A language intended for babies

Babies' language is universal - even monkeys know *What is the source of the difference between the normal way of speaking and the way of speaking for babies?

Miriam Dishon-Berkovic, Galileo Issue 108 (August 2007)

One of the main purposes of speech is to convey information about intentions. When people speak, they mean their words so that the other person understands what they mean. Two adults making small talk in their mother tongue can express their intentions through several different channels, such as through the syntax of the sentence, through the semantics (the meaning) or through the prosody (the manner of pronouncing the syllables and their flavor). However, how can information be passed on to babies and toddlers? Since babies and toddlers do not yet have full control of language on any level, speakers cannot use the full potential of channels such as sentence syntax or meaning.

Therefore, adults often speak to babies and toddlers differently than they do to adults. They tend to exaggerate prosodic cues, which are usually used to convey meaning in conversation with adults. This pattern of excessive prosody is called "infant directed speech, ID speech", as opposed to adult directed speech (AD speech).

Why do people use ID speech towards babies? In recent years, several explanations have been proposed for this, including an attempt to attract the attention of the toddlers or an attempt to convey an emotional message about intentions. According to other explanations, ID speech helps children learn certain aspects of language, such as categories of syllables and grammar. And finally, according to an approach that attempts to integrate the totality of explanations, the purpose of ID talk changes over time. In the first months of the baby's life, its purpose is to attract attention and indicate emotions. Towards the end of the second year, it aims to fulfill specific oral (linguistic) functions.

It is interesting to note that ID speech exists in all the languages ​​studied to date, and in all of them it is expressed in a fairly similar way in its acoustic characteristics (for example, in terms of pitch, i.e. its frequency). Thus, for example, in all languages ​​ID speech that means prohibition (e.g., “No! Don't climb on the table”) is characterized by similar features as a low tone, while ID speech that means approval (e.g., “Right, here's the bear”) is characterized by similar features as a high tone .

From studies conducted in the past it became clear that not only do all languages ​​have common characteristics for producing ID speech, but also babies and toddlers all over the world tend to respond in a similar way to this speech. Furthermore, infants worldwide prefer to listen to ID speech than to AD speech, regardless of the speaker's gender. They even prefer speaking ID in a foreign language over speaking AD in the language they are used to. It was also found that the faces of infants who listened to ID speech meaning prohibition displayed a more negative emotion than the faces of infants who listened to ID speech meaning approval, even when the ID speech was in a foreign language.

Can adults also infer about the speaker's intentions from hearing ID speech or AD speech in a foreign language? Adults listening to speech in a foreign language probably find themselves in a situation similar to that of babies and toddlers. They cannot make use of meaning and syntax cues, so they must rely mainly on prosodic cues. Based on this assumption, it is possible to experimentally test the hypothesis that ID speech contains prosodic cues that help any listener, young or old, to understand the speaker's intent.

In an article published in the journal Psychological Science, Gregory Bryant and Clark Barrett examined the ability of adults from the Suhar tribe, who are hunter-gatherers living in Ecuador, in a non-industrialized and illiterate society, to recognize ID speech in a foreign Western language - English . If there is indeed a universal relationship between prosodic cues and speaker intent in ID speech, then older Suhars should be able to distinguish between different types of intent in ID speech produced by English speakers.

26 Sohar adults (12 of them women) participated in the study. Each participant took part in three trials. The speech the participants listened to was produced in this way: English-speaking mothers were asked to produce ID speech towards infants, of four different types. Types of speech: prohibition, approval, attracting attention and calming. In addition, the mothers produced AD speech corresponding to these four categories.
In the first experiment, the participants listened to some expressions in ID speech and AD speech in English (an unfamiliar language to them). Participants listened to each utterance once, and were asked to indicate whether it was directed at adults (AD) or at toddlers (ID).

In the second experiment, participants listened to several expressions of different types of ID speech. They were asked to classify the intention of the expression into one of four categories: prohibition, approval, attention-grabbing, and calming.
The third experiment was the same as the second, except that this time all types of speech were of the AD type.

From the results of the first experiment, it became clear that the participants were able to distinguish between ID speech and AD speech, and more successfully identified the intent of the ID speech. The results of the second experiment revealed that the participants were able to distinguish between the types of intentions in ID speech. Interestingly, participants were better able to distinguish between types of intentions in ID speech (the second experiment) than in AD speech (the third experiment). From the analysis of the errors, it becomes clear that the participants tended to get confused between expressions of attracting attention and those of prohibition. The reason for this may be that in both the speaker is trying to arouse the attention of the recipient. Also, they tended to get confused between expressions of approval and those of appeasement, probably because in both the addressee is trying to convey a message of positive emotion.

In summary, the three experiments show that adults living in a non-industrialized and illiterate tribal society were able to distinguish between ID speech and AD speech in a language foreign to them, and furthermore were able to distinguish between intentions in these types of speech, especially in ID speech. These results confirm the claim that ID speech is rich in prosodic cues, which allow identification of the speaker's intentions. In addition, the findings confirm the claim that the expression of feelings through verbal communication is expressed in similar ways in a variety of cultures.

Dr. Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz is a psychologist and organizational and marketing consultant.

שBabies' mouths are universal - even monkeys know

28/8/2007The words may be different in different cultures, but the sounds and tones in which they are said are the same. Researchers have discovered that people from a variety of cultures can tell when someone is using a language that is not their mother tongue when they are speaking in "baby language" and understand it. That baby language is not only the property of humans. A separate study also provides support for this hypothesis.
Baby language contains more than just gibberish or a cute face. Mothers use different characteristics of speech such as the pitch, intensity and rate of speech in different situations, so that a certain word can have many meanings depending on the situation. Warning a baby not to touch an electrical outlet is done in a different tone than soothing babies when they cry, for example.
Voices of this type are used in all types of speech, when speaking to a child or an adult, and can be an important factor in conveying the message and direction.
Researchers Greg Bryant and Clark Barrett from the University of California at Los Angeles believe that the relationships between sounds and intentions are universal and should be understood by everyone, no matter what their mother tongue is.
Baby language versus adult language
To test the idea, they recorded native English-speaking mothers in four speech categories: warning (warning the child not to do something), confirmation (encouraging a behavior a child has performed), soothing (to calm a crying baby) and attention (calling the baby when he is not looking at the adult).
The researchers played the recordings to residents of small hunter-gatherer villages in the Shohar region of Ecuador to see if they could distinguish between the types of speech. The Shohar people did not speak English at all, lived in a pre-industrial environment and could not read or write at all, and certainly did not understand sentence structure and grammar. Their native language, which is also called Shohar, is the furthest thing from English that can be found," says Bryant.
The results of the study, published in the August issue of the journal Psychological Science, showed that the Shohar children who participated in the study could differentiate between infant speech and adult speech with 73 percent accuracy. "The voice in which babies are spoken is high on average" says Bryant who also commented that the rate of speech for babies is slower.
The Shohars could tell which category the things the mothers said fell into, but were better when the mother used baby language. The categories are easier to distinguish in baby language because adult language seems more complex to babies than to other ages, Bryant said.
These results provide support for the idea that vocal emotion communication manifests itself in similar ways across distinct cultures," said Bryant.

The baby language of monkeysIn another study, to be published in the September issue of the journal Ethology, the researchers claim that humans are not the only animals that use baby language.
The results show that rhesus monkey mothers, similar to human mothers, use baby language also known as motherese when speaking to babies and trying to capture their attention.