Paraphrasing from the classic song by Michael Masser and Linda Creed, we can both teach our children and learn from them. The manner in which they receive information can be in large part down to the manner in which the information is delivered by the teacher.
With regards to communication, we often cite children’s first words as a milestone. Indeed, this is a thrilling moment in which the difficulties of a toddler attempting to express their needs, show early signs of easing.
But before this exciting moment, we have an opportunity to teach our children features of our languages’ or accents’ unique prosody.
Prosody is the musicality of one’s accent. This might include the intonation, the pace, the volume, the stress patterns or whether the accent feels staccato or legato, for example. When we hear a child repeat an intonation pattern that feels full-to-the-brim with meaning, but does not invoke the use of recognisable words, it may be that they are developing their understanding of prosody – an essential feature of communication.
Prosody is a part of all speech patterns. In RP, for example, we might perceive a series of consecutive words with upward inflections to be a list, or endow a phrase ending in a downward inflection with a sense of finality.
Over the years, many very young children’s television shows have made use of prosody as the primary, or the only factor in their verbal communication. While prosody differs from accent to accent, and indeed from individual to individual, when combined with physical cues in these programmes (or in life), they can express ideas and feelings powerfully, without the use of words.
Listening to a child’s intonation patterns within the language we are modifying towards will teach us enormous amounts about what are valued as the most important communicative features of prosody within that accent. This is why prosody must not be overlooked in the process of accent modification or acquisition.
The Accent Centre 