BABY
VOCALIZATION
This
paper is submitted as the personal assignment of Psycholinguistic subject
Created
by :
ILMA
FAUZIANA FARIZ
092300640
ENGLISH EDUCATION
DEPARTEMENT
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND
LETTERS
INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC
STUDIES
SULTAN
MAULANA HASANUDIN “BANTEN”
BABY VOCALIZATION
A. INTRODUCTION
People’s first vocalizations are present at the very beginning of life. Whether
after a few week babies will produce sequence of vowel like sound, called
a coo. Babies use these cooing and gurgling as the tool
of communication with their family, and it
is the first job for their parents to understand what
their children cooing and gurgling represent of.
Babies this age begin to experiment with the sounds they can make
with their mouths. babies will spend more time for babbling in order to learn
or imitate their parents’s sound. If we listen closely, we'll hear babies’
voice raise and drop as if asking a question or making a statement. The babies
will also use sounds (other than crying) to get attention from the people
around them and express feelings.
Though
the babies still can not say anything, they already try to understand what
their parents say from the tone of parents’ voice. When the parents speak with
smooth tone, it means everything alright and also comforting for the babies;
but when the parents use high tone, it will tell something wrong.
It is the biggest duty of parents to focus
communicating with their babies because
early speech and language skills are related with success in developing
reading, writing, and interpersonal skills, both later in childhood and later
in life. Here some action that the parents should do to respond their babies.
·
Smile often at the
babies, especially when the babies are cooing, gurgling, or otherwise
vocalizing with baby talk.
·
Look at the babies as he
or she babble and laugh, rather than looking away, interrupting, or talking
with someone else.
·
Be patient when trying
to decode the infant's baby talk and nonverbal communication, like facial
expressions, gurgling, or babbling sounds that could signal either frustration
or joy.
·
Make time to give the
babies lots of loving attention so the babies can "speak" to the
parents with his or her baby talk, even when the parents feeling busy with other
things.[1]
According to the phonetic and phonological
Acquisition, i’m going to observe some children around me to know their
communication development since the beginning of their life.
B.
THEORY
According to the chart
from Eric H. Lenneberg, Biological
Foundations of language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967).
MILESTONE IN LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT
|
Approximate Age at
Onset of Behavior
|
Vocalizations and
Language
|
|
12 weeks
|
Markedly less crying
than at 8 weeks; when talked to and nodded at, smiles, followed by squeaking-gurgling sounds
usually called cooing; sustains cooing for 15 to 20 seconds; produces vaguely
palatal sounds like [y] and [n].
|
|
16 weeks
|
Responds to human
sounds more definitely; turns head; eyes seem to search for speaker;
occasionally some chuckling sounds; can distinguish between vowels [i] and
[a] and the corresponding adult mouth producing these sounds.
|
|
20 weeks
|
The vowel-like cooing sounds
begin to be interspersed with more consonantal sounds.
|
|
6 months
|
Cooing changing into
babbling resembling one syllable utterances; neither vowels nor consonants
have very fixed recurrences; most common utterances sound somewhat like [ma],
[mu], [da], or [di].
|
|
8 months
|
Reduplication (or more
continuous repetitions) becomes frequent; intonation patterns become
distinct; utterances can signal emphasis and emotions.
|
|
10 months
|
Vocalizations are mixed
with sound-play such as gurgling or bubble-blowing; appears to wish to
imitate sounds, but the imitations are never quite successful; beginning to
differentiate between sounds heard by making differential adjustment.
|
|
12 months
|
Identical sounds
sequences are replicated with higher relative frequency of occurrence, and
words (mamma or dada) are emerging; definite signs of understanding some
words and simple commands (show me your eyes)
|
|
18 months
|
Has a definite
repertoire of words more than three, but less than fifty; still much babbling
but now of several syllables, with intricate intonation pattern; no attempt
at communicating information and no frustration at not being understood;
words may include items such as thank you or come here, but there is little
ability to join any of the lexical items into spontaneous two item phrases;
understanding progressing rapidly.
|
|
24 months
|
Vocabulary of more than fifty items (some children
seem to be able to name everything in environment); begins spontaneously to
join vocabulary items into two-words phrases; all phrases appear to be own
creations; definite increase in communicative behavior and interest in
language.
|
|
30 months
|
Fastest increase in
vocabulary, with many new additions every day; no babbling at all; frustrated
in not understood by adults; utterances consist of at least two words- many
have three or even five words;
sentences and phrases have characteristic child grammar-that is, are
rarely verbatim repetitions of adult utterance; intelligibility not yet very
good, though there is great variation among children; seems to understand
everything within hearing and directed to self.
|
|
3 years
|
Vocabulary of some one
thousand words; about 80 percent of utterances intelligible even to
strangers; grammatical complexity if utterances roughly that of colloquial
adult language although mistakes still occur.
|
|
4 years
|
Language well
established; deviations from the adult norm tend to be more in style than in
grammar.
|
C. THE RESEARCH
A. The sample
Based
on the fact of baby vocalization, I’m going to make a personal observation to analyze babies’ speaking development in my
environment. So that, I’ve took some sample of the babies.
1.
Siti Heliatu
Nisa (Elin) 22 months
2.
M.
Nurhardiansyah (Ardi) 4 years old
The first is my little cousin named Siti Heliatu Nisa
(Elin) 22 months and the second is M. Nurhardiansyah (Ardi) 4 years old. Both
of them live around me, so that I can analyze both of them more accurately; and
here also the statement from their parents of their speaking process
development.
Generally, I thought they have good speaking process
development. But I will also give some question to their parents as the
instrument of my research in order to finding the most objective research.
|
QUESTION
|
ELIN’S PARENT
|
ARDI’S PARENT
|
|
1.
What is
your baby’s first word?
|
Nen
|
Teteh (unclear)
|
|
2.
When she/
he start producing their first word?
|
13 months
|
18 months
|
|
3. When
he/she start to producing clear babbling?
|
7 months
|
11 months
|
|
4. when
he/she speak look like adult?
|
21-22 months
|
28-29 months
|
B.
The conclusion
The conclusion that we can take from this mini
research is the fact of Ardi’s delaying speech production; and according to the
condition of their family, I think it can be happened because of their parents’
educations. Elin’s parents are the high educational people, so that they
understand how to establish their children speech production.
Finally,
we know that every children have an ability to producing a language, even
verbal or non verbal; and family as the nearest environment have a big
responsibility to help the children in establish and improving their language.
REFERENCES
Baby
talk : communicating With Your Baby (2012)
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/infant-development-9/baby-talk
Kidshealth
: communication and 4- to -7 Month –Old http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/communication/c47m.html
Lenneberg, Eric H. Biological Foundations of
language
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967).
