Caporael L R
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1981 May;40(5):876-84. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.40.5.876.
A field study was conducted at a nursing home to (a) obtain descriptive information on the speech environment of the institutionalized elderly and (b) provide speech samples with which to conduct judgment studies on the paralinguistic features of caregiver communication. Three kinds of speech were differentiated: baby talk, speech to the elderly that was not in baby talk, and speech between caregivers, which was assumed to be normal adult speech. Over 22% of the sentences were reliably categorized as baby talk speech. Caregivers' ratings of the characteristics of the care receivers did not predict the amount of baby talk that was directed toward individual care receivers. In Judgment Study 1, content-filtered baby talk was identified as speech to children regardless of the actual status, adult or child, of the target. In Judgment Study 2, content-filtered speech samples were rated on four dimensions: comfort, pleasantness, irritation, and arousal. Baby talk was rated positive, adult speech received intermediate ratings, and non-baby-talk was rated negative. The findings suggest that baby talk is a speech register conveying affection, and it is proposed that non-baby-talk to the elderly is an "institutional" register denoting and promoting dependency.
在一家养老院进行了一项实地研究，目的是：(a) 获取有关机构养老老年人言语环境的描述性信息；(b) 提供言语样本，以便对护理人员沟通的副语言特征进行判断研究。区分了三种言语：儿语、非儿语的与老年人交谈的言语以及护理人员之间的言语，后者被假定为正常的成人言语。超过22%的句子被可靠地归类为儿语。护理人员对受护理者特征的评分并不能预测针对个别受护理者的儿语量。在判断研究1中，无论目标对象的实际身份是成人还是儿童，经过内容过滤的儿语都被识别为对儿童的言语。在判断研究2中，对经过内容过滤的言语样本在四个维度上进行评分：舒适度、愉悦度、刺激性和唤醒度。儿语被评为积极，成人言语得到中等评分，非儿语被评为消极。研究结果表明，儿语是一种传达情感的言语语域，并且有人提出，与老年人交谈的非儿语是一种表示并促进依赖的“机构性”语域。
