Social Sciences & Humanities Open 8 (2023) 100631
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Social Sciences & Humanities Open 
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Regular Article 
Substitution phonological patterns in the English speech of 
Ghanaian children 
Thomas Abdull Jamel Asare *, Elizabeth Orfson-Offei 
University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Department of English, Ghana   
A R T I C L E  I N F O   A B S T R A C T   
Keywords: When children find the production of a speech sound difficult, they tend to substitute it with another easier one, a 
Substitution phenomenon described as Substitution Phonological Pattern (SPP). This study investigated SPP in Ghanaian 
Phonological pattern preschoolers, who spoke their individual Ghanaian languages like Akan and Ga as their first languages (L1) but 
Ghana were learning to speak English as a second language, to understand and document how these children pro-
Pre-schoolers 
Second language speakers nounced English speech sounds. Thirty preschoolers in a privately-owned basic school in Kumasi were selected 
English pronunciation and voice recorded as they mentioned twenty English lexical items from their textbooks after their teacher. Both 
the participants’ and their teacher’s productions of the stimulus words were transcribed according to the In-
ternational Phonetic Alphabet. The data was analysed using both qualitative and quantitative research ap-
proaches and within the framework of Natural Phonology Theory. Findings indicated that the children exhibited 
Fronting, Backing, and Stopping. The participants’ L1 and age among other factors were observed to be 
responsible for the processes identified: English sounds that were absent in the L1 of the children were difficult to 
produce for some of the children, while older children exhibited fewer cases of substitution. This study might 
serve as a documented material and a reference point for future researchers and Ministry of Education of the 
Republic of Ghana on Ghanaian children phonological experiences as regards the speaking of English.   
1. Introduction multilingual or bilingual. It could be added in this study that multilin-
gual children acquire their first languages (L1) usually before the second 
The researchers of this current study have observed that when chil- language which usually occurs in the school setting. The researchers of 
dren, whether monolingual or bilingual, reach a certain age and still this present study again have noticed that the unusual ways or distor-
exhibit characteristics of speech sound distortions, they are said to suffer tions in speech or simplifications of speech perhaps owing to rapid 
speech difficulties. Children are therefore expected to overcome in- speech, undeveloped articulatory organs, physiological challenges 
consistencies and abnormalities in sound articulation with time indi- among other things were considered as phonological patterns by 
cating that age is one factor that may play a role in the success of a phonologists. 
child’s articulation of speech sounds. Fringi et al. (2016:10), for 
instance, reported that “normative research suggests that the majority of 
children will have ceased to exhibit all of these phenomena by the age of 1.1. Forms of phonological patterns in the speech of children 
six (Dodd et al., 2003)”. The “phenomena” in this context refers to the 
various distortions in children’s speech. The above argument was also As this current study was concerned about bilingual children’s 
partly presented in the proposition of Fabus (2011:149) that “it is not a speech pattern, the researchers of this current study emphasized how 
coincidence that the final suppression of phonological processes occurs bilingual children may grapple with or be influenced by their first lan-
simultaneously at the age at which a child becomes intelligible to guages in an attempt to learn to speak the second language. This was 
strangers.” In this current study, the researchers clearly emphasized that mirrored in the report of Goldstein and Swasey Washington (2001) as 
the child’s ability to use two or more languages in different domains that bilingual children were observed to show slower, low intelligibility 
irrespective of the speech errors the child exhibits makes the child rating and other uncommon errors than monolingual children. In this 
study, Ghanaian children learning to speak English may therefore 
* Corresponding author. 
E-mail addresses: tajasare@st.ug.edu.gh, jamelasare@gmail.com (T.A.J. Asare), lizzorfson@gmail.com (E. Orfson-Offei).  
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2023.100631 
Received 7 July 2022; Received in revised form 16 July 2023; Accepted 21 July 2023   
Available online 15 September 2023
2590-2911/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
exhibit some difficulties as their first languages may have effect on their English speech of Ghanaian children. It also sought to find some of the 
English speech. Phonological patterns are basically the easy but unusual probable reasons or causes of the identified phonological patterns in the 
way of producing speech sounds usually by a child. Phonological pat- speech of the children from existing literature. 
terns are categorised into three major types which are syllable structure 
process, phoneme substitution and assimilation process (Leung & Brice, 2. Method 
2012, p. 43). 
Substitution phonological pattern is explained as where “one class of 2.1. Participants 
sounds affects another sound class in which the phonemes are altered by 
changing the place or manner of production (Bernthal & Bankson, A total of thirty Ghanaian preschoolers at a private basic school in 
2004)” cited in Fabus (2011:149). Example of substitution phonological Kumasi, Ghana, who spoke both English and their individual Ghanaian 
pattern is where a word like pig /pɪg/ is pronounced by the child as big languages at home and at school at the time of the study were considered 
/bɪg/. The first phoneme /p/ of the word pig which is a voiceless labial for this study. In relation to the Ghanaian languages spoken by the 
stop, is replaced with a voiced labial stop /b/. Subtypes of the substi- participants, twenty-five of them were Akan native speakers, two of 
tution phonological pattern are gliding, fronting, backing, stopping them were Ga native speakers and only one was an Ewe native speaker. 
among others. Akan is a generic name for three different dialects: Asante, Fante and 
Akuapem. The three dialects remain the mother tongues of people living 
1.2. Language of assessment in parts of southern Ghana. Akan is the indigenous language with the 
most speakers (about 70% of the population of Ghana), both as L1 and 
Although the policy of Education in Ghana since 2007 stipulates the an indigenous lingua franca for education, trade and media (Adomako, 
use of English as a medium of instruction from basic stage three (Ansah 2015, p. 4). 
