Baby talk, also referred to as caretaker speech, infant-directed speech (IDS) or child-directed speech (CDS)[1][2][3][4] and informally as "motherese", "parentese", "mommy talk", or "daddy talk" is a nonstandard form of speech used by adults in talking to toddlers and infants.
It is usually delivered with a "cooing" pattern of intonation different from that of normal adult speech: high in pitch, with many glissando variations that are more pronounced than those of normal speech. It frequently displays hyperarticulation, a measure of clear speech defined by having large amounts of acoustic space between vowels as measured by formants[5]. Baby talk is also characterized by the shortening and simplifying of words. Baby talk is similar to what is used by people when talking to their pets (pet-directed speech), and between adults as a form of affection, intimacy, bullying or condescension.
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Baby talk is more effective than regular speech in getting an infant's attention. Studies have shown that infants actually prefer to listen to this type of speech.[7]. This serves to capture infants' attention when speaking to them. Some researchers, including Rima Shore (1997), believe that baby talk is an important part of the emotional bonding process between the parents and their child that help the infants learn the language. Other researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin confirm that using basic “baby talk” helps babies pick up words faster than usual.[8] Infants actually pay more attention when parents use infant-directed language, which has a slower and more repetitive tone than used in regular conversation.
Colwyn Trevarthen studied babies and their mothers. He observed the communication and subtle movements between the babies and mothers. He has links to music therapy with other theorists.[9]
Shore and other researchers believe that baby talk contributes to mental development, as it helps teach the child the basic function and structure of language. Studies have found that responding to an infant's babble with meaningless babble aids the infant's development; while the babble has no logical meaning, the verbal interaction demonstrates to the child the bidirectional nature of speech, and the importance of verbal feedback. Some experts advise that parents should not talk to infants and young children solely in baby talk, but should integrate some normal adult speech as well. The high-pitched sound of motherese gives it special acoustic qualities which may appeal to the infant (Goodluck 1991). Motherese may aid a child in the acquisition and/or comprehension of language-particular rules which are otherwise unpredictable, when utilizing principles of universal grammar (Goodluck 1991). It has been also suggested that motherese is crucial for children to acquire the ability to ask questions.[10] Some feel that parents should refer to the child and others by their names only (no pronouns, e.g., he, I, or you), to avoid confusing infants who have yet to form an identity independent from their parents.
Researchers Bryant and Barrett (2007) [11] have suggested (as have others before them, e.g., Fernald, 1992 [12]) that baby talk exists universally across all cultures and is a species-specific adaptation. Other researchers contend that it is not universal among the world's cultures, and argue that its role in helping children learn grammar has been overestimated. As evidence they point out that in some societies (such as certain Samoan tribes; see Shore 1997), adults do not speak to their children at all until the children reach a certain age. Furthermore, even where baby-talk is used, it is full of complicated grammatical constructs, and mispronounced or non-existent words. Other evidence suggests that baby talk is not a universal phenomenon. Schieffelin & Ochs (1983), for example, describe the Kaluli tribe of Papua New Guinea who do not typically employ infant-directed speech. Language acquisition in Kaluli children was not found to be significantly impaired. In other societies, it is more common to speak to children as one would to an adult, but with simplifications in grammar and vocabulary, with the belief that it will help them learn words as they are known in the standard form.
In order to relate to the child during baby talk, a parent may deliberately slur or fabricate some words, and may pepper the speech with nonverbal utterances. A parent might refer only to objects and events in the immediate vicinity, and will often repeat the child's utterances back to them. Since children employ a wide variety of phonological and morphological simplifications (usually distance assimilation or reduplication) in learning speech, such interaction results in the "classic" baby-words like na-na for grandmother, wawa for water, or din-din for dinner, where the child seizes on a stressed syllable of the input, and simply repeats it to form a word.
In any case, the normal child will eventually acquire the local language without difficulty, regardless of the degree of exposure to baby talk. However, the use of motherese could have an important role in affecting the rate and quality of language acquisition.
