A Study on Speech Accommodation of Bilingual Preschoolers around Nugegoda Area

Abstract

In linguistics, accommodation is the process by which participants in a conversation adjust their accent, diction, or other aspects of language according to the speech style of the other participant. It is used to be called linguistic accommodation, speech accommodation, and communication accommodation. Thus, the study attempts to investigate the speech accommodation of bilingual preschoolers around Nugegoda area which is evident that there is less research conducted on this area in the Sri Lankan context. Moreover, the study will investigate the process of speech accommodation of the bilingual preschoolers around Nugegoda area and relevant to speech accommodation, clarifies the language switching operation or any other action they apply with their communication competence. The sample is randomly selected 6 preschoolers of 3-5 years old; 3 random preschoolers from each preschool were chosen. Furthermore, a qualitative data collection method through naturalistic observation on bilingual preschoolers with audio recordings is used in the study. Naturalistic observation with audio recordings will be done in 6 days with 2 other supporters to the researcher. 3 sessions of each preschooler will be observed; peer- peer communication, teacher- preschooler communication and stranger- preschooler. The recorded sessions will be transcribed and analyzed in qualitative in-depth analysis through data driven coding. As the research is in process, up to now 3 preschoolers were observed in 3 sessions mentioned before. Considerably, current findings show there‟s a natural combination in between the preschooler and teacher as well as preschooler and peer, but, there‟s a comparison in the communication process of stranger and preschooler.