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When we hear people using baby talk, most of us feel like we're not hearing what you might call a deep conversation...
我们听到人们说儿语时，大多数人都觉得听到不是我们所说的深入对话...
It's all high-pitched, sing-songy sounds and, "Peekaboo!" and, "Where'd the ball go?" and, "Is that a kitty-cat?"
那全都是些高调、唱歌式的发音，还有像“躲猫猫！”、“球去哪儿了？”“那是只小猫吗？”等等。
It doesn't exactly sound like a TED talk.
它听起来不像是TED演讲。
But even though it sounds kinda silly, there is a reason that it starts coming out of our mouths as soon as we see those adorable chubby cheeks.
尽管听起来有点傻，但我们这么做，是因为看到那些胖乎乎可爱的小圆脸时，这些话就会直接蹦出来。
Ask the internet or a parent from an older generation, and you might be told that using baby talk with kids is bad for them.
互联网上的信息或是你的父母可能会告诉你，和孩子用儿语聊天对他们不好。
They claim kids who hear baby talk won't have the opportunity to learn proper adult speech.
他们说，听儿语讲话的孩子没有机会学会成人的语言。
But research actually suggests the opposite is true.
但研究表明事实恰恰相反。
Baby talk, known to scientists as infant-directed speech, really does seem to help babies with their language development.
科学家们称之为婴儿指向型言语的儿语，似乎真的有助于婴儿的语言发展
Infant-directed speech is the unique way of talking that we use with babies.
婴儿指向型言语是我们与婴儿讲话时使用的一种独特的说话方式。
It has that really recognizable tone and rhythm:
它具有可识别的音调和节奏：
our voices go up in pitch, we use a wider range of pitches to sing-song through phrases, and it has slower, more exaggerated vowel sounds.
我们声音的音调会上扬，会用更宽泛的音调来通过短语唱歌，还会用到更缓慢，更夸张的元音发音。
The general term for these tonal and rhythmic elements of speech is known as prosody.
这些音调和节奏语言元素的一般性术语被称为韵律。
And research shows the prosody of infant-directed speech can help with a baby's attention and language learning.
研究表明，婴儿指向型言语的韵律对幼儿的注意力和语言学习有利。
We've known for a long time that babies pay more attention to higher-pitched voices.
我们很早就知道婴儿更注重高音调的声音。
And in a study published in 2018, scientists suggested that infant-directed speech could be more attention-grabbing because it's less predictable than the speech we use with adults.
在2018年发表的一项研究中，科学家们认为婴儿指向型言语更能吸引人的注意力，因为它比成人使用的语言更难预测。
But once we've got a baby's attention, baby talk's slow rhythm and exaggerated vowels might play another role.
但一旦我们获得宝宝的注意，儿语缓慢的节奏和夸张的元音可能会发挥另一个作用。
For example, a 2010 study showed pictures of things like cups or bunny rabbits to 19-month-old infants.
例如，在2010年的一项研究中，研究人员向19个月大的婴儿展示杯子或兔子之类的图片。
The babies were told, in a baby talk-y voice, to look at a specific picture.
他们用儿语告诉婴儿，去看一张特定的照片。
And the more baby talk-y the instructions were, the more likely the babies were to look at the right picture.
话语越是儿语化，婴儿越可能去看正确的图片。
The idea is basically that speaking this way helps babies split up an endless, featureless stream of sounds into chunks that have meaning.
大体上来说，这种观点认为儿语能帮助婴儿将不间断的、无特征的声音流分成有意义的小块。
You know, words.
就是一个个单词。
And other research has shown that isolated words are easier to learn.
其他研究表明，孤立的单词更容易学习。
All told, there's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that prosody really does make a difference in helping babies pay more attention to parental speech and gain linguistic skills.
总之，相当多的证据表明，韵律确实能够帮助婴儿更好地注意父母的言语，并获得语言技能。
But prosody isn't the whole baby talk story.
但儿语说的并不只是韵律。
There's also discussion around whether infant-directed speech is grammatically simpler than adult speech.
也有人讨论婴儿指向型言语是否在语法上比成人语言更简单。
And this seems to be where some of the controversy comes in.
一些争议似乎就是由此而来。
Here's the thing: infant-directed speech does have a lot of short phrases and sentences.
