CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
 CHAPTERl

INTRODUCTION

Language acquisition is a typical human capacity. Acquisition

takes place automatically. It is a natural process by which children
acquire their native language. Language is not genetically transmitted,
but acquired from the environment. The first language or mother
tongue is acquired automatically and unconsciously and the second
language is learnt consciously with effort. A child acquire his
language by the interaction of his parents and the surroundings.
Parents try to interact with the child in a language which he or she
hears first. This may be termed as Baby Talk which plays an
important role in acquisition process.

Baby Talk is a speech register that has been more extensively as

it is spoken by mothers to infants. A very simplified language used by
the adults to children is called Baby Talk. Baby Talk is the first form
of language a child hear and that lead him to acquire and familarise
the language.

1.1 Definitions of Baby Talk

1. "Baby Talk is a special language and it refers to a set of speech

modifications commonly found in the language used by the adults
to address young children". (Snow and Ferguson, 1977)

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 2. "Baby Talk as the style of speech used by the adult as an analogue
of child speech that serves as the model." (Ashok Kelkar, 1964)

3. "Baby Talk is a sort of stepping stone by children starting to learn

their first language." (Bhat, 1967)

4. "Baby Talk is meant by any special form of language which is

regarded by a speech community as being primarily appropriate
for talking to young children." (Charles Ferguson, 1964)

5. "Baby Talk is a non standard form of speech used by adults in

talking to toddlers and infants." (www.wikipedia.com)

6. "The words that a very young child uses, or the words used by
adults when they talk to babies." (Cambridge Advanced Learner's
Dictionary)

7. "A style of speech used by adults in addressing children, pets or

sweet hearts and formed in imitation of the voice and
pronunciation of children learning to talk." (www.dictionary.com)

8. "Baby Talk is a simplified speech style used by the adults to

children." (www.wikipedia.com)

9. "The consciously imperfect or altered speech used by adults in

speaking to small children." (Medical Dictionary)

Motherese, parentese, Child Directed Speech (CDS), etc. are the

synonymous terms used to refer the concept. Baby Talk plays a role
that it express and facilitates intimate psychological connections and
in a variety of relationships. The importance of Baby Talk is that it
catches infant's attention more readily. Baby Talk's mission is to
positively impact child development and nurture healthy parent child
relationships. A variety of situations and people around the child
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instigate the acquisition process. The parents and caregivers takepart a
crucial role in the early interaction of child with his environment.
When adults to talk young children their speech is different from that
used with other, as known as adult - child register or more colloquially
'Baby Talk' or 'motherese'. Young children acquire the phonological,
morphological and grammatical rules of their mother tongue also
begin to learn the speech styles appropriate to them, observing and
imitating the language habits of parents, grand parents and others.

A newborn does not possess any language, but he is not quite

helpless being, as generally assumed as far as the communicative
ability is concerned. Mc Lean and Synser Mc Lean (1978) have
proposed that infant's pre-linguistic communication is to serve at least
four purposes - relief from discomfort, attainment of desired ends, re-
establishment of proximity and initiation, maintenance and
termination of interaction.

During the very few waking hours that an infant remaind

focuses his look upon his mother's face. While being fed he exhibit a
certain predisposition to speech in his movements. Condon (1979)
describes that the organisation of the infant's body motion is sustained
in parallel with duration of speech sound and changes. Studies have
demonstrated that a newborn baby exhibit preference for human face
and voice (Fantx, 1963). Halliday (1979) explained that the mother
and baby are in fact, predisposed to attend each other's sound. A
mother or caretaker is able to recognize various facial expression and
the head movements of the child. The child's responsiveness to the
mother's voice and the face sharpens so much, so that he is able to
distinguish his mother from a stranger.

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 Snow (1986) says that an examination of mother's speech to
young children reveals that they restrict the content of their sentence
to the present tense, to concrete nouns, to comments on what the child
is doing and on what is happening around the child. Child directed
speech is finely tuned to the child's language level.

Anne Fernald (1987) put forward some directions about

mother's vocalization to very young children. When mothers, fathers
and even other adults talk to children they adopt a special way of
speaking. They speak more slowly and often use higher pitch. The
intonation patterns are smooth and exaggerated. The speech has
different characteristic according to what the mother's purpose.

