Journal of Child Language Children's songs to infant siblings

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Children's songs to infant siblings: parallels  with speech Sandra E. Trehub, Anna M. Unyk and Joanna L. Henderson Journal of Child Language / Volume 21 / Issue 03 / October 1994, pp 735 ­ 744 DOI: 10.1017/S0305000900009533, Published online: 26 September 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/ abstract_S0305000900009533 How to cite this article: Sandra E. Trehub, Anna M. Unyk and Joanna L. Henderson (1994). Children's  songs to infant siblings: parallels with speech. Journal of Child Language, 21, pp  735­744 doi:10.1017/S0305000900009533 Request Permissions : Click here

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J. Child Lang. 21 (1994), 735~744. Copyright © 1994 Cambridge University Press

NOTE

Children's songs to infant siblings: parallels with speech* SANDRA E.TREHUB, ANNA M. UNYK AND JOANNA L. HENDERSON University of Toronto (Received 28 September 1992. Revised 25 March 1993)

ABSTRACT

Children aged 2; 11 to 8; 3 sang informally, once in the presence of their infant sibling and once when the infant was out of view. Paired excerpts from 22 children were presented to adult listeners, who were required to identify the infant-directed excerpt in each pair. Listeners' accuracy was above chance levels but below what would be expected for mothers' singing in comparable contexts. Children altered their singing style in the infant's presence by singing at a higher pitch level and with a different vocal quality. INTRODUCTION

Mothers alter their speech substantially when interacting with their infant offspring (for reviews see Papousek, Papousek & Bornstein, 1985; Fernald, 1991). On the whole, their infant-directed speech is highly repetitive and stereotyped in form as well as content. Characteristically, mothers raise their pitch, extend their pitch range, increase their dynamic range (whisper to squeal), and speak more slowly, giving special emphasis to smooth but highly modulated (with reference to fundamental frequency and intensity) intonation contours. Indeed, researchers often characterize maternal utterances to infants as melodies (Fernald, 1991; Papousek, Papousek & Symmes, 1991), highlighting their distinct prosodic form. Children also modify their speech to infant siblings. Among their numerous adjustments are raised pitch and exaggerated intonation (Weeks, 1971; Shatz & Gelman, 1973), repetition and mimicry (Weeks, 1971; Dunn & Kendrick, 1982; Tomasello & Mannle, 1985), and the use of diminutives and other terms of endearment (Gleason, 1973; Dunn & Kendrick, 1982). •] This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and The University of Toronto. We thank E. Glenn Schellenberg for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Address for correspondence: Sandra E. Trehub, Centre for Research in Human Development, University of Toronto, Erindale Campus, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 1C6. 735

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These adjustments, which are evident in children as young as i ;g (Weeks, 1971), are less extensive and less effectively tuned to infant listeners than are those of mothers (Tomasello & Mannle, 1985; Fernald, 1991; Hoff-Ginsberg & Krueger, 1991). By the age of eight, however, children seem to achieve adult-like mastery in infant-directed speech (Gleason, 1973). Infant-directed vocal adjustments are not limited to speech. Caregivers the world over use a special musical genre, the lullaby, for soothing infants and bringing on sleep. This musical genre embodies universal features in the sense that adult listeners unfamiliar with the language, culture and musical system in question can still distinguish a lullaby from a non-lullaby (Trehub, Unyk & Trainor, 1993 a). The features that seem to guide adults' identification of foreign lullabies are low pitch and smooth, falling pitch contours (Unyk, Trehub, Trainor & Schellenberg, 1992), which also figure prominently in soothing infant-directed speech (Papousek et al. 1985). Not only are there special musical materials for infant listeners (e.g. lullabies) but there is also a distinctive performing style. Trehub, Unyk & Xrainor (19936) recorded 14 English- and 12 Hindi-speaking mothers singing the same song (their choice) on two occasions, once in their infant's presence and another time when the mothers were alone (with contexts in counterbalanced order). All mothers sang conventional as opposed to invented songs, with the English-speaking mothers typically singing children's play songs and the Hindi-speaking mothers, lullabies and religious songs. Adults heard successive pairs of excerpts from mothers' songs, judging which excerpt in each pair was sung to an infant and reporting the cues guiding their choice. Female listeners correctly identified the infantdirected version even when the language and culture of the singers were unfamiliar. (Male listeners performed more poorly, particularly on the foreign singing.) Not surprisingly, performance was more accurate on sameculture than on different culture materials, implying that there are culturespecific as well as universal features in infant-directed singing. Measurements of the tempo (i.e. singing rate) of the English-speaking mothers revealed that they sang more slowly in the infant's presence, which parallels their slower speech to infants. Contrary to expectations, however, mothers did not raise their pitch when singing to infants, perhaps because of greater constraints on their singing range relative to their speech range. Nevertheless, few listeners cited tempo differences, the majority reporting that the singer's 'tone of voice' had influenced their judgements. A number of listeners described the mother as smiling while singing to her infant even though this characterization was derived solely from audio recordings. Others referred to a soothing or gentle tone of voice and extended vowels. Thus, despite an identical text and melody line, which would greatly narrow the range of potential vocal variations compared to infant-directed speech, mothers made discernible performance adjustments when singing to infants. 736

