An Exploration of Voice Quality in Mothers Speaking Canadian English to Infants

Research on the acoustic characteristics of Infant Directed Speech (IDS) in North American English indicates that it is generally higher-pitched than Adult (ADS) and has unique prosodic characteristics, which commonly found across many spoken languages. However, very little research addressed another important aspect prosody: voice quality. In current study, 25 English-speaking mothers from Canada were recorded speaking to their infant children an adult peer. Five measures quality, including glottal constriction, spectral tilt, Harmonic-to-Noise Ratio (HNR), Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), analyzed. Only CPP, a measure breathiness speaker’s voice, corrected H1-A2, vocal creakiness, be significantly different between IDS ADS registers. Sociolinguistic identifies quality as key indicator speech style persona; we connect pattern possible “parental persona” builds affective intent (rather pedagogical intent), with suggestions for future research.