Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Motherese: Motherese, also known as infant-directed speech or baby talk, is a simplified and exaggerated form of language used by adults when speaking to babies and young children. It features higher pitch, slower tempo, exaggerated intonation, and simpler vocabulary. This style of speaking is thought to aid language acquisition and cognitive development in infants by capturing their attention and making language patterns clearer. See also Learning, Language acquisition, Language development.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
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Cultural Psychology on Motherese - Dictionary of Arguments

Upton I 61
Motherese/Cultural Psychology/Upton: This type of speech is also very widespread and has been identified in a range of cultures, including the Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari, forest dwellers in the Cameroons, the Yanomami of the Amazon Basin and the Eipo of New Guinea (Fernald, 1985)(1).
However, it is not a universal feature of language and, in cultures where it is not used, language development follows the same progress although more slowly (Lieven, 1994)(2). This suggests that such speech is useful but not essential for language development. Child-directed speech is thought to make language learning easier because of the way it simplifies language (Thiessen et al., 2005)(3). Child-directed speech is also more effective than standard speech in getting an infant’s attention and studies have shown that infants prefer to listen to this type of speech (Singh et al., 2002(4)). Some researchers (e.g. Bombar and Littig, 1996)(5) also believe that this type of talk is an important part of the emotional bonding process.


1. Fernald, A. (1985) Four-month-old infants prefer to listen to motherese. Infant Behaviour
andDevelopment, 8: 181—95.
2. Lieven, E.V.M. (1994) Crosslinguistic and crosscultural aspects of language addressed to
children, in Gallaway, C and Richards, BJ (eds) Input and Interaction in Languo.ge Acquisition.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Thiessen, E.D., Hill, EA and Saffran,JR (2005) Infant-directed speech facilitates word seg
mentation. Infancy, 1:53—71.
4. Singh, L., Morgan, J.L. and Best, C.T. (2002) Infants’ listening preferences: Babytalk or happy talk?, Infancy, 3: 365–94.
5. Bombar, M.L. and Littig, L.W. (1996) Babytallc as a communication of intimate attachment: an
initial study in adult romances and friendships. Personal Relationships, 3(2): 137—58.


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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Cultural Psychology
Upton I
Penney Upton
Developmental Psychology 2011


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