Baby Talk can be approached with different aspects such as

cognitive, sociological and psychological, etc.

1.2 Cognitive Aspect of Baby Talk

Cognitive development is the construction of thought, process

including remembering, problem solving and decision making from
childhood through adolescence to adulthood.

Baby Talk is very important in the early stages of baby's

growth. The Baby Talk help the children in their mental and character
development. The parent had to listen to the infant's babble, so that the
infant will understand that the language is bi-directional. Responding
to the infant's babble by the adults will help in infant's language
development.

There are many different types of changes that occur over the
course of a child's development. In general cognitive development
refers to the changes overtime in children's thinking, reasoning, use of

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language, problem solving and learning. The field is vast and
researchers across the world study many aspects of children's thinking
at different points in development. For example, some researchers are
interested in changes during infancy, such as when a baby recognize
her caregivers, remember simple events and understand the language
spoken around her. Some researchers examine toddlers to learn how
young children progress in their use of language and their
understanding of the perspectives of the people around them.

Developmental psychologist begin their work by charting the

changes in the developing human, their ultimate goal is to explain how
those changes comes out. Psychologist examine a variety of influence
including changes in the brain, the influence of parents, the effect of a
child's interaction with siblings and peers and the role of culture. In
order to accurately characterize aspect of development, psychologist
must consider interaction between psychological changes in the brain
and the child's social environment. People use child directed speech
when talking with young children. This type of language accentuates
word boundaries and is spoken more slowly compared to adult
directed speech. This aspect of the child's environment may interact
with changes in the baby's brain to help the baby comprehend the
language spoken around her/him.

Shore (1997) and others believe that Baby Talk contributes to

mental development and it helps to teach the child the basic function
and structure of language. Studies have found that responding to an
infant's babble with meaningless babble aids the infant's development;
while the babble has no logical meaning, the verbal interaction
demonstrates to the child the bidirectional nature of speech, and the

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importance of verbal feedback. Some experts advise that parents
should not talk to infants and young children solely in Baby Talk, but
should integrate some normal adult speech as well. The-high-pitched
sound of motherese gives it special acoustic qualities which may
appeal to the infant. Motherese may aid a child in the acquisition
and/or comprehension of language-particular rules which are
otherwise unpredictable; as an example the reduction or avoidance of
pronoun reversal errors. It has been also suggested that motherese is
crucial for children to acquire the ability to ask questions. Some feel
that parents should refer to the child and others by their names only to
avoid confusing infants who have yet to form an identity independent
from their parents.

1.3. Philosophical Aspect of Baby Talk

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems,

such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values,
reason, mind and language. It is distinguished from other ways of
addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic
approach and its reliance on rational argument.

Scientist believe that babies were irrational and their think were
limited. Recently it is discovered that babies learn more, create more
experience more than an adult could ever have imagined. And the
babies are actually smarter, more thoughtful, it is getting proved
(Alison Gophik, 1987).

A new baby's captivated gaze at its mother's face lays

foundation for love and morality. Alison Gophik (1987) a leading
psychologist and philosopher as well as a mother explains the ground
breaking new psychological and neuroscientific developments in one's
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understand of how babies see the world and intum promote a deeper
appreciation for the role of parents.

Peter Farb (1978) a linguist and anthropologist carried out a

fascinating study about Baby Talk, and he researched the vocabulary
of six very different language. He discovered that every one of these
languages had a Baby Talk vocabulary. While the actual word
different from culture to culture. Baby Talk referred to eating,
sleeping, toileting, good and bad behaviour, animal names and terms
for close relatives. Of course these are the words that are most
important in the life of every baby.

1.4 Sociological Aspect of Baby Talk

Sociolinguistics is the study of relation between language and

society. It is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects
of society, including cultural norms, expectations and context, on the
way language used, and the effect of language use on society. It also
studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by
certain social variable. Sociolinguistic variables are religion, caste,
class, gender, level of education etc.

