Caretaker Speech

Caretaker speech is the language used by parents or other adults when

talking to infants
or young children. The three factors which influence caretaker speech are 1) making
sure that
children realize a speech is being addressed to them, 2) choosing the right words
and sentences
after getting children’s attention, and 3) saying things in many different ways.
Three type of
attention getters: name, exclamation and modulation (Cark & Clark, 1977,pp.321-322)

Caretaker speech has several characteristics: it mainly deals with here and
now to young
children, it is generally spoken more slowly and distinctly, it contains simple
structures and very
few complex sentences, and it contains baby talk.

Baby talk has three main characteristics: 1) the use of diminutive form of
adult’s words
with a reduplication of a consonant + vowel syllable unit, 2) the use of
onomatopoeic principle to
form words, and 3) the use of the /iy/ suffix as in doggy and horsy.

Caretaker speech seems particularly well suited for helping children to

acquire language.
It is clearer and easier to understand. It’s simplified structure and vocabulary
provides children
with more comprehensible input. Such input is surely an important factor in the
language
development.

Question and Answer

1. What is a care taker speech and what are other terms which refer to this
particular speech;
explain why is it named so?

 Caretaker speech is a sort of speech that children receive when they

are still very
young: a speech addressed to infants by adults. Caretaker speech is often
referred to as
motherese, care giver speech, adult to child language (ACL), and child
directed speech
(CDS). It indicates the fact that children receive linguistic input from
different sources
especially people around them such as mother, father, siblings, relatives,
and friends.

2. Give some reasons why caretaker speech has attracted great attention to
psycholinguist!

 It has specific characteristics, it provides examples of language

model infants are
usually exposed to, and it also provides an indirect measure of how much
children
understand. Cark & Clark, 1977, p. 320)
3. Discuss the different ways adult use to get children’s attention.

 a. adults often use the child’s name in the beginning to make them
attend.
b. adults often use exclamation such as Look! Hey! as a preface to teach
utterance.
c. adults often use modulations to distinguish speech addressed to young
children from the
speech addressed to other listeners (adults)
d. adults often use here and now topic.

4. The speech which adults address to young children has a number of distinctive
characters,
explain!

 Caretaker speech has several characteristics: it mainly deals with

here and now to
young children, it is generally spoken more slowly and distinctly, it
contains simple
structures and very few complex sentences, and it contains baby talk.

5. According to Kess, baby talk only fulfills a pseudo-function in linguistic

terms. What does it
mean?

 It is only a marker of affection and caring that this function is

supported by the
finding that babies typically prefer voices employing baby talk features.