ANT206H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Baby Talk, Deeper Understanding, Elinor Ochs
Document Summary
Linguistic anthropologists however showed that this way of using language with infants is characteristic neither of all societies nor of all social groups". Such research demonstrates that there are multiples ways of becoming fluent in one"s native language(s) and becoming socialized into one"s culture. In bambi schiefflin"s study the kaluli" do not consider infants to be appropriate conversation partners and so people do not use baby talk. Kaluli mothers speak for" the infant, addressing others using the appropriate kinship term for say brother". Mothers do for infants what they cannot do for themselves: act in a controlled and competent manner using language. Kaluli mothers refuse to address their infants directly and do not simplify the grammar of their utterances at all. The fact that children in north american contexts and kaluli are raised differently, nevertheless all become competent speakers of their native languages by about age three, points to an undeniable innate component in the language acquisition process.
