Accent preferences in child L2 learners: the role of familiarity and ethnicity cues

This study explores school-aged children’s preferences and biases towards second language (L2) English accents in Taiwan, where exposure to diverse English accents is increasing due to the integration of international non-native English-speaking teachers. Two experiments examined how accent familiarity and ethnicity cues influence children’s preferences when listening to pairs of accented voices. A teacher preference task was used, featuring a verbal guise in a neutral condition and two ethnicity-cued conditions (congruent and incongruent). Experiment 1 found that third-grade children (N = 235) preferred the familiar Mandarin-accented English over native American-accented English in the neutral condition, highlighting the role of accent familiarity. Experiment 2 showed a preference for American-accented English over other less familiar non-Mandarin accents, further reinforcing the effect of familiarity. Across both experiments, when ethnicity cues were introduced, children preferred American-accented English more strongly when it was paired with a Caucasian face (congruent), but not with an Asian face (incongruent). Additionally, children with higher English vocabulary levels showed stronger preferences for American-accented English paired with Caucasian faces. These results suggest that children’s accent preferences are shaped by both familiarity and ethnicity cues, with biases potentially becoming more pronounced as L2 vocabulary increases.