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Show Why Babies Make Us Sound Like Cartoon Characters wise to speak to children using incorrect English. Calling a rabbit a "wabbit" introduces the child to the wrong pro-nounciation pro-nounciation of the letter "r." Parentese employs very simple language with a lot of tone variation, but is generally grammatically correct, Austin says. Did you ever notice how a baby can turn a room full of well-educated, sensible adults into what sounds like a group of cartoon characters? JL'ST TRY talking to a baby in a normal tone of voice and see what happens. Ann Austin, Au-stin, an instructor of family and human development at Utah State University, says this change in voice is called "parentese." More specifically. Austin says parentese is a change in the speaker's pitch and intonation. intona-tion. People usually address a baby in a higher-than normal pitch and also greatly exaggerate exagger-ate the ups and dow ns in their voice tones. "MANY researchers believe be-lieve this occurrence is instinc tive among the human species," spe-cies," Austin says. "Studies have found that parentese is used by Russian, Japanese, Arabic, French and Spanish-speaking Spanish-speaking parents. We also find that children as young as three years old respond in parentese when they talk to a baby." "Some researchers believe that this instinctual, cross-cultural cross-cultural response w hen talking to a baby is caused by the baby's appearance. Their relatively rela-tively large eyes and forehead and the way babies flap their arms seems to draw sympathetic sympathe-tic tones from adults." Austin says. ALTHOUGH there has not been much conclusive research re-search on the subject. Austin says there may be differences in babies ears that make it easier for them to understand parentese. "There is some indication that. babies respond more rapidly to their mothers' high voices than to deeper male voices." Austin says. AUSTIN cautions parents not to confuse parentese with "baby talk." That is, it is un- |
