The Acquisition of English and Arabic Onset Cluster: A Case Study

Abstract

This study has investigated the development of English and Arabic cluster in the speech of a bilingual child. Data was related to several recording sessions of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speech between the author and the child. The gradual development of English and Arabic onset cluster was traced in the production of a bilingual child aged between 1 year 04 months and 4 years 06 months. A comparative description of the repair strategy types used by the child to break English and Arabic consonants clustering in word-initial position has been provided. English onset clusters started to appear before the Arabic clusters. Arabic core clusters appeared before the plateau and reversal clusters. Cluster reduction and epenthesis were used to get rid of the clusters in both languages and prosthesis was used to get rid of clusters in Arabic.