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Hot take: using baby talk when talking to children is a form of child abuse.
@Gaythia there is also just the issue of baby talk being condescending, but yea it also doesnt teach good language skills
@freemo Yeah, I would agree that adults spewing baby talk probably have very few thoughts about language skills. Pronoun confusion aside, 2 year olds can actually have quite a lot to say.
@Gaythia In general our children are way behind on their potential largely because we infantilize them.. The maturity follows from our expectations. 2 year olds have SO much more potential than most parents give them the chance for.
@freemo Yes, and it gets codified in certain circles of educational academia. I remember a first grade teacher telling me that 6 year olds were too young to comprehend fractions. And I'm like what??? 2 year olds can grasp 1/2 easily and have no difficulties in visually dividing things up equally with a small group of friends. Just try giving one an extra cracker and see what the rest have to say about it.
@Gaythia @freemo Folks say this, then I look at what my sons were being asked to do in first grade and it blows my mind. They are learning math I know was part of my 2nd and 3rd grade curriculum. But even more, they are doing it while still finding time in the day for music, art, and other "untestable" subjects
I dunno I kinda had the exact opposite impression... I found the math children are taught in first grade to be very much below the capabilities of what most 1st graders should be capable of... same holds true for most grades forward.
I remember I derived einsteins equation for time dialation in 4th grade after a teacher described it at a high level... this is usually considered college level math and yet 4th graders could easily be capable of it if they were taught to their potential.
@freemo @Gaythia My point though is that if we aren't pushing kids hard today in your opinion, education in my generation was remedial, and before that it was more like daycare.
A lot is asked of kids today, not the least of which is education. Humans are already living longer than most generations before them, and I'm starting to think kids need more time to be kids before we shift the weight of the world onto their shoulders. They'll easily have a half century of work ahead of them unless something drastic changes.
@freemo What is baby talk? I thought it referred to the way people modify pronunciation (and continue to speak using standard grammar, obviously using rather simple words) when speaking to young children.
@robryk its a combination of features... It has a very condescending tone to it for starters. It usually uses cute words that arent actually words, sometimes even just mumbling "Abah booba you wittle boopie doop" stuff like that.
@freemo you should ask to experts, not to us.
IMHO, you had to create a connection, utilizing multiple channels of communication. It is a mix of body and spoken language. You become partially a Charlie Chaplin. You are not only speaking, but also acting and partially singing. It's also a turn-based game: you say something, and you wait for a reaction. Usually, you imitate a little the answer of the child, but in more adult way, and the child step by step, try to imitate the adult way. It is usually a step by step imitation process.
@mzan I think you are perfectly fine if you dont use baby talk but still engage in the body language portion.
You can also use incremental steps increasing the complexity of the language without using the condescending tone and made-up words of baby talk.
@freemo without a video as example, it is difficult to judge when the "baby talk" is a fair communication, or when it is a form of "aggression" towards the poor baby. Like my grandmother pretending always "give me a kiss, give me a kiss". 🙂
@mzan I think there is a bit of a divide here.. like you can treat a child in appropriately without it being baby talk, and there is a lot of overlap. But im talking about baby talk which often even translates to young children in a slightly different way, its always very condescending.
An example of it when used on toddlers and young teens is when they do something worthy of praise and the adults go "yayyyyy and clap" but do it in a tone that is unique to addressing children and very different to, say applause at a sports arena. That is, it always has a condescending tone to it.
@freemo it is a never ending discussion, if done on Mastodon. You should search in bibliography what experts are saying. Or you can follow the scientific approach: take two children and two adults, acting in two completely different ways, and observe the way the children react.
I agree that an extreme condescending interaction is not optimal, but I bet that children are rather good in perceiving fake emotions. If you enjoy the play and interaction, then the child will smile and he will start playing. Probably the ultimate judge is the child, not me or you 🙂
@mzan I dont need "experts" to see the harm.. it seems quite obvious to me where all the children I see raised being treated that way are extreemely stunted. The ones treated as equals tend to be extremely successful adults. Its like saying i should look to experts to understand if the sun will rise tomorrow. Some things are so obvious I dont need an expert to tell me.
@freemo according this page https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/03/health/baby-talk-boosts-infant-brain-wellness/index.html
I figure out that I speak to child in parentese and not in proper baby-talk. At maximum I can intersperse parentese with some "ahhh", "ohhh", "ehhh", but these are exclamations, not baby-talk.
It seems that parentese is better for children. Obviously with slow cadence, and simplified grammar.
@mzan It isnt just the choice of words but the tone is extremely important to my point too.
With babytalk the tone is very unnatural, usually a high-pitched falsetto for some reason. This aspect becomes particularly harmful as the child is able to communicate because of its condescending and dismissive nature.
A lot of it is about how you say it not just what you say.
Frrrr.... fru fruuu @freemo, I'm tootalking to you 🙂
@mzan awww what a littl schmibble of a smooble you are, yes you are you little cutie!
@freemo this is tootese instead 🙂
@freemo as a linguist and a many-times parent, I endorse the spirit of this message. I wouldn't go so far as to call it abuse, but it is definitely not helpful to the children.
@worldsendless abuse is intentionally hyperbolic here.. but yea.
@freemo What about using it when talking to a grown paralysis patient?
@rmattila74 Only acceptable if they are a republican or democrat party member.
@freemo I recall a report that the younger children in a household develop better language usage than the older siblings. The reason is they have many older speakers to learn from.
@rmerriam That woudl make sense.. I bet part of it is that older siblings rarely use baby talk like adults do as well.
@freemo psychologists have studied this and concluded it doesn't make any difference.
@bluGill Sadly psychology is one area where the conclusions are wildly unreliable... I think its extremely obvious that it makes a huge difference to anyone who has seen children grow up over hte years. Psychologists need to do better.
@freemo Psychology deserve abuse for doing exactly what you did: make a claim without doing any repeatable study.
@bluGill The nature of psychology makes studies of any real value damn near impossible..
@freemo Conveying English grammar can be confusing. Adult to toddler: Do you want me to pick you up? Toddler holds up arms and agrees; Pick you up! Adult: No, when you talk about yourself you should say me. Say pick me up. How is that supposed to make sense? (but I guess it will eventually).