& Agyemang, 2015), it is apparent that most Ghanaian private-owned Hudu (2010:1) also narrates that 
basic schools have English as the medium of instruction from Kinder- Dagbani is spoken mainly in the northeastern part of Ghana, but migrants 
garten to the Junior High School. Even in Ghanaian public schools, some from that region send their language wherever they go. The language 
poems are taught in English and English letters are also taught to pupils belongs to the Oti-Volta subgroup of languages, which are a branch of the 
below basic stage three. Apart from the fact that children in Ghanaian Niger-Congo language family; and is spoken by about 16.5 per cent of the 
private-owned schools are taught in English, the teachers sometimes population of Ghana. 
communicate with the children in English outside of the classroom 
setting. This is meant to ensure the children gain interest and fluency in Two of the participants speak Dagbani as their first language. 
the use of the language. Again, outside of the classroom setting, teachers Ga is the language of the people of the Greater Accra Region of 
prepare their children for formal occasions where the children are Ghana. According to Campbell (2017:1), it “is a language of the 
engaged in academic exercises like recitation of poems, performance of Niger-Congo family, the largest language phylum in the world with 1436 
drama among others. These reasons among others give Ghanaian languages (Williamson & Blench, 2000, p. 11). It belongs to the Kwa 
teachers an overriding concern to introduce their pupils to the study of sub-branch, which is the predominant branch in West Africa.” Two of 
English at an early stage of their speech development. It must be stated the participants spoke Ga as their L1. 
categorically, here, that Ghanaian children’s way of speaking English To achieve uniformity in the selection of participants for the study, 
after overcoming all existing developmental speech sound disorders is a ten (10) children each of the ages 3, 4 and 5 were chosen for the study 
direct reflection of how their teachers, parents and peers speak the En- without a recourse to gender. Tables 1, 2 and 3 at Appendix B show the 
glish language. age, sex and native language distribution of the participants. 
The researchers enquired about children within the age range of 3, 4 
1.3. Rationale for the study and 5 years from their teachers. The researchers together with the class 
teacher, randomly selected participants for the pronunciation task. With 
Li et al. (2011:999) have contended that “children’s early pro- the help of the participants’ teachers, the children were engaged in a 
ductions frequently demonstrate omission and substitution errors rela- recitation of the first five English letters. This was aimed at identifying 
tive to the adult forms. Many of these errors appear to be fairly participants who had a loss of tooth or teeth. Participants with an 
consistent across children and across languages”. This literature by Li obvious dental problem like loss of a tooth or teeth were not considered 
et al. (2011) provided much impetus to understand Ghanaian children’s participants since such a dental problem could adversely affect how such 
English speech pattern, as the literature implied that Ghanaian children, children orally produced the English speech sounds. 
like all other children learning to speak a second language, would 
exhibit phonological patterns like omission and substitution. Because of 2.2. Data collection process 
the position and relevance of English to Ghanaians in addition to English 
being the medium of instruction in Ghanaian schools, it was necessary to The participants in this study were made to mention each word once 
study the challenges Ghanaian children encounter in their speaking of after their teacher. This approach in collecting the speech of the par-
English in their language development. In this present study, the re- ticipants was motivated by a proposition by Kirk and Vigeland 
searchers decided to study the phonological patterns of Ghanaian chil- (2015:21) that “there is currently no research indicating what consti-
dren learning to speak English to understand some of the challenges the tutes a sufficient number of opportunities for concluding that a child’s 
Ghanaian children encounter. By focusing on these phonological pat- speech displays a particular phonological error pattern”. It is again 
terns in the speech of preschoolers, findings from this current study may supported by Sumner et al.‘s (2013:1) assertion that “as listeners, we 
inform Ghanaian parents, teachers and curriculum developers of some of face a speech signal that is riddled with variation, with countless 
the existing errors or challenges Ghanaian preschoolers face in pro- acoustic realizations of any given word”. It therefore suggested that 
nouncing certain English speech sounds. Another group of people to there was a tendency to have each of the several attempts (pro-
whom this study would be beneficial are Ghanaian speech therapists nunciations of a word) different from the other. Since according to their 
who as of now still depend on thresholds of children with English as their teacher, some of the participants were usually not able to mention all the 
first language in other countries to diagnose speech problems of Gha- words without assistance, one of the teachers was made to pronounce 
naian second language speakers of English. the words for the participants to follow suit. This was also partly moti-
This current study was guided by two major objectives. That is, the vated by Byun’s (2012:1056) assertion that “children may produce 
study investigated the types of substitution phonological patterns in the speech sound targets more accurately in imitation or drills than in 
2
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
spontaneous speech”. The reason for using one of the teachers of the created (approximately 100 words) that reflect the major phonological 
participants was to achieve uniformity of the pronunciation of the words characteristics of the language in words familiar to children (from 
to the participants. The researchers also understood that while some of monosyllabic to multisyllabic words)”. The researchers ensured words 
the participants were taught by the said teacher, the rest of the partic- common to pupils at the age band in question were used for the data 
ipants had been taught by the same teacher before, and therefore were (Hart & Sutherland, 1977). This approach chimed with Caroll et al.’s 
familiar with the pronunciation patterns of the said teacher. Again, the (2003) reason for their choice of words for their study that “most of the 
decision to engage the participants’ own teacher was to avoid biases words used were taken from an age-of-acquisition database (Morrison 
where the researchers might have the temptation to mention words in a et al., 1997) that characterized them as words of high frequency that 
way to achieve expected results. were in most children’s expressive vocabularies earlier than 31/2 years of 
For privacy concerns and protection of the participant’s identity, age”. Since such a database did not exist in Ghana, the researchers 
each participant was represented by a code. Each of the participants’ selected words from the textbooks that were used to teach the children. 
pronunciations was coded according to a particular age group for ease of The list of words as the data for this study are indicated below: 
differentiation and classification. That was in the order of precedence: Monosyllabic Words: Rain strong shout cat box blade goat tree spot till 
each of the ten participants of a particular age group was assigned a mug teeth face 
corresponding English letter serving as their code. For example, the first Di-syllabic Words: picture table 
participant at 3 was assigned the English letter A which resulted in the Polysyllabic Word: television 
code 3A and the second participant at 3 was assigned the letter B Compound Words: flower vase ceiling fan writing board classroom 
resulting in 3B. This process of coding applied to the other two groups of 
the participants at 4 and 5. The entire study was carried out within a- 2.5. Data analysis 
nine-month period which began from April 2020 and ended in 
December 2020. The participants’ data was stored on the recording The researchers of this present work decided that the pronunciations 
device which was used for recording the participants’ speech and kept of the words by both the teacher and the pupils should be transcribed 
far from the reach of any individual who did not matter in the tran- phonemically using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notations 
scription process of the data. Phoneticians who engaged in the tran- to reveal how the participants differed from the adult (their teacher) in 
scription process did not have the participants’ data on their private terms of pronunciation of English sounds. The phonemic transcription of 
devices for security reasons. After the transcription of the data, the re- the participants’ speech was in line with an observation by Dodd et al. 
