Origins of baby talk / motherese / CDS / caregiver talk

[Barbara Zurer Pearson]

Dear Matthew,

Your question seems focused on the use of the *terms* for CDS, so this 
might be a little off the point.

I have always been fascinated by the Papouceks' work showing the 
universal non-verbal signals (posture and facial expressions) adults 
use when addressing children--which might underlie the CDS register.  
Is that an avenue worth following up for you?

Barbara


On Dec 4, 2006, at 5:08 AM, 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.
>  
> *********************************************************************
>  
> Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil
> School of Psychology and Human Development,
> Institute of Education,
> 25 Woburn Square,
> London,
> WC1H 0AA.
> U.K.
>  
> Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509
> Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304
>  
> http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248
> www.ioe.ac.uk
>  
>
*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D
Research Associate, Project Manager
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

Tel: 413.545.5023

bpearson at research.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/