事情是这样的：婴儿指向型言语确实包含很多短语和句子。
And historically, researchers thought that this meant it was a simpler kind of input that let babies learn by using easier forms of language.
研究人员一直认为这是一种更简单的输入方式，让婴儿通过使用更简单的语言来学习。
But as researchers argued as far back as the 1980s, that doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense.
但正如研究人员早在20世纪80年代所说的那样，这不一定有太多的意义。
If baby talk is so simple, how do babies pick up on the more complex rules of grammar?
如果婴儿说话这么简单，那他们如何学会更复杂的语法规则呢？
That's probably what the people who tell you to "speak properly" to kids are getting at when they say baby talk is bad.
这可能是那些告诉你“要用恰当的方式和孩子说话”的人所指的，说儿语不好的意思。
But even if sentences of baby talk are shorter, they're very grammatically correct.
即使儿语的句子较短，但它们在语法上是正确的。
While we might take shortcuts when it comes to speaking with other adults, the grammar we direct at kids is usually much more accurate.
我们与其他成年人交谈时，可能会偷些懒，但和孩子说话时用的语法通常更准确。
And infant-directed speech can actually model many different, but overlapping, grammatical structures, which provides complexity.
婴儿指向型言语实际上可以模拟许多不同但重叠的语法结构，使表达变得更为复杂。
This is why we say things like, Where's the doggie? and then follow it up with a bunch of other statements that basically rephrase the same idea.
这就是为什么我们说完小狗在哪儿后，会接一些表述相同想法的其他方式的陈述。
Like, is that a doggie? Yes, that's a doggie! Let's pet the doggie!
比如，那是一只小狗吗？是的，那是一只小狗！摸摸它吧！
There are other debates about baby talk, too, like whether cutesy words like “choo choo” have any benefit.
关于儿语还有一些其他争论，比如用“噗噗”这样可爱的词是否有什么好处。
But when it comes to the prosody and grammar of baby talk, we probably don't have much to worry about.
但涉及儿语的韵律和语法时，我们可能没有太多可担心的。
There's plenty of evidence to suggest that parents change the tone and emotional content of infant-directed speech as the baby gets older,
大量证据表明，随着婴儿年龄的增长，父母会改变婴儿指向型言语的语气和情感内容
which implies that as infants' developmental needs change, we naturally adjust our way of speaking to them.
这意味着，随着婴儿发育需要的改变，我们会自然而然地调整与他们说话的方式。
Baby talk is also a pretty universal phenomenon, which does seem to suggest that it's a normal part of infant development.
儿语也是一个相当普遍的现象，这似乎表明它是婴儿发育的正常部分。
Kids as young as three have been seen using this vocal pattern with babies.
有人看到三岁的孩子与婴儿说话时使用这种发音模式。
And while there's a lot of variation in how infant-directed speech sounds across cultures, most cultures do it.
尽管婴儿指向型言语在不同文化中的发音存在很多差异，但大多数文化都会用到儿语。
For instance, Cantonese and Japanese baby talk don't seem to have exaggerated vowels, but they do have changes in tone and rhythm that emphasize features of those languages.
例如，广东话和日语的儿语似乎没有夸张的元音，但它们确实有强调这些语言特点的音调和节奏变化。
Scientific research might not be able to answer all of our questions about baby talk just yet, but the evidence mostly suggests that it's something we do naturally and something that our babies learn from.
科学研究可能还无法回答有关儿语的所有疑问，但已有的证据大多表明，我们会很自然地说儿语，婴儿也会借助儿语来学习。
So don't worry about how it sounds! Your baby will be happy to hear it.
所以，不用担心儿语听起来怎么样！婴儿听到它会很开心。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感谢收看这一集心理科学秀！
If you want to see more of me, check out our sister channel Nature League, where I share my obsession with all things alive.
如果你想收看我的更多节目，可以去看看我们的姐妹频道自然联盟，我在那里分享自己对所有生物的痴迷之情。
From field trips to breaking down peer-reviewed literature, we explore the amazingness that is life on Earth.
从实地考察到分析同行评议的文献，我们探索地球上生命的神奇所在。
If that sounds like fun to you, head on over to youtube.com/NatureLeague and subscribe!
如果你觉得很有趣，就订阅 youtube.com/ NatureLeague吧！
