motherese (n.)

A term commonly used in early study of child LANGUAGE ACQUISITION for the distinctive way in which mothers talk to their young children. Its features include simplified GRAMMAR, exaggerated INTONATION patterns, DIMINUTIVE forms of words (e.g. doggie), a repetitive style and a tendency to expand the child’s reduced utterances. A correlative notion of fatherese has also been proposed, but is rarely used; both notions are often now subsumed under the broader concept of child-directed speech, which includes grandparents, nannies and other carers, as well as parents. The term BABY-TALK, formerly widely used for this phenomenon, is not now usual in PSYCHOLINGUISTICS.