Class differences in maternal vocalizations to infants were

explored in a study Steven Tulkin and Jerome Kagan (1972) the
interaction of some 56 mothers with their first born 10- month - old
baby girls. The general purpose of the study was to specify how, if at
all, working class and middle class mother, infant interactions might
differ. To this end, 26 of the mothers were working class, with either
one or both of the parents having dropped out of the high school and
neither having attended college or with the father an unskilled or

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semiskilled worker. Thirty of the mothers were middle class, with one
or both parents having completed college and the father working in a
professional job.

Significant differences between the groups in nonverbal

behavior were few and far between. Physical contact, kissing or
holding of infants, prohibition or restraints on the infants and physical
closeness of mothers and infants did not vary significantly between
the classes. The middle class mothers were face to face with their
infants twice as often as were the working class mothers and
responded oftener to their infant's fretting. Infants responded as
positively to working class mothers as to middle class mothers,
touching their mothers or offering things to them almost equally in the
two classes. Thus the emotional climate was similar in both groups.

Verbal behavior in the two groups of mothers was strikingly

different. Middle- class mothers as a group offered their babies much
more verbal fare than did working class mothers, although there were
individual differences within classes and thus no pattern of
deprivation in working class infants. Total middle class maternal
vocalizations to infants were over twice those of working class
mothers, as were face-to-face and reciprocal vocalizations-vocalizing
back and forth with each other eventhough the infants themselves
showed no significant differences in their spontaneous vocalization
rates. Every kind of vocalizing response was given significantly more
by middle class mothers, and they provided their infants with more
stimulation of other kinds as well, entertaining their infants more often

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with play and games and more frequently giving them things to keep
them busy.

1.5 Baby Talk in History and Myth

Throughout the history of human beings adult have to interact

with infants and they might have used the simplified language variety,
which now called Baby Talk. Holy books, epics and classics give
instances of situations where Baby Talk can be explained. There will
be extra ordinary cases as such depicted in Mahabharatha, Bible or
Quran as given below.

In Mahabharatha during the Geethopadesam by Krishna to

Arjuna, in the womb of Subhadra Abhimanyu believed to be hearing
the Geethopadesam and responding.

In 'Bible' the incidence of Jesus Christ clearing his mother's

chastity and his holiness is being proclaimed while in the cradle. This
incident is also referred in the Islamic holy book 'Quran'.

Among Muslim, if one baby is born, the first sound they used in
make hear by the child is the 'BANKU', the holy words pronounced
five times in a masjid. This is supposed to be to make hear the child
first name of the Almighty God and the like.

The Christians used to make the child under go the 'BAPTISM',

that also have some prayers and holy words from the 'Bible'.

Among Hindus also there are some rituals to make the child
hear some holy verses or prayers, like 'UPANAYANAM', etc.

The most of the lullabies and cradle songs depicted in literature

are forms of motherese which are conversation of adult to the child.
Lonely mothers and or fathers used to complain or talk about the
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sorrows and difficulties they face with the infants, even if the children
are very small or in the cradle, from whom no response is expected.

1.6 Baby Talk -By whom and for what?

One basic reason for Baby Talk is that it catches an infant's

attention more readily. Baby Talk's mission is to positively impact
child development and nurture healthy parent-child relationships,
during the critical early years. Scientists (Juliet Philip, 1970,
Ellanmoris, 2008) discovered that babies pick up an amazing amount
of knowledge about language and communication from hearing the
Baby Talk.

Adults begin to speaking to their babies during the first day of

life. They adjust their style of talking to fit the infant's age of
development. This type of Baby Talk is termed parentese. Parentese is
higher in pitch, simpler in vocabulary and shorter in sentence length.
It uses more questions and commands and fewer complex sentences.

People of all age use Baby Talk. Siblings are natural users of
Baby Talk. At first the parent or other person does all of the talking
and the infant is the recipient. The parent might engage in both sides
of a conversation. The infant signals its responsiveness with smiling,
gestures and physical action. The toddler is trying to communicate in
all efforts and speaking. The adult uses labeling, expansion of child's
speech, and nonverbal smiling to support the child's development of
language. The nature of the child's interaction also affects the
interactive relationship. The child can affect responsiveness of the
parent. The infant's intelligence might affect how responsive the infant

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is to the mother. The interactive relationship between mother and
child, both partner affect the richness and extent of language that takes
place. The mother initiates the language relationship, but the child
response can affect how much the mother continues the language
conversation.

