The Influence of the Ages of the Child-Addressee and of One's Own Child on Motherese.

This study investigated the influence of the speaker's experience and addressee's developmental level on baby talk characteristics. A total of 240 mothers of only child infants (l-l8 months) or of children 2-3 years old responded to an Infant or Child Series of drawings with an attached list of sentences. Subjects described situations in drawings, associated drawings with "most natural" sentence, and indicated age of baby in drawing. Results indicated that 1) some general characteristics of baby talk are modified according to the addressee's developmental level; 2) mothers with differing experiential levels choose different topics for talk; 3) the rule "closeness to context" works independently of addressee's developmental level and mother's experiential level; and 4) attribution of meaning to specific situations is based on different elements grasped and given different valencies on the basis of addressee's developmental level and mother's experiential level. Preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that different representations of children, social partner's role, and the situation as a whole are responsible for different "context readings" is shown by the presence of partially different intentions and types of speech acts in experimental groups. Appendices include the Infant and Child Series of drawings, the basic list of sentences, and several figures. (BB)