The use of baby talk is not limited to interactions between adults and infants, as it may be used among adults, or by people to animals. In these instances, the outward style of the language may be that of baby talk, but is not considered actual parentese, as it serves a different linguistic function (see pragmatics).
Baby talk and imitations of it may be used by one noninfant to another as a form of verbal abuse, in which the talk is intended to infantilize the victim. This can occur during bullying, when the bully uses baby talk to assert that the victim is weak, cowardly, overemotional, or otherwise submissive.
Baby talk may be used as a form of flirtation between sex partners. In this instance, the baby talk may be an expression of tender intimacy, and may form part of affectionate sexual roleplaying in which one partner speaks and behaves childishly, while the other acts motherly or fatherly, responding in parentese. One or both partners might perform the child role. Terms of endearment, such as poppet may be used for the same purpose.
Many people use falsetto, glissando and repetitive speech similar to baby talk when addressing their pets. Such talk is not commonly used by professionals who train working animals such as police dogs and guard dogs, but is very common among owners of companion pets. This style of speech is different from baby talk, despite intonal similarities, especially if the speaker uses rapid rhythms and forced breathiness which may mimic the animal's utterances. Pets often learn to respond well to the emotional states and specific commands of their owners who use baby talk, especially if the owner's intonations are very distinct from ambient noise. For example, a dog may recognize baby talk as his owner's invitation to play (as is a dog's natural "play bow"); a cat may learn to come when addressed with the high-pitched utterance, "Heeeeere kitty- kitty-kitty-kitty- kitty- kitty!"
People speaking to foreigners may simplify their language in order to address listeners not skilled in the speaker's language. Some people use sign language to communicate with others, especially if they have a hearing problem, although this is not always understood by people, as some signs in ASL may be difficult to interpret by some people, especially if gestures have different meanings from place to place, so they may use a baby talk-like language to communicate, skipping out small words and possibly using demonstratives instead of pronouns, for example Do not cross the road becoming No cross road. While sometimes helpful for unskilled foreigners, this type of communication is percieved as rude or offensive in some societies, because it may cause the foreigner to feel infantilised. While not considered to be actual parentese, it has aspects which make the two language styles similar.
As noted above, baby talk often involves shortening and simplifying words, with the possible addition of slurred words and nonverbal utterances, and can invoke a vocabulary of its own. Some utterances are invented by parents within a particular family unit, or are passed down from parent to parent over generations, while others are quite widely known and used within most families, such as wawa for water, num-num for a meal, ba-ba for bottle, or beddy-bye for bedtime, and are considered standard or traditional words, possibly differing in meaning from place to place.
Baby talk, language regardless, usually consists of a muddle of words, including names for family members, names for animals, eating and meals, bodily functions and genitals, sleeping, pain, possibly including important objects such as diaper, blanket, pacifier, bottle, etc., and may be sprinkled with nonverbal utterances, such as goo goo ga ga. The vocabulary of made-up words, such as those listed below, may be quite long with terms for a large number of things, rarely or possibly never using proper language, other times quite short, dominated by real words, all nouns. Most words invented by parents have a logical meaning, although the nonverbal sounds are usually completely meaningless and just fit the speech together.
A fair number of baby talk and nursery words refer to bodily functions or the genitals, partly because the words are relatively easy to pronounce. Also, if a child is very young, bodily functions such as urination and defecation may be quite exciting for them. Scientific terms may be harder for them to understand and pronounce, so baby talk may be more convenient for a young child. Moreover, such words reduce adults' discomfort with the subject matter, and make it possible for children to discuss such things without breaking adult taboos. However, some, such as pee-pee and poo-poo have been very widely used in reference to bodily functions to the point that they are considered to be standard words, so ability to mention such subjects without adult negativity has recently faded.
Some examples of widely-used baby talk words and phrases in English, many of which are not found within standard dictionaries but may be classified as nonstandard or childish terms, include:
Moreover, many words can be derived into baby talk following certain rules of transformation, in English adding a terminal /i/ sound at the end, usually written and spelled as /ie/, /y/, or /ey/, is a common way to form a diminutive which is often used as part of baby talk, examples include:
("Puppy" is often erroneously thought to be a diminutive of pup made this way, but it is in fact the other way around: pup is a shortening of puppy, which comes from French popi or poupée which means "doll".)
