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Researchers such as Shore ( 1997) believe that baby talk is an important part of the emotional bonding process, and contributes to mental development. It plays a role in teaching the child the basic function and structure of language. Studies have shown that even replying to babble with meaningless babble aids language acquisition, because even though the babble itself conveys no logical meaning, the interaction teaches infants that speech is bidirectional communication. Some experts advise that parents should not talk to infants and young children solely in baby talk, but include some normal adult speech as well. Dr. David Miall of the University of Alberta has found surprising connections between the structure of baby talk and that of poetry. He is quoted as saying "Baby talk is full of poetic features, such as metrics and phonetics; I was surprised by how systematic it is, and how it works to shape and direct attention."
Other researchers have pointed out that child-directed language is not universal among the world's cultures, and that its role in "helping children learn grammar" has been overestimated. In some societies, adults do not speak to their children at all until they have reached a certain age. In others, it is more usual to speak to children as one would speak to anyone else, with some vocabulary simplifications. Furthermore, even where baby-talk is used, it is full of complicated grammatical constructs, mispronounced or non-existent words, and tends to refer only to objects and events in the immediate vincinity. Baby-talk often has the parent repeating the child's utterances back to him/her, and since children employ a wide variety of phonological simplifications in learning to speak, this results in "classic" baby-words like "na-na" for "grandmother" or "din-din" for "dinner", where the child has seized on a stressed syllable of the input and then repeated it to make a word.
In any case, the child acquires the local language without difficulty regardless of the degree or type of exposure to baby-talk.
The vocabulary of baby talk includes nonverbal sounds and slurred or simplified versions of ordinary words, but it also includes a vocabulary of its own. Some of these are handed down from parent to parent or invented by parents and are not known outside of a particular family, but others are more or less widespread.
A fair number of baby-talk and nursery words refer to bodily functions or private parts, partially because the words are easier to pronounce, partly to reduce adult discomfort when using them, and partly to give make it possible for children to discuss these topics without breaking adult taboos.
Some examples of widely-used baby talk words and phrases that are not in standard dictionaries include:
The novelist Booth Tarkington, in Seventeen, gives this example of baby talk; in this case, from a pet owner speaking to her dog:
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