phonetically transcribed CDS

[JAN R EDWARDS]

Hi everyone,

While we are on the subject of CDS, I have a question also.
We are working on developing CDS lexicons for several languages
(English, Greek, Cantonese, Japanese).  Because we are interested
in phoneme frequency and phoneme sequence frequency, we need
to phonetically transcribe and segment the mother's (or other
caregiver's) speech.  This turns out to be somewhat complicated
in the case of CDS, because we have to make decisions about
where the word boundaries should be for infants.  For example,
how many words in "didja know..."  Is anyone else working
on this or similar questions in English or other languages?

Yours,
Jan

----- Original Message -----
From: Barbara Zurer Pearson <bpearson at research.umass.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 8:09 am
Subject: Re: Origins of baby talk / motherese / CDS / caregiver talk
To: Matthew Saxton <M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk>
Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org


> 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/
> 
>