1.7 Motherese, Fatherese and Parentese

Motherese is a technical term in the field of child language

development. It is closely related to Baby Talk. It seems that Baby
Talk is a natural one given important role of mothers in early child
development. However it would be more accurate to refer Parentese as
fathers are also able to adapt their speech when they talk to the
children and use very similar strategies. Motherese and fatherese are
not identical however fathers tend to be more intense and demanding
in their communication using more direct questions and a wider range
of vocabulary.

a. Motherese

From the moment a baby is born, a mother hold it in front of her

and talks to it despite the fact that she knows it doesn't yet have any
language. There are many changes in conversational style during the
1st year. At around 5 week the exchange become more emotive, as
smiling develops. The mother's utterances changes as the baby's
vocalizations grow. At around 2 month the emergence of cooing
elicits as softer voice some time later the baby begins to laugh and the
mother's voice become more varied in response. As the child starts to
take interest in the environment and looks around, the mother speaks

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more loudly drawing attention to different objects. Her intonation
becomes more exaggerated and often repeats her sentence.

There may be extreme differences when a mother addressing

her child and when addressing an adult. Speech to an adult sounded
like and endless rapid current with barely a cue of sentence boundaries
let alone word or morpheme boundaries. By contrast speech to the
child easily fell in to clear, short sentence. Thus it is clear that speech
to children may be better suited to primitive strategies attention and
analysis than speech to child.

Speech used in meaningful interaction with a child has

particular characteristics. Pfuderer (1969) found that mothers adjust
the complexity of their speech according to the age of child,
increasing in complexity as the child increases in skill. This is
probably an intuitive communicative process, reflected in the speech
of older children to younger children. Drach (1969) has systematically
compared the speech of women when speaking to her two year old
child and when speaking to an adult, demonstrating that speech to the
child was grammatically simple and free of hesitation. Speaking to
the adult characterized by much greater variability in sentence length.
Adult- adult sample was syntactically more complex.

Juliet Philips (1970) has carried out a detailed study of formal

characteristics of mother - child speech. Mother's speech to another
person, in comparison to their speech to children was characterized
by longer utterance with more verbs and modifiers per utterance, a
greater proportion of function words, a smaller portion of content
words and a large number of verb forms. From this one can concluded

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that there are difference in syntax, vocabulary and intonation between
speech addressed to adult and speech addressed to children.

Mother's speech is sensitively related to what her child is doing

and saying on a moment to moment basis. Mother pays very close
attention to what her child is looking at or playing with and then
makes her speech simpler or complex based on what he understands.

From the time of infancy, mother is trying to get her child to

respond. Mother act as a continuous listener as she interprets a broad
range of infant behaviours as communicative. By acting as a listener,
mother put the baby in the role of a speaker. For the infant to function
as a speaker, he must learn when the conversational tum has been
passed to him. Mother teaches this by taking very long pauses
between her utterances. In addition, mother also greatly exaggerates
her pitch, her gestures and her vowels which not only attract the
infants but also keep his attention. She exaggerates the length of each
word and speaks with extreme high and low pitch changes.

As early as three months, mother and infant engage III a

sequence of looking behaviours, sounds and gestures which later
become the foundation for adult conversational speech.
Conversational exchange during early childhood develops the
framework for the most important aspect of communication. Mothers
are said to be the wonderful teachers because they watch their infants.
They modify their speech style to encourage interaction. They read
their child's behaviour very carefully and they work hard to get a
response. They stay focused on their child's ability to understand and
to interact. Research has shown that mother's speech is related to
what her infant is doing. So mother's language or motherese is
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instructionally very rich. Mother is a natural language teacher who is
greatly underrated and under appreciated. (Ellenmorris, Tiegerman,
2008).

