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Which came first: Infants learning language or motherese?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2005

Heather Bortfeld
Heather Bortfeld*
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX77843http://people.tamu.edu/~bortfel/
*
bortfeld@psyc.tamu.edu
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Abstract:

Although motherese may facilitate language acquisition, recent findings indicate that not all aspects of motherese are necessary for word recognition and speech segmentation, the building blocks of language learning. Rather, exposure to input that has prosodic, phonological, and statistical consistencies is sufficient to jump-start the learning process. In light of this, the infant-directedness of the input might be considered superfluous, at least insofar as language acquisition is concerned.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , August 2004 , pp. 505 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

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