abstract

This study investigates and compares the acquisition of pharyngeal consonants /?/ and the /?/, which are part of the guttural consonants in Arabic, by Arabic-English bilingual children and Arabic monolingual children based on a case study of two children. The study also looks at claims made by researchers regarding the order of acquiring these sounds. The study was conducted by collecting speech samples from two children: one is monolingual in Arabic, and the other is an English-Arabic bilingual child. Data were collected using the free speech method and picture naming while recording the children as they were speaking. The analysis of the recordings is focused on whether the child can pronounce these pharyngeals or not and compares the two cases, the monolingual and the bilingual. The results of the study show that phonological complexity does not play a big role in the acquisition of these sounds, as claimed by Jakobson (1968). Moreover, the findings of this study also show that bilingual children acquire pharyngeals later than monolingual children despite the fact that these sounds are common in Arabic and have a high functional load.