Abstract
BabyTalk, or infant-directed speech (IDS) as researchers call it, is that form of speech we use, quite possibly unconsciously, when talking to babies. Compared to adult-directed speech, IDS has more repetitions, shorter utterances, higher pitch and greater pitch variation, heightened emotional content, and hyperarticulated vowels – thought to provide infants with didactic information about their language. Indeed, despite some popular myths, evidence suggests that IDS facilitates infants’ social, emotional, cognitive and linguistic development. In this presentation, the pitch, emotional and didactic elements in IDS by mothers, fathers and even older siblings will be set out via acoustic, affective and phonetic analyses, and IDS will also be compared along these three dimensions with other special speech registers – to pets, foreigners, lovers, and computer avatars. In addition, the nature of IDS to hearing-impaired infants and infants at risk of dyslexia will be explicated, and this will lead into a consideration of the dynamics of IDS – who and what drives IDS. The presentation will finish by considering the next phases of IDS research aimed at determining its neural underpinnings, and teasing out the critical interactional components of IDS in the parent-child microcosm.
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University of Reading Malaysia
Persiaran Graduan, Kota Ilmu, EduCity, 79200 Iskandar Puteri, Johor, Malaysia.
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