Are you fluent in Parentese? – The innate way that parents aid in language development
“Whooo is a caa-yuut bay-bee?”
Before you’ve even realized what you’re saying, that question has left your mouth in a pitch that you didn’t even know you could reach. You feel a little silly but your efforts are rewarded with bright giggles and some baby babbles.
You actually shouldn’t feel silly at all – everyone around the world engages in this type of speech, a close relative of “baby talk”. This exaggerated way of speaking, coined as parentese or motherese, helps aid language acquisition and development by teaching young infants the basic unit of language, the phoneme. By emphasizing syllables and elongating and separating vowel sounds, infants can better hear and analyze the basic building blocks of language. Parentese comes so naturally to people from all parts of the world that scientists believe it to be a biologically necessary developmental tool.
“You Talkin’ To Me?”
Not only do babies learn and develop from hearing parentese, they also prefer it to normal intonations. If given the choice between listening to a tape of a woman talking normally or a woman talking in parentese, infants consistently preferred parentese, even to the voices of the infants’ mothers speaking normally. Parentese was preferred even when it was in a foreign language! [1] speech is more engaging to infants since their little ears are more attuned to higher pitches. [2]
“Read My Lips”
If you think you sound silly when you speak parentese, check yourself out in the mirror when you speak parentese. Infants aren’t just attracted to the sound of Parentese – they also enjoy the exaggerated facial expressions. The big smiles and wide opening of the mouth gives the infant positive reinforcement for his or her own babbles while also helping to associate certain vowel sounds with specific mouth movements, helping with speech development. [3]
So get silly and do your best Mickey Mouse impersonation! Parentese helps with language development and helps form social bonds! Talking in this manner to teenagers, however – studies have yet to come to a firm conclusion.
Contributed to by Aarushi Sharma
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[3] Kaplan, Peter; Jung, Paula; Ryther, Jennifer; Zarlengo-Strouse, Patricia (September
1996). “Infant-directed versus adult-directed speech as signals for face”. Developmental
Psychology 32 (5): 880–891
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