Motherese
"Baby Fundie" Voice
Play videoThis video compares the natural speaking voice of Senator Katie Britt with her noticeably changed tone during a political speech, commonly referred to online as "fundie baby voice." “Fundie baby” voice is a style of speech adopted by women in fundamentalist Christian environments, where they speak childlike and submissively on purpose to highlight their femininity. The video is a comparison between the normal voice and the voice that highlights femininity and submission particularly in the conservative/religious context. The change can be seen in the pitch of her voice, the breathiness, as well as loudness. She is speaking a lot more calmly however the information she is delivering is a lot more disturbing. This is a good example of style shifting between these her two identities – as a senator and as a religious woman. Here is also a link that goes more in depth about some religious factors and other situations that occur: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fundie-baby-voice_l_65eb6b2fe4b05ec1ccd9e9b9. There is also an SNL skit with Scarlett Johansson recreating Katie Britts voice.
Duolingo for Talking to Children - SNL
Play videoThis sketch features an app that teaches adults how to speak to children. This is an excellent parody of American caregivers feel pressure to accomodate young children in conversation. The video focuses primarily on message production strategies as described in "Indexing Gender."
Citation: Ochs, Elinor, Indexing gender, Rethinking context: language as an interactive phenomenon, pp. 335-358, Cambridge University Press, 1993
There's A Huge Market Around 'Baby Sign Language,' But Little Research On Its Effectiveness
This article describes a growing method of "baby sign language", where parents teach their babies signs for simple phrases. It also includes the quoted advice, "Engage in conversations with your baby. Even though your baby can't speak, you communicate as if your baby is able to do that and you interpret her looks and her gestures". I think this relates to our discussion of how being accommodating to the baby is a critical part of "Baby Talk" / "Motherese".
Global 'goo-goo': What baby talk sounds like around the world
This article talks about a study done on "baby talk." I thought it was relevant to the research on Motherese (Ochs, Elinor. 1993. Indexing Gender) in that it pointed to research on various countries and their corresponding "baby talk." The article talks about how the speech of parents supposedly elicits different "babbling" from their babies. [Published on 12-07-2017]
Baby Talk
This is an article that talks about how “baby talk” is the best way for infants to acquire language skills. It discusses the argument that talking to infants like that may be condescending; however, studies have shown that it is an excellent way for them to learn their language. It also discusses how babies are ready to learn language in the last trimester when their ears are fully developed. They are already listening to their mother and the sounds around them. The use of repetition and slower speech is helpful with infants in learning language patterns. [Published on 12-06-2016]
Child Parodies Mother's logic to get his own way.
Play videoThis video is a great example of a child's language acquisition. This young man uses his mother's terms to "reason" with her to get his way going as far as to adopt her slang for a spanking (burn your butt and pow pow's)
"Dads should cut out the baby talk to improve their child's language skills, study says"
This is an interesting look at use of child directed speech that found significantly lower pitch and pitch variation when fathers from "traditional two-parent families" spoke to their preschoolers than when mothers did. [Published on 05-20-2015]