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You've probably noticed how adults often talk differently to babies
than to other adults or even toddlers. They raise the pitch of their
voices and do other things we would consider inappropriate or insulting
in normal adult conversation. A few even have their voices take
on a saccharine quality guaranteed to nauseate any nonparent (and
even some parents) in the room.
We generally refer to this shift in tone, syntax, and attitude
as "baby talk." It's something that we expect in that
particular interaction, so much so that an adult who approaches
a newborn with serious demeanor and says, "It's good to see
you again, Robert. How was your day?" would be regarded as
insensitive to children, or worse! Yet those words have no less
meaning to the baby than a more socially acceptable statement like,
"Oh, what a cute little tummy you have!"
I remember one time when my son Michael, then eighteen months old
and sitting in his stroller, and I were going to get some food from
a local market. My son was very sociable and outgoing. He'd learned
quickly that if he said, "Hi!" to an adult he was likely
to get a response and some extra attention. As we walked to the
store he would cry out a greeting to every passerby, each of whom
answered him and made a comment like, "Oh, aren't you cute."
Needless to say, he basked in the limelight of this extra attention.
As we approached the market he spied a woman in a business suit
coming toward us, "Hi!" he cried. But she had her noes
buried in a report of some sort while she walked. "Hi!"
he yelled once more, only louder. Again she gave no response. Finally,
he waited until she was only two feet ahead of his stroller and
bellowed, "HI!!!"
The woman stopped dead in her tracks, looked at him with surprise
and muttered, "Oh, um, hello. I mean, good evening. Sorry,
but I have to go." It was hysterically funny, not because anything
she said was outlandish or inappropriate, especially if she had
been talking to another adult. What made it funny, and what probably
made her stumble over her words as well, was that she was unable
to mentally switch gears to how she was expected to talk to a young
child.
What's going on when we engage in baby talk is more than "cute"
or "simple" speech. There's a clear but complex pattern
that includes not only a higher-than-normal pitch, but a greater
range of tones which reinforce the emotional content of the message.
We also drag out certain words for emphasis, such as, "Oh,
you're such a g-o-o-d girl! You finished your w-h-o-l-e bottle."
We also tend to speak more slowly, with simpler grammar and with
clearer enunciation, much as we might when talking to an adult who
isn't fluent in our language.
Parents of babies and even toddlers often verbalize both sides
of their conversation, either implicitly or explicitly. "Would
you like some mashed banana? Oh, you would. Well, I'll get you some."
We may be inordinately descriptive, assigning names to objects,
emotions, and status, often doing so with a good deal of repetition.
"That's your teddy bear, Chrissie. He's a big teddy bear, a
brown teddy bear." "My, you sound cranky today! Didn't
you get enough sleep?" or "Let me put on your diaper.
First this side. Then the other side. Now it's a-l-l done."
There appear to be clear reasons for and benefits from these utterances.
A higher-pitched voice seems more attractive to babies. Slowing
down the speed, simplifying grammar and syntax, naming objects and
emotions, describing status, and modeling conversations all make
it easier for a child to puzzle through what language is all about.
Similarly, using a child's name instead of a pronoun ("That's
Debbie's rattle" instead of "That's your rattle")
probably helps a child understand her name. But one of the most
surprising aspects of baby talk is the way we use diminutives and
other special words with babies that we don't use with adults. For
example, when my son was very young I found myself saying "doggie"
and "puppy" to him instead of "dog," and referring
to our two cats as "kitties." If anything, doggie, puppy
and kitty are more complex words than dog and cat. Several times
I caught myself referring to one of our cats, who was named Zabar,
after one of my favorite stores in Manhattan, as "Zabar-kitty"—which
is both conceptually and phonetically much more complex than necessary.)
I've heard many parents do the same thing, substituting "tummy"
for "stomach" or saying "choo-choo train" instead
of simply "train," for example. We'd never expect and
adult to complain of a tummyache or a commuter to talk about taking
the 8:05 choo-choo train. Why do we use words like that with children?
By using more complex words, it's almost as if we want to make language
more difficult for them to acquire.
One compelling theory is that we talk to babies this way not so
much for their sake, but for our own. By shifting our patterns of
speech we are acknowledging our special relationship with babies.
The real purpose (and benefit) of baby talk is to bolster the social
interaction between parent and child. Shifting our style of speech
forces us to pay more attention to what we say and, therefore, to
the person we're talking to. The topic and details of the conversation
don't matter much. It's the emotions and the extra attention that
convey the most important message—to both generations.
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