‘5 things to know about ‘baby talk’’: Evidence base for the poster information

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Baby talk in languages in central Australia

Bundgaard-Nielsen, Rikke L., Carmel O’Shannessy, Yizhou Wang, Alice Nelson, Jessie Bartlett, and Vanessa Davis. “Two-part vowel modifications in Child Directed Speech in Warlpiri may enhance child attention to speech and scaffold noun acquisition.” Phonetica 80, no. 1-2 (2023): 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1515/phon-2022-0039

Read a summary of the Warlpiri study in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/a-newstudy-of-warlpiri-language-shows-how-baby-talk-helps-little-kids-learn-to-speak-207835

Laughren, Mary. “Warlpiri baby talk.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 4, no. 1 (1984): 73-88. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268608408599321

O’Shannessy, Carmel, Jennifer Green, Vanessa Davis, Jessie Bartlett, Alice Nelson, Ashleigh Jones, and Denise Foster. “Multimodal strategies for engaging young Arrernte and Warlpiri children in storytelling and play.” Australian Journal of Linguistics (2025): 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2025.2514175

Turpin, Myfany, Katherine Demuth, and April Ngampart Campbell. “Phonological aspects of Arandic baby talk.” In Language Description Informed by Theory, eds R. Pensalfini, M. Turpin and D. Guillemin (Amsterdam: John Benjamins) (2014): 49-80.


Baby talk in languages across the world

Hilton, Courtney B., Cody J. Moser, Mila Bertolo, et al. “Acoustic regularities in infant-directed speech and song across cultures.” Nature Human Behaviour 6, no. 11 (2022): 1545-1556. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01410-x

Polka, Linda, Matthew Masapollo, and Lucie Ménard. “Setting the stage for speech production: Infants prefer listening to speech sounds with infant vocal resonances.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 65, no. 1 (2022): 109-120. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00412

Soderstrom, Melanie, Megan Blossom, Rina Foygel, and James L. Morgan. “Acoustical cues and grammatical units in speech to two preverbal infants.” Journal of Child Language 35, no. 4 (2008) 869-902. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000908008763

Image of poster '5 things to know about 'baby talk'
Image of poster: ‘5 things to know about ‘baby talk”

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