Mother's Talk is crucial for baby. Researchers have found a

connection between the amount of mother - baby interaction and the
child's risk of developing emotional problems and behavioral
disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Studies analysed hundreds of video recordings showing the verbal
interaction between mothers and their babies. Children with less vocal
input from their parents with an increased rise of ADHD and
conditions such as depressions. This leads to the communicative
language disorder in children.

1.8 Characteristics of Motherese

The characteristic features of motherese can be listed as

follows. All these are for paying very close attention to her child.

1. Lowered speech tempo

2. Clear articulation

3. Higher pitch

4. Proper names instead of pronouns

5. Simpler sentence structure

6. Many repetition

b. Fatherese

Fathers play a significant role in language development of

young children. After mother the next immediate one to the child is
his father. In Indian culture family is more rigid and complex fathers

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are almost available to interact with the child. It is more attached in
Kerala and Malayali fathers take part an active role in father child
interaction. In Pravasi Malayalee families the fathers are out of the
country and they hardly have a chance to coo with the infants. That
makes the children have no experience with fatherese. Families with
two working parents, fathers make important contribution to children's
early language skill. Most of the studies on early language
development focused on mothers. However with more women in the
work force and the changing role men in families, children's have
greater interactions with their fathers and others in the community.

Mothers and fathers interact differently with their children.

Studies shows that fathers tend to spend less time playing and being
physical with their children, while the mothers tend to spend more
time talking and giving directions. According to Christine Cadena
(2007) fathers play a key role in language and communication
development for infants. For many infants, the care and nurturing of a
father, especially during infancy, playa key role in the growth and
development in both short term and long term. During infancy a child
relies upon both parents for nurturing, comfort, care and interaction.
With proper input from both mother and father, the infant can develop
both socially as well as cognitively and intellectually. While
understanding the importance of communication and attachment
between father, mother and infant, it is also important to understand
the impact of these bonds have upon the infant's social skill.

When father interact with an infant, on a daily basis from birth

through age three, the infant will usually express greater development
in communication, Social skills and improved attachment. When a

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father is equally involved in the daily interaction with an infant, the
infant's communication and language spectrum are usually more
advanced. By considering various issues like this one can understand
that fathers play very important role in Baby Talk and babies character
development.

c. Parantese

All persons other than mother and father who interact with the
child can be included with the term parantese. This include grand
parents, uncle and aunty or any other person who put in charge of take
responsibility of the child. May be because of the absence of death of
mother or father the child became orphan and in that case parent status
go to any of the above.

1.9 Features of Baby Talk

Following are some of the important features of Baby Talk

identified by various studies.

a. Vocabulary

b. Transitory nature of simplified words

c. Repetition and reduplication

d. Imitation or mimicry

a. Vocabulary

Baby Talk often involves shortening words to make them

simple to say; including nonverbal sound and slurred or simplified
version of ordinary words, but it include a vocabulary of its own.
Some of these are handed down, from parent to parent or invented by

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parents are not known outside of a particular family, but others are
more or less widespread.

A fair number of Baby Talk and nursery words are refer to

bodily functions or private parts partially because the words are easier
to pronounce. Widely talk Baby Talk words and phrases are not in
standard dictionaries.

b. Transitory nature of simplified words

Parents do not use the simplified words continuously for a long

time. As the child begins to acquire more complexity in his speech it
is noticed the reduction in the use of Baby Talk words. The special
words are used only for a specific period till the child improves his
ability to imitate and use words closer to the adult speech. In this
process the suppletive vocables and simplified words are replaced
with adult words. However a few of these suppletive vocables and
simplified words may huger for a very long time as a part of the
family dialect in fond memory of the early childhood experience.

The significance is that the adult language provide for the

creation of new words or the modification of current adult words in
order to fulfill certain needs, felt and anticipated in the process of
child language acquisition. Once the child comes to control his
language use he may even correct the parents or others when they use
simplified words.

c. Repetition and reduplication

In .this process of helping the child to acquire and recall words

and phrases more easily, parents repeat or reduplicate a particular item

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with special intonation using onomatopoeic words while interesting
with the child.

d. Imitation or mimicry

Imitation was defined as infant's behaviour that clearly has

common properties or with those of immediately preceding or other
behaviour. Very little direct imitation of vocal behaviour of adult by
infants can be observed, the amount of vocal behavior occurring
without imitation was greater by many times than that occurred in the
context of imitation. Clearly then a very large portion of vocal
behaviour occurs in the absence of direct, immediate imitation, though
imitation could still play a key role in the development of behaviour.
The amount of imitation the child engages is not related in any simple
manner of degree of vocalization.

