CARETAKER SPEECH
Children learn to construct language from those around them. Until about the age of three, children tend to learn to develop their language by modeling the speech of their parents, but from that time on, peers have a growing influence as models for language development in children. It is easy to observe that, when adults and older children interact with younger children, they tend to modify their language to improve communication with younger children, and this modified language is called caretaker speech.
Caretaker speech is used often quite unconsciously; few people actually study how to modify language when speaking to young children but, instead, without thinking, find ways to reduce the complexity of language in order to communicate effectively with young children. (1) A caretaker will unconsciously speak in one way with adults and in a very different way with young children. (2) Caretaker speech tends to be slower speech with short, simple words and sentences which are said in a higher-pitched voice with exaggerated inflections and many repetitions of essential information. (3) It is not limited to what is commonly called baby talk, which generally refers to the use of simplified, repeated syllable expressions such as ma-ma, boo-boo, bye-bye, wa-wa, but also includes the simplified sentence structures repeated in sing-song inflections. (4)
Caretaker speech serves the very important function of allowing young children to acquire language more easily. The higher-pitched voice and the exaggerated inflections tend to focus the small child on what the caretaker is saying, the simplified words and sentences make it easier for the small child to begin to comprehend, and the repetitions reinforce the child’s developing understanding. Then, as a child’s speech develops, caretakers tend to adjust their language in response to the improved language skills, again quite unconsciously. Parents and older children regularly adjust their speech to a level that is slightly above that of a younger child; without studied recognition of what they are doing, these caretakers will speak in one way to a one-year-old and in a progressively more complex way as the child reaches the age of two or three.
(1) An important point to note is that the function covered by caretaker speech, that of assisting a child to acquire language in small and simple steps, is an unconsciously used but extremely important part of the process of language acquisition and as such is quite universal. (2) Studying cultures where children do not acquire language through caretaker speech is difficult because such cultures are difficult to find. (3) The question of why caretaker speech is universal is not clearly understood; instead proponents on either side of the nature vs. nurture debate argue over whether caretaker speech is a natural function or a learned one. (4) Those who believe that caretaker speech is a natural and inherent function in humans believe that it is human nature for children to acquire language and for those around them to encourage their language acquisition naturally; the presence of a child is itself a natural stimulus that increases the rate of caretaker speech among those present. In contrast, those who believe that caretaker speech develops through nurturing rather than nature argue that a person who is attempting to communicate with a child will learn by trying out different ways of communicating to determine which is the most effective from the reactions to the communication attempts; a parent might, for example, learn to use speech with exaggerated inflections with a small child because the exaggerated inflections do a better job of attracting the child’s attention than do more subtle inflections. Whether caretaker speech results from nature or nurture, it does play an important and universal role in child language acquisition.