Origins of baby talk / motherese / CDS / caregiver talk

[edy veneziano]

Thank you all for this discussion

In connection with the last exchanges,  CDS (including child-directed 
Sign !) seems to me a good compromise (when exactly this entered the 
literature I wouldn't know...).
It have been using CDS in as  plain and simple a way as possible : to 
refer to the talk that a partner addresses, uses to respond, to 
converse, etc with children learning a language.
This should provide us  a picture of the kind of speech and of 
discourse children are involved with (the speech they respond to, the 
speech they expect to follow their own speech, etc...), with no a 
priori connotations.
This should still leave  room to determine :
1. if and when CDS has specificities, and of which kind (for example, 
in which period, relatively to the learning child, it can be considered 
a register ... )
2. the effect that CDS and the kinds of interactions that go with it, 
might have on certain aspects of children's language
3. what other kinds of speech children hear or overhear  from other 
sources or in non interactive contexts (and some methods can be used to 
glimpse at that)


Edy Veneziano

On 4 déc. 06, at 20:29, Dan I. Slobin wrote:

>  In return: points well taken.  I've been using CDS (child-directed 
> speech) for the register you describe.  This is compact and doesn't 
> differentiate between
>  types of speakers directing speech to the child.  But one would have 
> to add specifications of the characteristics that make CDS a register, 
> since not all
>  people who speak to children use the register, or all of its 
> characteristics (still not fully specified).  (CDS also has the 
> convenience of standing for
>  Child-Directed Sign in studies of deaf children.)
>
>  Dan Slobin
>
>  At 11:10 AM 12/4/2006, Bruno Estigarribia wrote:
>> Points well taken. It still seems to me we are missing something 
>> here. Clearly, "exposure language" or "ambient language" encompasses 
>> adult-to-child speech, peer-to-peer (child or adult) interactions, as 
>> well as, well, TV, etc. But we sometimes want to talk about 
>> particular properties of particular registers, and therefore the 
>> terms we've been discussing ARE useful. "Exposure language" is not a 
>> particular, homogeneous, linguistic register, whereas 
>> motherese/caregiverese/parentese and child/infant-direct speech may 
>> well be specific registers, at least in some communities.
>>  BTW, I trace the important distinction "input" vs. "intake" back to 
>> Corder 1967 "The Significance of Learner's Errors", International 
>> Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, vol 4, p. 165.
>>
>>  Bruno Estigarribia
>>  Ph.D. candidate
>>  Stanford Linguistics
>>> I've started to use the term "exposure language," for several 
>>> reasons:
>>>
>>>      * "input" assumes that the child takes everything in
>>>      * "motherese" and "caregiver talk" exclude talk from non-parents
>>>        and non-caregivers (siblings, peers, other adults, etc.)
>>>      * "child directed speech" excludes what children learn from
>>>        overheard speech
>>>      * "baby talk" is ambiguous: could mean talk produced by or for 
>>> babies
>>>
>>>  "Exposure language" or "ambient language" allow one to consider 
>>> characteristics of talk that children are exposed to or surrounded 
>>> by,
>>>  without prejudging any of the issues mentioned above.
>>>
>>>  Dan Slobin
>>>
>>>
>>>  At 02:08 AM 12/4/2006, Matthew Saxton wrote:
>>>> Dear All,
>>>>
>>>>  Could anyone please help me trace the provenance of the terms we 
>>>> have for how adults talk to young children? I’m thinking in 
>>>> particular of /motherese/, /baby talk/, /Child Directed Speech 
>>>> /and/ caregiver talk./ (If I’ve missed any obvious ones, do please 
>>>> let me know this also).
>>>>
>>>>  My guess for /baby talk/ is Charles Ferguson around 1971, though a 
>>>> specific reference would be helpful. The earliest use of 
>>>> /motherese/ I can trace is:
>>>>
>>>>  Vorster, J. (1975). Mommy linguist ­ the case for motherese. 
>>>> /Lingua, 37/4,/ 281-312.
>>>>
>>>>  Catherine Snow does not seem to use the term /motherese/ in her 
>>>> 1972 article, but I would imagine there is an earlier source than 
>>>> Vorster (1975) (given Vorster’s acknowledgement of Snow).
>>>>
>>>>  For /Child Directed Speech/ (with a hyphen), I go back as far as:
>>>>
>>>>  Warren-Leubecker, A. & Bohannon, J.N. (1984). Intonation patterns 
>>>> in child-directed speech ­ mother-father differences. /Child 
>>>> Development, 55/4,/ 1379-1385.
>>>>
>>>>  As for /caregiver talk/, this phrase throws up precisely no 
>>>> references in a standard search. Julian Pine talks about “the 
>>>> language of primary caregivers” in 1995, but that’s not quite the 
>>>> same thing:
>>>>
>>>>  Pine, J. (1995). The language of primary caregivers. In C. 
>>>> Gallaway & B.J. Richards (eds.) /Input and interaction in language 
>>>> acquisition/. Cambridge: C.U.P..
>>>>
>>>>  Maybe no-one has actually used the phrase /caregiver talk/ and I 
>>>> should strike it from the record. In any event, any help tracing 
>>>> these terms back to their various sources would be very much 
>>>> appreciated.
>>>>
>>>>  Regards,
>>>>
>>>>  Matthew Saxton.
>>