Socially meaningful variation in child-directed speech: effects of child gender on variation in /s/ and vowel space dispersion

Studies have shown that English-speaking children as young as 3 years of age produce speech whose phonetic characteristics are consistent with the gendered speech patterns found in the adults of their communities. The mechanisms that allow children to learn gendered speech patterns is unclear. In this study, we examined whether female caregivers modified /s/ and vowel space dispersion depending on the gender of their children. Moreover, we also examined whether caregivers’ speech modification may be related to the gender context of the communication topics, as well as individual differences in their attitudes toward gender. Recordings of child- and adult-directed speech from 42 caregivers with children of 2 to 3 years of age were analyzed acoustically. Results showed that caregivers tended to produce female-typed variants of /s/ when their children were female, and when the communication topics were female-themed. Caregivers of male children produced more dispersed vowel spaces than caregivers of female children, and caregivers of both male and female children produced more dispersed vowel spaces when conversing on a female-themed topic than on a male-themed topic. Measures of individual differences in gender attitudes did not explain additional variation in caregivers’ speech. These results suggest that socially meaningful differences in/s/ and vowels can be conveyed through child-directed speech, even within a single caregiver.