CHILDREN S SONGS

If children exhibit infant-directed adjustments in speech, would they do likewise in song? Children's achievements in singing lag considerably behind those of speech. Although infants and young children are notably adept at their production of speech melody, or intonation (Cruttenden, 1982), preschoolers and young school-age children exhibit relatively poor control of pitch, rhythm, and loudness in their sung melodies (Davidson, McKernon & Gardner, 1981; Dowling, 1984). On the one hand, then, young children's imperfect mastery of song might lead them to produce undifferentiated performances for different listeners. On the other hand, young children may feel less constrained than adults by cultural conventions about singing and be less informed about such conventions, in any case. Indeed, Swanwick (1988) describes children's early musical expressiveness in song as bearing little relation to convention, emanating instead from personal expression and the pleasure of manipulating sounds. With lesser commitment to or understanding of ' acceptable' renditions of songs, young children might engage in infant-directed adjustments that parallel those in spoken contexts. Moreover, interactive contexts with infants may heighten children's excitement, leading to transparent vocal consequences. To investigate this issue, we had children aged 2; 11 to 8;3 sing songs in their own home in the presence or absence of their infant sibling. Subsequently, adult listeners were required to judge which song renditions were infant-directed. Our prediction was that children would make perceptible adjustments, conventional or otherwise, in their songs to infant listeners. On the basis of previous research on children's infant-directed speech and on universal links between excitement and pitch level (Frick, 1985), we expected children to sing with elevated pitch in the presence of infants. On the basis of mothers' stylistic adjustments in infant-directed singing, we expected children to sing more slowly to their infant sibling and to exhibit distinctive vocal qualities such as those associated with smiling and soothing behaviour. METHOD

Subjects The singers consisted of 42 musically untrained children, aged 2; 6 to 853 (mean = 459), who were recorded (with audio cassette recorder and lapel microphone) in their own homes, as they sang in two contexts: (1) while interacting with their infant sibling who was aged o;5 to 1 ;2 (mean = 059), and (2) when the infant was not in the singer's view. The experimenter waited until the context of interest occurred and then asked the child to sing a song (or had the mother make this request). Half of the children were recorded first in the infant-present context, half in the infant-absent context. In neither case did children know that they would subsequently be asked to sing in a different context. Children chose their own songs with or without 737

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prompting from their mother. In all instances, mothers confirmed that children regularly sang the specific songs recorded. Although we encouraged children to sing the same song in the second context, we acceded to their occasional selection of a different song. Excerpts from 22 children (12 girls, 10 boys) were recorded on a composite tape that included two versions (infant present, infant absent) from each child. Children were included in the final tape only if the observer's field notes indicated that they had interacted with the sibling during the infantdirected song (four children excluded) and provided songs in both contexts (four children excluded), without parental interference (one child excluded). In addition, the tapes from such children had to yield matched excerpts that were of good recording quality and had no cues from infant noises (four children excluded) and no other potentially distracting noise (seven children excluded). Most of the children (N = 17) sang the same song in both conditions. When the songs differed (N = 5), excerpts of identical duration were selected. Child singers on thefinaltape were 2; 11 to 8; 3 (mean = 4; 10) and their infant siblings (13 girls, 9 boys) were o;6 to 1 ;2 (mean = o;9).

The listeners consisted of 25 adults (12 males, 13 females) who were 18 to 26 years of age (mean = 20 years). The extent of musical training or experience varied from none at all (AT =13), to some lessons and/or involvement in musical activities (iV =10) and music lessons of eight or more years (N = 2). Their child care experience ranged from none (N = 8), to limited babysitting or child care (N = 15), to extensive child care experience (AT =2). Apparatus and procedure

Adult listeners were tested individually in a quiet room with a cassette tape deck (TEAC V-300), amplifier (Realistic SA 10) and loudspeakers (NOVA6). They were told that they would hear 22 pairs of songs sung by children, with one song in each pair having been sung directly to an infant. For each pair, they were required to judge which excerpt had been sung to the infant and to record their responses on a standardized form. Moreover, they were asked to indicate whether the infant-directed song was more soothing or more playful than the other song by circling soothing or playful next to their answer (a or b) on the response sheet. Finally, participants were asked to indicate how much more soothing or playful the infant-directed song was on a 3-point scale, with 1 representing 'a little more', 2, 'much more' and 3, 'very much more'. After completing the 22 judgements, participants provided background information about their age, musical experience and child care experience. There were two composite audiotapes, which differed only in the order of child singers. Each excerpt on the tapes was introduced by an announcement of the trial number (1-22) and excerpt (a or b; e.g. trial 6b). The position 738

C H I L D R E N ' S SONGS

(first or second) of the infant-directed song in each pair was randomized and each pair was separated by a 12-second silence to permit listeners to record their responses. RESULTS

The mean proportion of correct identifications was 0-63, which significantly exceeded chance levels, ^(24) = 634, p < 0001. A multiple regression analysis revealed that adult listeners' age, sex, musical experience and child care experience were not significantly related to their identification accuracy. A repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant differences in adults' performance on different child singers, .F(2i, 504) = 2-38, />