Baby talk phrases and sentences often skip out small words, imitating young children who can make little sense of sentence composition, such as to, at, for, my, so and as, and articles (the, a, an), thus resulting in an incomplete sentence, such as I need go potty or I want blanket. Sometimes, demonstratives are used instead of pronouns (he, I, it, she etc), as it may help children learn people's names, for example, Daddy wants Susie to eat her cereal instead of standard adult-type speech, I want you to eat your cereal as pronouns are often confusing to young children. Also, labelling is practised, sometimes emphasising a word through repetition within a sentence, such as That's a car, Susie. It's a car. Some parents substitute a particular word in a sentence with a difficult sound to pronounce with another easier word, such as choo-choo instead of train as some children are unable to pronounce the /tr/ sound as infants, although most learn pronunciations and phonics as they increase in age.
All individual words have a logical meaning, although phrases made up of them are often based on random utterances, sprinkled with logical words, so the child can "sift" out the words with meanings and interpret them, as the parent may teach language by labelling, associating the word with the object or action.
Some baby talk words and phrases, such as mama, pee-pee, potty, yucky, no-no and tummy are sometimes used after infancy, just as colloquial or informal terms. However, reduplication is not practised, for example pee-pee becomes pee. Also, meanings may slightly change to become more age-universal and specific, for example potty changing in meaning from any toilet to a container-like one for small children, or yum-yum changing from mealtime to an informal expression of delight towards a meal, or stinky changing from defecation (as a countable noun) to an adjective for something smelling bad, such as This cheese is stinky!. Also, poppet or similar terms may be used as a term of endearment for a loved one of similar age, such as a romantic partner, and quick-quick or no-no may be used as expressions in school, university and even occupational work scenarios. Nonverbal utterances such as googoogaga may be used as figuratives for things misinterpreted or not understood. Words such as mama and nana are words often used for family members past infancy. The word doo-doo is used as a figurative later in age for something difficult or problematic, such as When the computer's jammed, we're in deep doo-doo.
Most standard baby talk words consist of a single syllable duplicated, such as mama, dada, poo-poo, pee-pee, baba, boo-boo, bot-bot, num-num, dum-dum and wee-wee. These, such as mama, dada, baba, wawa, nana, are often imitations of a baby's first utterances which take the shape of a word. These are made when the child takes a stressed syllable of the main word to "shorten" it and repeats it to form a word-like utterance. Words with similar sounds from stressed syllables, such as mama, dada and baba. These include:
Words can be made from a diminutive with an /i/ sound at the end, reduplicated, but the first letter of the duplication replaced with a /w/, for example teensy-weensy, puppy-wuppy or binkie-winkie. Realistic language examples following this same pattern, known as partial duplications or modified duplications include okey-dokey, silly-billy, mumbo-jumbo and super-duper which use the first letter as the point of modification. However, these patterns are more common in colloquial language and slang than formal English and rarely use a /w/ for modification.
Many baby talk words for animals involve duplication of the onomatopoeia of the sound they make, including:
Others, which do not relate to animals, include vroom-vroom (car) and choo-choo (train).
Other transformations mimic the way infants mistake certain consonants which in English can include turning /l/ into /w/ as in wuv from love or widdo from little or in pronouncing /v/ as /b/ and /ð/ or /t/ as /d/ and soft /th/ as /f/ or /s/.
Still other transformations, but not in all languages, include elongated vowels, such as kitty and kiiiitty, (emphasised /i/) meaning the same thing. While this is understood by English speaking toddlers, it is not applicable with Dutch toddlers as they learn that elongated vowels reference different words.[13]
Some baby talk words have different meanings in different places, although spelt and said the same, such as widdle which is interpreted as a mistaking of little in the United States, and is interpreted as urine in the United Kingdom. Also, this can be supported by parents inventing meanings inside family units, whose language styles may differ from place to place. Some baby talk words are used frequently in the United Kingdom, possibly being considered standard terms, with some rare or even totally unknown in the United States, or vice versa.