Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:37:51.727Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Where's the drift in babbling drift? A cross-linguistic study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Deborah M. Thevenin ,
Rebecca E. Eilers ,
D. Kimbrough Oller  and
Lawrence Lavoie
Deborah M. Thevenin
Affiliation:
University of Miami
Rebecca E. Eilers*
Affiliation:
University of Miami
D. Kimbrough Oller
Affiliation:
University of Miami
Lawrence Lavoie
Affiliation:
University of Miami
*
Rebecca E. Eilers, Mailman Center for Child Development, University of Miami, P.O. Box 016820, Miami, FL 33101
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that infants' early listening experience affects their ability to perceive speech. Many psychologists and linguists have also suggested an early impact of listening experience on prelinguistic production. This belief was formalized in the babbling drift hypothesis (see, e.g., Brown, 1958), which predicts that babbling begins to approximate characteristics of the mother tongue as infants approach meaningful speech. In order to investigate this hypothesis, four experiments were conducted in which adult listeners' perception of the babbling of infants from different language backgrounds was tested. In the first two experiments monolingual English and bilingual English-Spanish adults judged the babbling of fourteen 7–10 month-old English- and Spanish-learning infants. The third and fourth experiments investigated the babbling drift hypothesis with older infants (11–14 months of age).

For all experiments conducted during both the beginning and the end of the babbling period, adult judges were unable to identify language background significantly above chance level. Therefore, the findings do not support the babbling drift hypothesis. However, bilingual and monolingual judges showed consistently different patterns of judgment with regard to particular infants and utterances. Thus, it appears that judges are influenced by their language background even if the influence fails to improve their success in determining infant language environment.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 3 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Atkinson, K., MacWhinney, B., & Stoel, C. (1969). Children's language structure. Language Behavior Research Lab. Working Paper #15. University of California, Berkeley, pp. 1–7.Google Scholar
De Boysson-Bardies, B.The specificity of infant babbling in the light of the characteristics of the mother-tongue. Paper presented at the Second International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Vancouver, Canada, 08 1982.Google Scholar
De Boysson-Bardies, B., Sagart, L., & Bacri, N. (1981). Phonetic analysis of late babbling: A case study of a French child. Journal of Child Language, 8, 511–524.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Boysson-Bardies, B., Sagart, L., & Durand, C. (1984). Discernible differences in the babbling of infants according to target language. Journal of Child Language, 11, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, R. (1958). Words and things. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Cruttenden, A. (1970). A phonetic study of babbling. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 5, 110–117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dinger, M. C., & Blom, J. G. (1973). An investigation of infant babbling. Proceedings from the Institute of Phonetic Sciences. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Eady, S. J. (1980). The onset of language-specific patterning in infant vocalization. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.Google Scholar
Eilers, R. E., Gavin, W. J., & Oller, D. K. (1982). Cross-linguistic perception in infancy: The role of linguistic experience. Journal of Child Language, 9, 289–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eilers, R. E., Gavin, W. J., & Wilson, W. R. (1979). Linguistic experience and phonemic perception in infancy: A cross-linguistic study. Child Development, 50, 14–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eilers, R. E., Oller, D. K., & Benito-Garcia, C. R. (1984). The acquisition of voicing contrast in Spanish and English learning infants and children: A longitudinal study. Journal of Child Language, 11, 313–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huber, H. (1970). A preliminary comparison of English and Yucatec infant vocalization at nine months. Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 114–119. Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Kenny, D. A. (1982). Quantitative methods of special interest to social psychologists. In Aronson, E. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (3rd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Locke, J. (1983). Phonological acquisition and change. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nakazima, S. (1962). A comparative study of the speech developments of Japanese and American English in childhood: 1. A comparison of the developments of voices at the prelinguistic period. Studia Phonological, 2, 27–46.Google Scholar
Oller, D. K. (1980). The emergence of the sounds of speech in infancy. In Yeni-Komshian, G., Kavanagh, J., and Ferguson, C. (Eds.), Child Phonology: Vol. 1: Production. New York: Academic Press, pp. 93–112.Google Scholar
Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. E. (1982). Similarities of babbling of Spanish- and English-learning babies. Journal of Child Language, 9, 565–578.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oller, D. K., Weiman, L. A., Doyle, W. J., & Ross, C. (1976). Infant babbling and speech. Journal of Child Language, 3, 1–11.Google Scholar
Olney, R. L., & Scholnick, E. K. (1976). Adult judgments of age and linguistic differences in infant vocalization. Journal of Child Language, 3, 145–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, R. W. (1966). Some questions on the child's learning of phonology. In Smith, F. & Miller, G. A. (Eds.), The genesis of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar