Fis phenomenon
Encyclopedia
.fis phenomenon is a phenomenon of child language acquisition
that demonstrates that perception of phoneme
s occurs earlier than the ability of the child to produce those phonemes. It is also illustrative of a larger theme in child language acquisition: that skills in linguistic comprehension generally precede corresponding skills in linguistic production
.
The name comes from an incident reported in 1960 by J. Berko
and R. Brown
. A child referred to his inflatable plastic fish as a fis. However, when adults asked him, "Is this your fis?" he rejected the statement. When he was asked, "Is this your fish?" he responded, "Yes, my fis." This shows that although the child could not produce the phoneme /ʃ/, he could perceive it as being different from the phoneme /s/.
In some cases, the sounds produced by the child are actually acoustically different, but not significantly enough for others to distinguish since the language in question doesn't make such contrasts.
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
that demonstrates that perception of phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s occurs earlier than the ability of the child to produce those phonemes. It is also illustrative of a larger theme in child language acquisition: that skills in linguistic comprehension generally precede corresponding skills in linguistic production
Language production
In psycholinguistics, language production is the production of spoken or written language. It describes all of the stages between having a concept, and translating that concept into linguistic form...
.
The name comes from an incident reported in 1960 by J. Berko
Jean Berko Gleason
Jean Berko Gleason is a Boston University psycholinguist best known for having created the Wug Test. The test, which was designed to investigate the manner in which children acquire grammatical understanding, was created in 1958...
and R. Brown
Roger Brown (psychologist)
Roger William Brown , an American social psychologist, was born in Detroit.-Early Life and Education:...
. A child referred to his inflatable plastic fish as a fis. However, when adults asked him, "Is this your fis?" he rejected the statement. When he was asked, "Is this your fish?" he responded, "Yes, my fis." This shows that although the child could not produce the phoneme /ʃ/, he could perceive it as being different from the phoneme /s/.
In some cases, the sounds produced by the child are actually acoustically different, but not significantly enough for others to distinguish since the language in question doesn't make such contrasts.