fis phenomenon

A commonly used name for a behavior recognized in language ACQUISITION, in which children refuse to accept an adult’s IMITATION of their own mispronunciation. The name derives from the first report of this behavior in the early 1960s, since when several other such names have been used (e.g. the ‘wabbit’ phenomenon). An investigator referred to a child’s toy fish as his /fIs/, imitating the child’s form; the child refused to accept the adult’s pronunciation of /fIs/, despite the fact that his own version was identical, yet was unable to produce the ‘correct’ form. Such phenomena are interpreted as evidence for a more well-developed PERCEPTUAL than PRODUCTIVE LINGUISTIC ability in the young child, some investigators concluding that it is in fact the adult PHONOLOGICAL form which is stored in the child’s brain, or that the child may have two disassociated lexical stores – one for production and one for perception.