query about "motherese" research

[Judy Pine]

Hello, all!  I have a student in my intro to linganth class who is a Communications Science and Disorders major.  She raised a point in class which I need to take into account as we move through the quarter.  I was commenting on the fact that motherese is by no means necessary, and the student piped up saying that motherese does enhance language acquisition, she has been taught so in her CSD classes.  Now, I will certainly be bringing in Ochs and Schieffelin when we get to language acquisition, and we will have talked about Heath when we work our way through literacy and writing (we are in phonology right now, the quarter began at EOM September, and acquisition comes along at the tail end of things in my course).  I would love to have additional material on which to draw, and I am especially curious about what is out there that is recent that supports the motherese hypothesis.

I will reach out to colleagues in CSD and hopefully get some material there, but I thought it might be a good idea to see what my own community has in our collective libraries.  Your time and assistance is much appreciated.


-          Judy :)

Judith M.S. Pine
Asst. Professor
Dept of Anthropology
Western Washington University