The motherese and it’s applications for the constitution of the subject in language

Abstract

Introduction: The motherese, as a melodic, rhythmic, calm and gentle voice of the mother or whoever holds the maternal role to communicate with the baby and the baby response that is a feedback during the dyade communication, has a fundamental role in language acquisition and child development studies. This paper intends to refl ect about the issue, throug the discussion of two cases in which one has motherese use and the other doesn’t, and to analyse the different implications to detect risks for language acquisition and subject constitution in each case. Methodology: The records were transcribed and studied to analyze the use of the motherese, the baby’s responses to it and mother – infant interaction. Results: the mothers studied presented different interactions with their babies. In motherese’s dyade occurred an enunciation mecanism of turn acomplishment and the passage to co-referenciation in the baby speech at thirteen months. In the dyade without motherese, there isn’t turn acomplishment and, due to other possible biological factors there seems to be the presence of development risks and the ausence of the enunciative co-referenciation mecanism for this baby until fi fteen months. Conclusion: The results suggest that the motherese is a fundamental aspect to detect developmental and language acquisition risks.