[Linganth] Is "motherese" universal?

[Paul B. Garrett]

> "Dean Falk, professor of anthropology at Florida State University,
> says the universal phenomenon of mothers talking to their babies

Unadulterated pap.  (If anyone requires scholarly references for the
preceding statement, feel free to contact me off list.)

Or to be more charitable: the person cited would seem to be utterly
unfamiliar with conclusions reached by her colleagues in linguistic
anthropology--based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and data
collection, not speculation--over the last quarter-century or so.


> may
> be linked to two other crucial steps in human evolution -- walking
> upright and the development of bigger brains."

As to the rest, it surprises me that anything so speculative has been
published in a prominent scholarly journal.  (CNN and the rest of the
popular press is another matter.)  But then, I'm only going by the CNN
ditty--I haven't seen the _Brain and Behavioural Sciences_ article
itself.

Paul

Paul B. Garrett
Assistant Professor of (Linguistic) Anthropology
Temple University



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