1.10 Importance of Baby Talk

Baby Talk contains standard vocabulary words that have been

modified by grownups to make them easier for baby to say. They
contain shorter syllables and lots of repetition. In addition to using
different words with babies, it is natural for adults to exaggerate pitch,
slow the pace and simple sentences. Baby Talk is a variation of adult
language, invented by adults and passed on to each generation of
babies, its sole purpose being to teach children to talk.

The same functional motivations that underlie adult speech to

other adults also shape adult speech to children. Therefore adult to
child speech is part of the larger frame work of conversation in a
speech community.

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 Language as interaction can be divided into five main areas.
They are

a. Affection

b. Control

c. Information

d. Social exchange

e.Pedagogy

a. Affection

Adult selects special language to express affection. They use

many of the same forms with other adults as they do with children.
Parents use high pitch and special pronunciation of certain words to
indicate warm feeling for children. An exclusive feature in child
directed speech is the echoing of nonce forms that children invent.

b. Control

The control function of language serves a number of goals;

from getting a person's attention, to establish a social pecking order.
Only the first of these is relevant to Baby Talk, especially in
phonology listen to mothers addressing infants. Typically one hears a
greater range of frequencies than in speech directed to adults. This
range is heavily motivated by a desire to get and hold baby's attention.

c. Information

Sharing of information is an important function of language.

Exchanges that are strictly informational in character do takes place
between parent and child. Mother gives more information and
affection that mould the child's behaviour. Whenever the mother and
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child are alone, the mother may starts talking about herself, her family
or nation and so on. It can be through lullaby, story, rhymes etc.

d. Social exchange

The main function of a good deal of human conversation-with

both adults and children is to keep social interaction, use of special
language for social exchange, especially in adult to child conversation,
the same Baby Talk features already seen in other language functions.

e.Pedagogy

Main features of Baby Talk are primarily pedagogical

in character. Consider phonology, the common Baby Talk techniques
of speaking slow, ovemunciating and overemphasizing one or two
words in a sentence. Many adults attempt to simplify the terminology
used for labelling the surrounding environment by substituting
onomatopoetic variations or familiar names for more complex
realities.

Syntactically the use of nouns instead of pronouns. Other

syntactic and conversational devices offer children clearer
grammatical models than normally found in speech between adults.

1.11 Other Manifestations of Baby Talk

Other manifestations of Baby Talk including lullaby, nursery

rhymes, etc.

a. Lullaby

A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children

before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process.

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They are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every
culture and since the ancient times. Lullabies often have a simple
melody, simple harmonies and a slow tempo that mimics the human
heart beat at rest. The lullaby is "originally, a vocal piece designed to
lulla child to sleep with repeated formulae" (Oxford Music Online),
and "it is simple, soothing, rhythmic and repetitive" (Cas- Beggs and
Cass- Beggs, 1965). Words used in lullabies are often altered from the
regular spoken words, in order to make them sound more assonant and
pleasing to the ear. Lullabies are very similar to Baby Talk in pitch,
contour, rhythm and elongated vowel sounds.

The lullaby is more a story of the teller than for the audience, or
an instilment of cultural values which children learn and assimilate as
they age. Infants and newborns can tune in to subtle shifts in vocal
timbre, tempo and volume variations especially when interacting with
their mothers. The importance of these interactions for the baby's
psychological and emotional development, as well as for the
development of the emotional attachment between mother and child, it
has also been observed that newborns and infants prefer when their
mothers sing rather than speak and their attention is most focused
when the mothers sings to them, rather than singing in general (Tafuri,
2008). This suggests that, for the infant, singing elicit greater
emotional responses than speech. From this it can be understand
lullabies are very important for infants.

b. Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes are a good threshold to the development of

language skills. Nursery rhymes help children to their language
development, to phonemic awareness and to learning attitudes.
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Nursery rhymes are songs and verses sung or recited to children from
generation to generation. Nursery rhymes can help children master
rhythm of a language (Hammer, 2003). The rhythm of a language
helps young children develop sensitivity for the music of words,
phrases and sentences chanting and mimicking the phrases nonsense
words, and alliterative or rhymed repetitions contribute to children's
mastering of the pitch, stress and junctures.