searchers of this study only had access to the data for the sake of (2003) that “in a phonemic approach, children’s production of sounds in 
reference. word contexts are usually examined in terms of degree of production 
A Sony ICDUX560BLK Digital Voice Recorder was used to record the accuracy and the percentage of children of an age group who reached 
participants’ pronunciations of the words. This recorder allowed indi- the level of accuracy in phoneme production”. For the purpose of 
vidual sounds to be played back with ease. It could also be connected to interrater reliability, the recorded speech of both the teacher and the 
electronic devices like TV, computer, cassette player or woofer which participants were transcribed by both researchers. Interrater reliability 
allowed recorded sound to be played aloud and thus ensured accurate score was 98% after comparison of the transcribed data. 
transcription of the recorded pronunciations of the participants. The The data analysis was guided by the subtypes of substitution 
recorder was positioned on a table on which the list of words was placed. phonological patterns (Leung & Brice, 2012, p. 43; Fabus, 2011, p. 149; 
From there, every participant mentioned the words after the teacher. Stoel-Gammon, 2002, p. 647). The term, phonological patterns, here 
The researchers themselves stood further away so as not to interfere refers to the various errors, simplifications or deviations in the realisa-
especially since some participants might be shy or feel timid when tion of English speech sounds or a class of sounds by children in relation 
reading in the presence of strangers. to the adult model. This approach was supported by the position of 
McReynolds (1984:57) in his work on phonological patterns in the 
2.3. Ethical clearance speech of children that “implicit in the notion of processes is the concept 
of organization of errors”. 
A consent form obtained from the ethics committee of the university Kirk and Vigeland (2015:15) also reported that “the label phono-
in which the researchers were affiliated to was given to the manager and logical process analysis is based on the theory that a child’s production 
the headteacher of the school to confirm their signatory to the exercise. of a word can be derived from the adult pronunciation by a series of rules 
Consent forms were also given to teachers and parents of the chosen or processes (Stampe, 1973). Thus, a child who pronounces key as [di] is 
participants to sign as evidence of their willingness and approval of their said to apply the phonological process of velar fronting to convert /ki/ to 
pupils and children partaking in this study. The school administration /ti/ and then the process of prevocalic voicing to convert /ti/ to [di]”. 
was also contacted for the bio-data on the children selected for the study. Again, the theory of Natural Phonology was resorted to in discussing 
The researchers obtained ethical clearance from the ethics committee of the challenges children encounter in their attempts to speak like the 
the university of which they were part of its academic community. As a Ghanaian adults. Natural Phonology is a theory developed by David 
proof of ethical clearance, ECH 014/20–21 was the code given to the Stampe in the 1960s (Stampe, 1969). It basically provides explanation 
researchers by the ethics committee of the university signifying the on phonological patterns exhibited by individuals especially children in 
committee’s satisfaction of the study. relation to a given language. Donegan and Stampe (2009:1) explained 
that “natural phonology characterises production and perception of 
2.4. Elicitation materials speech in terms of a set of universal phonetically motivated phonolog-
ical processes”. Donegan and Stampe (2009:25) further added that 
A list of twenty (20) English words were randomly taken from the 
textbooks of the pupils. The choice of the words with different number of Natural Phonology holds that all infants, discovering the capacities of 
syllables was because such words had a tendency to elicit existing their bodies and their senses through vocalization and babbling, and 
phonological patterns in the children’s speech. The words included listening to the stream of actual speech around them, arrive at a universal 
compound words in hopes of revealing how Ghanaian preschoolers theory of the relationship between articulatory actions and their percep-
segued from one word to the other, which was one way of revealing tual results (features), and also of the multi-dimensional hierarchies of 
instances of phonological patterns. The choice of words across different difficulty that stand between intended actions and their actual results in 
syllable structure was in line with Bernhardt and Stemberger (2015:47) the real time rhythm of speech (processes). 
that “to enhance data comparability across languages, word lists are This meant aspects or components of the theory that were apt in 
3
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
revealing the break down in the participants’ speech or difficulties in TidieR Table 
producing English speech sounds of adults were used in this study to Summary of instruments and approaches to the study.  
help understand the existence and some possible underlying reasons for 
the phonological errors in the participants’ speech. Brief Substitution Phonological Patterns 
The researchers ensured that although both the teacher and partic- name 
ipants’ pronunciation of the words were transcribed, emphasis was Why The study investigated the types of substitution phonological patterns in 
placed on the participants’ pronunciation as far as this study is con- the 
cerned, to see how each participant differed from the adult’s pronun- English speech of Ghanaian children. It also sought to find probable 
reasons for the occurrence of the identified patterns 
ciation. An unintelligible sound made by a participant was also What Spoken English speech of Ghanaian preschoolers between the ages of 3 
considered as part of their phonological pattern. A participant’s devia- and 5 was used as data. Twenty English lexical items served as the 
tion from the pronunciation pattern of their teacher was counted as part stimulus words for the data. 
of their phonological pattern. This mode of analysis chosen by the re- How Each participant mentioned each of the stimuli after their own teacher 
searchers of this present study was in line with Dodd et al.‘s (2003:630) while being recorded singly in a secluded place within the school campus of the participants. Both the recorded speech of the children and 
in their approach to the analysis of their study that “an error occurs their teacher were transcribed according to the International Phonetic 
when there is a difference between the child’s and adult’s realisation of a Alphabetic. 
word”. The researchers of this current work added, here, that pronun- Where The recorded speech of the children was done in a private-run basic 
ciation error by the teacher was not counted as part of the phonological school. 
