Word of the Week: Phonemic Narrowing

Phonemic narrowing is the process by which infants gather information about the sounds of the language they are exposed to. Every language has unique sounds and patterns of sounds.

At about six months, infants begin learning these sounds and patterns, as well as the rules for these sounds. This knowledge is a very important step in language acquisition. By about 8-10 months, the ability to distinguish contrasts in sounds not found in their native language is lost. This is partly why we speak with an accent in a foreign language learned later in life.

Infants who are exposed to more than one language undergo phonemic narrowing for each at the same time. Well before their first birthday, they are categorizing sounds for each language that they hear. This is one of the reasons bilingual and multilingual children may appear to be delayed in their language abilities compared to their monolingual peers, but in reality, they simply have more information to process.