Vowel length in infant-directed speech: the realisation of short-long contrasts in Czech IDS

0582880 - PSÚ 2024 RIV CZ eng C - Konferenční příspěvek (zahraniční konf.)
Svoboda, Michaela - Chládková, Kateřina - Kocjančič Antolík, T. - Paillereau, Nikola - Slížková, P.
Vowel length in infant-directed speech: the realisation of short-long contrasts in Czech IDS.
Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Praha: Guarant International, 2023 - (Skarnitzl, R.; Volín, J.), s. 2363-2367. ISBN 978-80-908114-2-3.
[International Congress of Phonetic Sciences /20./. Praha (CZ), 07.08.2023-11.08.2023]
Grant CEP: GA ČR(CZ) GA21-09797S
Institucionální podpora: RVO:68081740
Klíčová slova: infant-directed speech * vowel length * development of early input * Czech
Obor OECD: Psychology (including human - machine relations)
https://www.icphs2023.org/programme/proceedings/

When interacting with young children, talkers across many languages use a speech style that reflects positive affect, draws infants' attention, and supposedly facilitates language acquisition. As for the latter, a well-documented feature of infant-directed speech is an exaggeration of spectrally-cued vowel contrasts. Here we tested whether talkers exaggerate also durationally cued contrasts. Sixty-three mothers, native speakers of Czech, were recorded while playing with their infant (4- to 10-month-olds, IDS) and while speaking to an adult (ADS). The durations of the five Czech phonemically short vowels were compared to their long counterparts. Vowel duration (normalised for word duration) was longer in IDS than in ADS more for phonemically long vowels at the younger infant ages, indicating a developmentally specific early exaggeration of length contrasts in Czech infant-directed speech. The present finding suggests that in a language with phonemic length, caregivers' realisation of speech sounds may go beyond merely being longer and slower overall.
Trvalý link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0350921