When The entire study lasted for nine months. The recordings of the children’s 
pattern of the child regardless of a participant’s repetition of it. The speech as the data lasted for a month with five sessions of the recording. 
teacher’s pronunciation of the English sounds that deviated from the RP Each session of the recording lasted for 40 min.   
was deemed a complexion of Ghanaian production of English vowel and 
consonant sounds (Huber, 2008, pp. 74–86; Simo Bobda, 2000, p. 191), 
or was idiosyncratic. An instance was the teacher’s realisation of a 
consonant like the lingua-dental /θ/ produced as alveolar [t] as in teeth 
/ti:θ/ which has been confirmed by (Huber, 2008) as a representation of 3.1. Discussions 
how Ghanaians tend to produce the sound in question. The teacher’s 
production of the words was therefore a Ghanaian idealized version of A pool of literature and the theory used for this study sufficiently 
the RP. sought to give proximate causes of the substitution phonological pat-
Although this study was cross-sectional as opposed to a cross- terns identified in the speech of the children used as participants. Each of 
linguistic study, it was prudent to understand the participants’ phono- the identified processes are therefore discussed below.  
logical pattern of the language of assessment (English) in relation to 
their first language(s) (i.e; L1). The juxtaposition or consideration of the • Fronting 
phonology of various Ghanaian languages of the participants for the 
analysis of their English speech was largely motivated by Leung and Kirk and Vigeland (2015:18) asserted that “the error pattern of velar 
Brice (2012:43) in their report from the literature that “learners of En- fronting occurs when a velar phoneme is replaced by an alveolar 
glish as a second or other language may encounter problems in pro- phoneme”. They also maintained that “the error pattern of palatal 
nunciation because of contrastive differences between English and their fronting occurs when a palatal phoneme is replaced by an alveolar 
first language (Chan & Li, 2000)”. Again, in this research, the re- phoneme”. Fronting is basically divided into two - palatal and velar 
searchers were also partly motivated to consider how the first languages (Weismer, 1984, p. 48). As indicated in Table 4, four different stimulus 
of the children used as participants affected their English speech by the words offered opportunity for fronting but nine cases of fronting 
work of Cairns et al. (1974:166) in their analysis of results of substitu- occurred as some of the six participants had more than one case of 
tion phonological patterns of three groups of American children where fronting in their pronunciation of the affected stimulus words. 
they averred that “the results can be largely accounted for in terms of The two forms of fronting (Weismer, 1984, p. 44) were identified in 
two lines of explanation. One of these is the set of expectations regarding this study. While one participant, 3J, produced the palatal fricative /ʃ/ in 
variations due to black dialect and Spanish-influenced-English”. As far television /televiʃn/ and shout /ʃaʊt/ as the alveolar fricative /s/, 3E, 4B 
as this study was concerned, Ewe, Ga, Akan and Dagbani were the and 5G substitute /ʃ/ in only shout with /s/. Again, 3D, apart from 
Ghanaian languages spoken exclusively by different participants at producing /ʃ/ in television and shout as /s/, also replaced the affricate /tʃ/ 
home as their first language (i.e; L1). in picture /pɪktʃa/ by the alveolar stop /t/ resulting in [pɪta]. It must be 
made clear, in this study, that emphasis was placed on the replacement 
3. Results of the affricate /tʃ/ in picture with /t/ resulting in fronting. The omission 
of /k/ in the medial position of picture /pɪktʃa/ does not amount to 
The substitution phonological patterns identified were fronting, cluster reduction. 
backing, and stopping. It was observed that all the identified patterns In all, there were eight cases of palatal fronting identified in this 
occurred across age boundary. The processes and their respective par- study. Although /tʃ/ offered opportunity for palatal fronting, it recorded 
ticipants showing their (processes) pervasion across the three age groups only one incidence vis ́a vis the palatal fricative /ʃ/ which recorded seven 
are in the discussion section. Leung and Brice (2012:43–44), in instances in this study. There was replacement of /ʃ/ by /s/ in shout 
corroborating the pervasiveness of the patterns found across age /ʃaʊt/ among five participants and in television /televiʃn/ among two 
boundary in their study, reported that “most English-speaking children participants as seen in the patterns of their production in Table 4. This 
resolve these processes by age 7, but stopping, gliding, backing, front- observation made it possible to conclude that among the Ghanaian 
ing, and cluster reduction are persistent and may continue beyond that 
age (Merkel-Piccini, 2001; Nicolosi, Harryman, & Kresheck 1996; Wil- Table 4 
liamson, 2010)”. The identified phonological patterns occurred at Summary of findings on fronting.  
varying degrees of frequency among different participants indicating Participants Stimuli Corresponding fronting 
that children differ in their difficulty in their speech. 3D 3J Television /televisn/ 
3D 3E 3J 4B 5G Shout /saʊt/ 
3D Picture /pɪktʃa/ 
5J Mug /mad/  
4
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
children used as participants for this study, the palatal /ʃ/ was more occurrence of velar fronting in the literature that 
difficult to be produced than the palatal alveolar /tʃ/. 
Again, the researchers of this study identified that of the total six the second component of our explanation for VF comes from research in 
participants observed to have fronted, only one of them had velar (adult) articulatory phonetics showing that consonants in prosodically 
fronting while the remaining five had palatal fronting. This finding in strong positions, e.g. stressed or word-initial onsets, show larger amplitude 
this study was in consonance with the finding made by Vihman and in their articulatory gestures than those in other positions, e.g. codas or 
Greenlee (1987) who identified a high frequency of palatal fronting than onsets of unstressed syllables. This difference in gesture magnitude ap-
velar fronting in 11 typically developing children at 36 months with two pears to disproportionately affect velars, yielding a greater, more forward 
of the 3-year-olds testing both velars and palatals, whereas six children linguo-palatal contact for velar consonants in this position than for velars 
front only palatals as reported by Kirk and Vigeland (2015:19). Kirk and in weaker prosodic contexts. 
