Vivas Fernández, L. 1 , López Ornat, S. 1 , Karousou, A. 2 & Gallego, C. 1
1 Dpto. de Psicología Básica II (Procesos Cognitivos). Facultad de Psicología. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Spain.
2 Dpt. of Pre-School Education. Faculty of Educational Sciences. Democritus University of Thrace. Alexandroupoli, Greece.
Before language, infants engage in pre-speech vocalizations both in social settings and in private ones. This preliminary study focused on the differences in form characterising these types of vocalizations. To that end, the articulatory quality, number of segments, the rhythmic pattern, and F0 values of communicative and non-communicative vocalizations uttered by Spanish infants were compared. In line with classical studies on crib speech and language play, it was hypothesised that the forms of private vocalizations would be closer to the model language, than the forms of social vocalizations. The argument put forward is that in non-communicative settings all cognitive resources can be allotted to the infant´s vocal production. Videos of 7 Spanish infants aged 16 to 23 months recorded both familiar interactive situations and non-social situations. Recordings were coded following Oller’s infraphonological model, inter-judge agreement procedures were used, and the resulting data were analyzed statistically. The results did not support the hypothesis: the forms of communicative vocalizations were more advanced than those of private ones. This is discussed as probably expressing the effect of pragmatic variables. The most advanced forms were produced under the need of being understood, communicative vocalizations possibly drawing on more cognitive resources than private vocalizations.