Nursery rhymes can also help children learn new vocabulary,

new ideas and concepts. Though reciting nursery rhymes, children get
to know people, places and objects. Nursery rhymes thus provide a
solid oral language basis.

Research has shown that knowledge of nursery rhymes helps in

phonological awareness, including rhymes awareness and phonemic
awareness.

1.12 The Importance of Nursery Rhymes

a. Language development

When children hear nursery rhymes, they hear the sounds

vowels and consonants make. They learn how to put these sounds
together to make words. They also practice pitch, volume and voice
inflection, as well as the rhythm of language. In nursery rhymes,
children hear new words that they would not hear in everyday
language. Nursery rhymes are short and easy to repeat, so they
become some of a child's first sentence.

b. Cognitive Development

Since nursery rhymes are patterns, they help children learn

easy recall and memorization. Nursery rhymes use patterns and
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sequence, so children begin to learn simple skills as they recite them.
Many rhymes also use numbers and counting that children need to
learn. Nursery rhymes also introduce alliteration, onomatopoeia and
imaginative imagery. Children near these rhymes and act out what
they imagine the characters are doing.

c. Social/emotional development

Sharing nursery rhymes provide a safe and secure bond

between parents and children. Positive physical touch between a
parent and a child during clapping rhymes is important for social
development. Funny nursery rhymes allow children to develop a sense
of humour. Nursery rhyme characters experience many different
emotions. This can help children identify their own emotions and
understand the real emotions of others.

1.13 Aim and Objectives

a.Aim

The present study about Baby Talk is an attempt to analyse the

concept in detail in terms of the above with respect to linguistics and
psychology. The concept has been analysed in detail taking the
country as a whole and the Malayalam community in particular. The
research tries to give insight to various linguistic and child centered
issues particularly with respect to language acquisition, character
moulding, personality development, etc.

b. Objectives

1. To analyse the concept of Baby Talk in linguistic terms, ie., its

formation, the structure and the function and to the different
approaches, like sociological and psychological aspects.
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 2. Role of mothers, fathers, grand parents, etc., and others in
formulating Baby Talk.

3. Sociological, Psychological and environmental factors which

determine the formation of Baby Talk, and its effect on the
child.

1.14 Hypothesis

1. Baby Talk influence positively in child development and

nurture healthy parent child relationship.

2. It plays an important role in the acquisition of language.

3. Environmental and social factors reflected in Baby Talk highly

influence the language acquisition, character moulding and
personality development of a child.

1.15 Methodology

Different theories like Imitation theory, Behaviorism, Nativism,

Interactionism and Innate hypothesis are applied to explain, and
discuss Baby Talk.

The data for this study is taken directly from the informants
including mother, father, grandparents and caretakers. Babies include
both male and female. They have the age group between 0-3 years.
The data is also obtained directly from the parents or adults by
interacting with them or closely watching the adult-child interaction.
Data is also extracted from holibooks, epics customs and culture and
other selected art form.

1.16 Scope of the Study

Baby Talk plays an important role in character moulding,

language development and healthy parent child relationship. It helps
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the child to understand basic structure of language. No detailed study
on any aspects of Baby Talk had done so far in any Indian context
including in Malayalam language. So it is very relevant and the
concept is analysed in detail with Malayalam community.

1.17 Chapterization

First chapter gives a detailed account of Baby Talk. It provides

definition, and role of parents in Baby Talk. Second chapter is the
literature review, ie., the present status of the topic studied at different
parts of the world at different levels and approaches. Third chapter is
dealing with methodology, the data and details about the informants
and their status. Fourth chapter deals with the analysis of the data.
Fifth chapter deals with dealing with discussion, fmdings and
conclusion.

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