Vigeland (2015:19) corroborating the observation that velar fronting The second reason for the cause of velar fronting is arguable though 
was rare relative to palatal fronting reported that “this phenomenon is is somewhat evident in the case of velar fronting in this study. The only 
seen as a result of velar fronting resolving earlier that palatal fronting in velar fronting identified in this study occurred in the coda of the affected 
typical children”. In this study the participants who committed fronting word (mug). That occured when /g/ in mug /mag/ was replaced with /d/ 
in shout, picture and television spoke Twi, a dialect of Akan as their L1. . In this study, the researchers maintained that the doubt on the satis-
The voiceless alveolar-palatal fricative sound /ʃ/ being substituted for faction of the second reason for velar fronting was as a result of an 
/s/ by the participants in the words television and shout and the observation made in the participants’ production of another stimulus 
palate-alveolar affricate sound /tʃ/ for /t/ in picture resulting in the word that had velar at a stressed position in this study. The participant 
phonological pattern in question are present in the first language (L1) of who fronted the velar in the stimulus word in question did not do the 
the participants. It presupposed that the L1 of the participants in ques- same to other velars at stressed or strong position of the stimuli like goat, 
tion might not be a factor for the pattern in their speech because the cat and classroom in this study. Although she fronted /g/ in mug, and 
presence of the sound in their L1 should have even aided the participants produced /g/ in goat as /k/, she did not front it. This rather suggested 
to produce the words correctly. Again, out of the thirty participants used that she did not have the voiced velar stop /g/ in both her phonemic and 
for this study, twenty-five of them were Akan speakers, specifically Twi. phonetic inventory. This participant had Gã as her L1. Campbell 
It might be concluded that the six participants constituted insignificant (2017:40) in her discussion of phonology of Gã stated that “the only 
number to establish that Akan preschoolers have a challenge to produce consonant that may occur word-finally is ŋ”. This means that neither the 
the sound /ʃ/ and /tʃ/ regardless of their being in their first language, expected and mandatory sound /g/ or the substitute /d/ is permissible in 
Akan of the Akan speakers. Gã. Her L1 could therefore be a factor. This observation however, gave a 
For clarity of distinction between the two forms of fronting, Kirk and probable feature of the phonological pattern of Ga preschoolers’ pro-
Vigeland (2015:19) recommended them to be treated differently as they duction of the sound that resulted in the pattern in question implying 
wrote that “we recommend that the fronting of palatals be assessed that the participant of discussion might not have been largely inhibited 
independently from the fronting of velars, given that velar fronting re- by her L1. 
solves earlier than palatal fronting in typically developing children The researchers of this study deemed it important to discuss age in 
(Stoel-Gammon & Dunn, 1985)”. The pattern of production for velar relation to velar fronting. Velar fronting is a commonly observed process 
fronting in this study is seen in its array of pronunciation below: in children up to three years as reported by Byun et al. (2016:143). In 
Mug /mag/ is realised as [mad] view of the literature above, the researchers found it rather odd having a 
In the pattern above, participant 5J, substituted velar stop /g/ in mug child at 5:03 exhibiting this kind of phonological pattern in this study. It 
/mag/ for the alveolar stop /d/. Shriberg (1993:121) indicated in his however made this study revealing as it showed the possibility of its (VF) 
work that the velar stop /g/ was mastered at the middle stage of the occurrence in a Ghanaian child beyond the age of 3. The age of six as the 
child’s language development while the alveolar stop /d/ was mastered threshold for total development of the vocal tract as claimed by Inkelas 
at the early stage of the child language acquisition. The researchers of and Rose (2003:6) partly justified the occurrence of velar fronting in one 
this study did not therefore find it surprising for this participant at 5:03 of the participants at 5:03. 
replacing /g/ in mug /mag/ with /d/. This was because occurrence of The organs that aid in speech execution or production require 
only one case of this (/g/ for /d/ in mug /mag/) did not offer enough physical strength which the child at a certain age may not have had 
reason to maintain that the difference in age of mastery of both sounds theirs developed. In the case of velar fronting, the velar is said to require 
as propounded by Shrieberg (1993) was the cause of the error in the more energy in production, so underdevelopment of the vocal tract or 
participant’s speech but rather might point to other factors. The re- any articulatory organ is likely to result in the child producing a sound 
searchers of this current study found the foremost cause of substituting easier than a velar. This might explain the participant’s inability to 
/g/ in mug /mag/ for /d/ on the part of the participant in question apart produce the velar /g/ but rather the /d/ mug resulting in fronting.  
from the reason given to perhaps physiological constraint on the 
acquisition of the sounds by the participant. This position by the re- • Stopping 
searchers of this study was corroborated by Inkelas and Rose’s (2003:6) 
observation on the possible cause of velar fronting (i.e; VF) as they The researchers of this current study found stopping as basically the 
admitted that replacement of fricatives by stops. Kirk and Vigeland (2015:16) also in 
the first factor which contributes to velar fronting VF in children s pro- their explanation of stopping as a phonological pattern described it as ’
ductions concerns physiological characteristics of the vocal tract at early where “a fricative or affricate is replaced with a stop consonant that 
ages. Studies by Fletcher (1973) and Kent (1981) demonstrate that in shares the same or similar place of articulation (/f/ and /v/ are replaced 
young children, the size of the tongue is much bigger, relative to the rest of with labial stops; /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, and /ʤ/ are replaced with 
the vocal tract, than it is in adults, while the palate is proportionally alveolar stops)”. 
shorter. Based on comparative measurements, Crelin shows that the vocal In this study, only two words offered opportunity for stopping as can 
tract of a two- year-old has basically the same shape as in a newborn be seen in Table 5. While the labio-dental fricative /v/ was replaced with 
infant, with the tongue filling the supralaryngeal cavity almost entirely. At the voiced bilabial stop /b/ in television /televiʃn/ and vase /vas/ of 
around age two, the vocal tract begins its progressive evolution towards its flower vase, the alveolar fricative /t/ replaced the labio-dental fricative 
adult shape, which is generally not attained before age six. /f/ in flower /flawa/. The first observation made from Table 5 above was that the voiced labio-dental fricative /v/ was mostly replaced with the 
Inkelas and Rose (2003:6) further reported an account for the stop /b/ while /f/ was replaced with /t/. This was evident in the 
5
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
Table 5 strong position of a word. 
Summary findings on stopping.  The wealth of literature on the position of a phoneme in a word 
Participant(s) Stimuli Corresponding stopping giving rise to stopping was not entirely supported in this study. This was 
because the participants replaced the fricatives with stops in both word- 
3E 3I 4J Television /telebiʃn/ 
3I Flower vase /flawa bas/ medial and initial as could be seen in the pattern of occurrence for 
5B Flower vase /tlawa vas/  stopping above. The fricative /v/ in television /televiʃn/ which was 
replaced with a stop /b/ by three different participants was in the 
penultimate position which was neither word-initial nor strong position 
replacement of /v/ in both television and vase of flower vase with /b/ as claimed in the literature. Although the researchers identified in-
while /t/ replaced only /f/ in flower of flower vase. The observation in stances of stopping occurring in the strong or initial position of the 
this current study partly makes the position of Kirk and Vigeland stimuli (i.e; vase and flower of flower vase) as seen in the analysis above, it 
(2015:16) on the place of occurrence of stopping faulty. This is because must be stated that the occurrence of stopping in the initial and strong 
Kirk and Vigleand’s (2015) explanation of stopping as when “a fricative positions of the stimulus words flower of flower vase and vase of flower 
or affricate is replaced with a stop consonant that shares the same or vase was not largely contingent on or triggered by the initial positions of 
similar place of articulation”, coupled with their position that /f/ and the affected fricatives. This was because there were fricatives in other 
/v/ are substituted for labial stops was not entirely evident in this study. strong and initial positions of some of the stimulus words like face and 
In this study, the researchers found that /f/ in flower of flower vase was fan of ceiling fan which failed to record stopping by the same partici-
rather replaced with an alveolar sound /t/ which does not share same- pants. The morphological structure of the words that have stopping or 
ness or similarity of place of articulation with /f/ which is labio-dental. their fricatives replaced by stops might be a reason. The difficulty in the 
The voiced labio-dental /v/ however satisfied the assertion of Kirk and processing chain of a word may be dependent on a syllable length. This 
Vigeland (2015), as /v/ in the stimuli (words that offer opportunity for was true of this current study because among the stimuli that are single 
stopping) was replaced with labial stop /b/ in this study. It was clear or non-compound words for this study, television had the highest number 
from the above analysis that /v/ recorded four cases of stopping for two of syllables while flower vase was a compound word of which both 
of the words, television and vase of flower vase among three participants provided opportunities for stopping at their initial and medial positions. 
while /f/ was replaced with /t/ once by only one participant as seen in It was enough to conclude that the participants rather found it difficult 
Table 5. The high frequency of /v/ recording stopping in relation to /f/ to produce fricatives in polysyllabic or compound words. 
suggested that the voiced labio-dental fricative /v/ was more difficult to The L1 of the participants who had stopping in their speech in this 
produce by the participants vis à vis the voiceless labio-dental fricative current study was Twi, a dialect of Akan. While the voiceless labio- 
/f/. This observation in this study was consistent with and gave credence dental fricative /f/ exists in the phonology of Twi, a dialect of Akan, its 
to Smit’s (1993:539) assertion that “stopping is more frequent for voiced voiced counterpart /v/ is absent (Abakah, 2005, p. 47; Schachter & 
than for voiceless fricative targets”. Fromkin, 1968, p. 25). The influence of a child’s L1 on their L2 acqui-
Pater (2002:352) provided useful information on the age of children sition as one of the central premises of the theory of Natural Phonology 
in respect of presence of stopping in children’s speech that “children’s is evident here, as /v/ which is absent in the L1 of the participants 
early productions often display “stopping”, whereby fricatives are remained difficult to be realised and was replaced with a sound more 
realised as stops”. The difficulty in the production of fricatives at an common in their L1. 
early stage of the child is evident in the literature that “previous studies 
have shown that among different manners of articulation, fricatives are 3.1.1. Backing 
acquired at a relatively late age in normally-developing children Fabus (2011:171) explained backing as “an unusual process that 
(Stoel-Gammon & Dunn, 1985)” as cited in Yang et al. (2017:154). In occurs when a consonant made in the back of the oral cavity is 
this current study the researchers did not find it therefore odd to have substituted for a consonant made in the front of the mouth (e.g., goggie 
two participants at 3 out of 4 recording stopping because children at 3 for doggie)”. Fourteen cases of backing occurred for three different 
might be more predisposed to stopping relative to those at 4 and beyond stimuli as seen in Table 6 below.  
as evident here. The presence of stopping in the speech of each of the 
participants at 4 and even at 5 in this present study was justified by the • blade 
report of Holm and Dodd (1999:121) that “the processes still common in 
the speech of a 4-year-old are stopping and gliding”. In relation to blade, the voiced alveolar stop /d/ was replaced with 
In the literature, the position or the environment of a sound in a word the voiced velar stop /g/ as seen in Table 6. Two of the three participants 
triggers some phonological patterns. It is therefore worth considering at 3 who engaged in backing as a substitution process by replacing /d/ in 
the position of the phonological patterns in question (stopping) in blade with /g/ provided an interesting revelation in this present study. 
relation to the English speech of the Ghanaian preschoolers used for this The participant, 3B, who failed to produce /g/ at the end of the stimulus 
study. Smit’s (1993:539) claimed that “the process of stopping appears word mug /mag/, now replaced /d/ at the end of blade /bleid/ with /g/ 
to affect initial fricatives primarily, except that [b] is often used for final resulting in backing. The participant identified as 3C also omitted the 
/v/ as well as initial /v/” might be said to have been supported here as voiced alveolar stop /d/ in board of writing board and replaced /d/ in 
the pattern of occurrence of stopping above revealed that stopping for blade /bleid/ with /g/. This suggested that the sound /d/ was not in 
/f/ is in word-initial and that of /v/ was in word-initial and penultimate both the phonetic and phonemic inventories of the participants (3B and 
in the patterns 1 and 2 above respectively. It could not however be 3C). Another participant, 3D, although correctly pronounced /d/ in the 
incontrovertibly accepted as the stimuli used for this study did not have stimulus word board of writing board, replaced /d/ in blade with /g/. This 
/f/ and /v/ in word-final to fully support Smit’s claim. Inkelas and Rose 
(2007:725) also reported that “fricative consonants are neutralised to 
stops in prosodically strong (e.g: word-initial and stressed onsets), but Table 6 
accurately realised as fricatives in weak positions (e.g: word-medial, Summary findings on backing.  
