The development of dialect classification across the lifespan

•Adult Midwestern listeners perceive New England, Midwestern, and Southern dialect groups.•4- and 5-year-olds can perceive New England talkers as a distinct regional group.•Dialect classification accuracy improves in middle childhood and again in adolescence.•Free classification allows young children to show their dialect perception skills.

The current study investigated the developmental trajectory of listeners' ability to perceive regional dialect variation in American English using a free classification paradigm. Listeners ranged in age from 4 years old through late adulthood. In two experiments, listeners sorted a set of talkers into groups based on where the talkers were from. Talkers from four regional dialects of American English (Midland, New England, Northern, Southern) were presented. The results showed that some of even the youngest listeners (4- to 5-year-olds) were able to separate New England talkers from talkers from other regions, providing evidence that they perceived dialect variation and exhibited some level of sociolinguistic competence. Moreover, children׳s dialect perception abilities showed incremental improvement through childhood and adolescence, with major developmental improvements in dialect classification accuracy observed in middle childhood (between the ages of 7 and 8 years), late childhood (between 11 and 12 years), and in the teenage years (between 15 and 16 years), when adult-like abilities were reached. The overall results have implications for the experimental methods suitable to gauge young children׳s sociolinguistic knowledge and for our understanding of the time course of children׳s development of sociolinguistic competence, particularly their acquisition of the social significance of linguistic variation.