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Patterns in babbling: a cross-linguistic study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Joanna Blake  and
Bénédicte De Boysson-Bardies
Joanna Blake*
Affiliation:
York University
Bénédicte De Boysson-Bardies
Affiliation:
C.N.R.S.
*
Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele St., North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada.
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Abstract

Three Canadian–English infants and three Parisian–French infants were filmed bi-weekly for three to five months, from the age of 0;9 or 0;11 until 1;2, at home in naturalistic interaction with a parent. Their babbled utterances were transcribed phonetically and categorized according to consonant-type and vowel-type. The contexts for each utterance were described in terms of both specific and more general contextual categories. Observed frequencies of co-occurrences between phonetic and contextual categories were compared to expected frequencies, and deviations were considered to be patterns in babbling. Patterning increased after age 1;0 for most infants, and from 15% to 30% of each infant's babbled utterances recurred in particular contexts with a greater-than-expected frequency. Similarities in patterns were found both within and across language groups. These sound-meaning correspondences in babbling are viewed as continuous with early situation-bound meaning in words.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 51 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

Some of these data were presented at the Biennial Conference on Child Development, University of Waterloo, May 1988, and at the Tenth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, Jyväskylä, Finland, July 1989. The research was supported by grants from the Fondation Fyssen, Paris, and from the Faculty of Arts, York University, to the first author; and the equipment in Paris for filming and coding was provided by C.N.R.S. The authors would like to thank Joseline Pérusse, Catherine Durand, Marsha Cannon, Nurit Nadler and Rick Blacow for their phonetic transcriptions of the corpora and Amanda Lisus and Paula O'Rourke for assistance with the data analysis. We are particularly grateful to the participating French parents and infants for their warm and gracious co-operation with our lengthy filming schedule and to the Canadian parents for their reliable expertise in conducting the filming themselves.

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