Phonetic enhancement of sibilants in infant-directed speech

The hypothesis that vocalic categories are enhanced in infant-directed speech (IDS) has received a great deal of attention and support. In contrast, work focusing on the acoustic implementation of consonantal categories has been scarce, and positive, negative, and null results have been reported. Ho...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 128; no. 1; p. 424
Main Author Cristià, Alejandrina
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.07.2010
Subjects
Acoustic Stimulation
Adolescent
Caregivers
Child
Child Development
Female
Humans
Infant, Newborn
Language
Linear Models
Phonetics
Sound Spectrography
Speech Acoustics
Speech Perception
Young Adult
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:The hypothesis that vocalic categories are enhanced in infant-directed speech (IDS) has received a great deal of attention and support. In contrast, work focusing on the acoustic implementation of consonantal categories has been scarce, and positive, negative, and null results have been reported. However, interpreting this mixed evidence is complicated by the facts that the definition of phonetic enhancement varies across articles, that small and heterogeneous groups have been studied across experiments, and further that the categories chosen are likely affected by other characteristics of IDS. Here, an analysis of the English sibilants /s/ and /[see text]/ in a large corpus of caregivers' speech to another adult and to their infant suggests that consonantal categories are indeed enhanced, even after controlling for typical IDS prosodic characteristics.
ISSN:1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.3436529