unstressed onsets, codas) Dinnsen (1996), Edwards (1996)”. Byun Participants Stimuli Corresponding backing 
et al.‘s (2016:159) assertion that “fricatives in onset position are thus 3B 3C 3D Blade /bleig/ 
motorically more demanding than coda fricatives” suggesting difficulty 3B 3F 3G 4A 4F 4G 4H 4J 5E 5F Classroom /klaʃrum/ 
in realising fricatives at onset than at the coda position added to the 5E Television / ʃeleviʃn/  
mountain of literature on stopping occurring often at word initial or 
6
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
implied that the participant 3D had the sound /d/ in his phonetic in- that provided opportunity for backing as seen in the analysis above. 
ventory, but not stable in his phonemic inventory. This participant’s As far as the substitution of /ʃ/ for /s/ in some of the participants’ 
production pattern of /d/ as discussed above was justified by the liter- production of classroom was concerned, one plausible and convincing 
ature that “a child with multiple misarticulation errors may possess an reason among other factors was the one put forth by Byun (2011:375) in 
age-appropriate sound inventory, yet have difficulty using sounds in the his report from the literature that “sibilant fricatives are in fact more 
obligatory linguistic shapes, such as clusters and polysyllabic words—- energy-intensive than stops (Kirchner, 2001)”. Though /ʃ/ is not a stop, 
thus, it is important to examine the context of the errors” as cited in it has the phonetic property as palatal fricative whereas /s/ being a 
Fabus (2011:149). sibilant fricative might therefore account for its (/ʃ/) easy articulation 
The literature has also reported that “in developing phonological relative to /s/ which results in the replacement of the sibilant /s/ in 
systems, there is often a stage during which there is a preference for classroom with /ʃ/ in this current study. Jongman et al.‘s (2000:1255) 
labial singleton consonants in syllable-onset position and singleton ve- made the assertion that “spectral properties serve to distinguish /s/ from 
lars in syllable-coda position (Ingram, 1974)” cited in Kirk (2008:41). /ʃ/, with /s/ having a concentration of energy in higher frequencies than 
The researchers of this current study found the literature true as was /ʃ/” confirming the energy intensiveness of /s/ over /ʃ/. 
evident in this study: the three participants (3B, 3C, 3D) rather produced The literature might however not account for the replacement of /t/ 
the velar /g/ instead of the alveolar /d/ in the word-final of the stimulus in television with /ʃ/ as stops are generally easier to produce than frica-
word. Akan, the L1 of these participants, have its phonology excluding tives. The difficulty in the production of a sibilant like /s/ by children in 
/d/ from phonemes that are permissible at word-final as Abakah the literature above as a result of a physiological challenge or being a 
(2005:47) maintained that “/d/ does not occur at word-final in Akan”. natural phenomenon, as certain sounds by nature develop late in chil-
The substitute /g/ as well is not permissible at word-final in the L1 of the dren’s speech, can be understood through the theory of Natural 
participants. It therefore suggested that the participants’ substitution of Phonology. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk’s (2007:1), in contributing to the the-
/d/ for /g/ did not owe much to their L1 but other factors including the ory indicated that “the theory operates with phonological processes, 
one suggested by Ingram as stated above. The poor sequence of the which constitute natural responses of the human vocal and perceptual 
phonological structure of the words in question by the respective par- systems to the difficulties encountered in the production and perception 
ticipants might be as a result of poor articulatory planning which was a of speech”. This means that in the face of difficulty in the production of a 
major position of the theory of Natural Phonology as children are known sound, the child quickly resorts to natural articulatory capability as a 
to misarticulate similar sounds when they have not yet attained the age relatively easy sound was rather produced. The sound /ʃ/ seemed 
needed to draw distinction between sounds making their speech dis- therefore to be easier than /s/ and /t/ to the participants in question, 
similar to the adult’s. This was true as the participants were observed to hence its (/ʃ/) choice over /t/ and /s/ in television and classroom 
not appropriately produce the expected and required sound (/d/) in the respectively in this study. 
environment of the word (blade) perhaps due in part to their inability to Surprisingly, the L1 of the ten participants observed to have replaced 
plan their production of the word in their minds first to be sure of the /s/ with /ʃ/ in classroom and /t/ by /ʃ/ in television was Twi, an Akan 
required sound which resulted in the production /d/ instead of /g/.  dialect. In Akan phonology, the sibilant /s/ is among consonants that 
occur in a word-medial (Snatcher and Fromkin, 1968:25; Abakah, 2005, 
• classroom and television p. 47). The English sound /ʃ/ is not represented as a phoneme in Twi but 
its equivalence in Twi is by a cluster or a combination of sounds /h/ and 
In relation to classroom and television, /s/ and /t/ respectively were /y/ or orthographically represented as ‘hy’. Its occurrence in a 
replaced with /ʃ/, resulting in backing. Templin (1957:53); Fabus word-medial is by reduplication. This information on /ʃ/ has been 
(2011:148) and Dodd et al. (2003:620) shared the result of the different confirmed by Huber (2008:85) that “Akan does not have the post-
ages at which 75 percent of participants of some major studies produced alveolar fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ but rather similar voiceless 
correctly /s/ and /ʃ/. Fabus and Templin reported that Wellman et al. palato-alveolar fricative (ɕ) occurs as an allophone of /h/ before front 
(1931), Poole (1934), Templin (1957), Prather et al. (1975) and Arit and vowels”. This information was enough to conclude that the L1 of the 
Goodban (1976) had the ages at which their participants correctly participants was not a cause of backing identified but other factors as 
produced the sibilant /s/ as 5, 7.5, 4.5, 3 and 4 respectively. In respect of reported in the literature. This is because Twi, a dialect of Akan which 
/ʃ/, apart from Wellman et al. (1931), the rest of the major studies such was spoken by the participants as their L1 both at home and at school 
as Poole (1934), Templin (1957) and Prather et al. (1975) and Arit and has the /ʃ/ as one of its phonemes in its phonology which raised 
Goodban (1976) maintained that age of its mastery was at 6.5, 4.5, 3–8 expectation of capability to produce the sound in question. The inability 
and 4.5 respectively. A close look at age of mastery of /s/ and /ʃ/ by of the participants in question to produce the sound in question resulting 
children as indicated by the major and seminal studies above did not in the phonological pattern showed that Ghanaian bilingual children 
reveal a significant difference in the age needed to acquire one over the learning English also could exhibit the pattern in question. 
other. 
