Dodd B, McEvoy S
Department of Speech and Hearing, University of Queensland, Australia.
J Child Lang. 1994 Jun;21(2):273-89. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900009272.
The acquisition of language in the preschool years by multiple-birth children is often reported to be atypical. Some researchers have claimed that they use 'twin language', i.e. an autonomous language specific to a multiple-birth set. This claim was investigated by describing and comparing the phonological characteristics of the speech of 19 sets of two- to four-year-old multiple-birth children, and by measuring multiple-birth children's understanding of their twins' or triplets' context-free speech. The results indicated that multiple-birth children are prone to phonological disorder and consequently their speech is often unintelligible. Siblings' phonologies evidenced some similarities, although they were not identical. Multiple-birth children were better able to understand their siblings' mispronunciations than were other children of the same age, although that understanding was dependent on how closely the error form resembled the adult form. While these three factors conspire to give the impression that 'twin language' is common, none of these findings provided support for the claim that multiple-birth children use an autonomous language.
据报道，多胞胎儿童在学龄前的语言习得情况往往不典型。一些研究人员声称，他们使用“双胞胎语言”，即一种特定于多胞胎群体的自主语言。通过描述和比较19组两到四岁多胞胎儿童的语音特征，并测量多胞胎儿童对其双胞胎或三胞胎无上下文语音的理解，对这一说法进行了调查。结果表明，多胞胎儿童容易出现语音障碍，因此他们的言语往往难以理解。兄弟姐妹的语音表现出一些相似之处，尽管并不完全相同。与同龄的其他儿童相比，多胞胎儿童更能理解其兄弟姐妹的发音错误，不过这种理解取决于错误形式与成人形式的相似程度。虽然这三个因素共同作用，给人一种“双胞胎语言”很常见的印象，但这些发现都没有支持多胞胎儿童使用自主语言这一说法。