The ages of mastery for both /s/ and /ʃ/ by these studies is in 4. Limitation 
consonance with Shriberg’s (1993:121) classification of both sounds 
(/s/ and /ʃ/) within the late-stage category in his three stages or se- Some of the children’s pronunciations of some of the stimulus words 
quences of mastery of consonant sounds. As indicated, the average age of did not exist in the phonology of English making the transcription a bit 
mastery of 75 percent of children for both sounds in question is 4. The difficult. The participants were made to stay close to the classroom by 
researchers of this present study however found it surprising that par- the head teacher of the school in which the data collection took place 
ticipants in this current study at 4 recorded the highest number of cases while the participants pronounced the stimulus words. This made the 
of backing in their bid to produce /s/ in classroom as five participants at background of the pronunciation exercise a bit noisy. It was observed 
4 were observed to have replaced /s/ with /ʃ/ while two participants at 5 that some of the participants who found some of the stimuli difficult to 
and three at 3 also did so. Carneiro Rosal et al. (2013:842) in their produce eventually did so in undertones. This gave the researchers and 
findings on phonological patterns in the speech of children reported that those engaged in evaluating the transcription of the recorded speech of 
the processes such as backing for palatal, backing for velar, fronting etc the children a herculean and strenuous task of listening with rapt 
disappeared at the age of 4:6. The literature on the age limit for elimi- attention to arrive at accurate transcription. The researchers of this 
nation of the phonological patterns including backing was partly study admitted that the sample size of thirty children with ten each of 
consistent with the finding in this study as participants at 5 in this study the various age groups coupled with twenty stimulus words might not 
were observed to have the least frequency of backing for all the stimuli give a fair representation of Ghanaian children’s pronunciation of 
7
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
English sounds, however, this was a case study experimenting some the modelling the English speech of Ghanaian adults and teachers being 
English sounds production by Ghanaian children at a particular school in second language speakers of English, exhibit some phonological patterns 
Ghana. in their speech. Such an understanding would assist Ghanaian teachers, 
parents and indeed Ghanaian speech therapists as they help children 
5. Conclusions maneuver speech developmental challenges, by falling on data collected 
from Ghanaian children themselves with whom they share similar social 
The study investigated speech distortions otherwise known as and linguistic features and circumstances, instead of relying on data 
phonological patterns in the speech of some Ghanaian children between from studies that focus on first language speakers of English with whom 
the ages of 3 and 5. It specifically looked at different speech sounds Ghanaian children have less in common. 
children usually replace expected sounds with when they confront dif-
ficulty in speech production which is also known as substitution CRediT authorship contribution statement 
phonological patterns. The English speech of the preschoolers was 
compared to the idealized version of the adult’s English speech. That Thomas Abdull Jamel Asare: Methodology, Formal Analysis, 
was, the children’s deviations from their teacher’s production of the Writing. Elizabeth Orfson-Offei: Conceptualization, Writing – review 
words for the study served as the basis for assessing the children. The & editing, Supervision. 
children’s data was analysed within the framework of Natural 
Phonology. Three phonological patterns observed in the children’s Declaration of competing interest 
speech were fronting stopping and backing. The first language, age and 
late development of articulators were some of the proximate reasons for No external sponsors were involved in any aspect of the study. All 
the identified speech distortions as supported by the literature. This costs were borne by the researchers. 
study therefore has helped to understand the various speech sounds that 
are developed at certain developmental stages of the child and other Acknowledgement 
developmental challenges the Ghanaian bilingual child goes through 
before finally attaining the full complexion of the Ghanaian adult’s We are grateful to all participants for their contribution in the data 
speech. collection processes including parents of the participants and staff of the 
The findings of this study have laid the foundation for understanding private Basic in Kumasi for giving us access to their wards and pupils for 
how children in Ghana, who are second language speakers of English, the data collection exercise.  
Appendix A
Appendix B  
Table 1 
Bio-data on the Participants at age 3.  
Code First language Age Sex 
3A Akan 3; 04 Female 
3B Akan 3; 07 Female 
3C Akan 3; 08 Male 
3D Akan 3; 08 Female 
3E Akan 3; 06 Female 
3F Akan 3; 05 Male 
3G Akan 3; 04 Female 
3H Dagbani 3; 6 Male 
3I Akan 3; 7 Male 
3J Akan 3; 09 Male   
8
T.A.J. Asare and E. Orfson-Offei                                                                                                                                                           S  o c  i a  l  S c  i e n  c  e s  &    H  u  m   a n  i t i e s   O  p  e n 8 (2023) 100631
Table 2 
Bio-data on the Participants at 4.  
Code First language Age Sex 
4A Akan 4; 05 Male 
4B Ga 4; 08 Male 
4C Dagbani 4; 09 Female 
4D Akan 4; 08 Male 
4E Akan 4; 08 Male 
4F Akan 4; 05 Male 
4G Akan 4; 03 Male 
4H Akan 4; 03 Female 
4I Akan 4; 06 Female 
4J Akan 4; 05 Male   
Table 3 
Bio-data on the Participants at 5.  
Code First language Age Sex 
5A Akan 5; 06 Male 
5B Akan 5; 06 Female 
5C Ewe 5; 07 Male 
5D Akan 5; 03 Male 
5E Akan 5; 06 Female 
5F Akan 5; 08 Male 
5G Akan 5; 06 Male 
5H Akan 5; 09 Female 
5I Akan 5; 09 Female 
5J Ga 5; 03 Female  
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