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Abstract This experiment was designed to examine the degree of phonological reduction in speech directed at children by adults, as opposed to speech directed at other adults. 8 British mothers were recorded speaking to their 2- to 4-year-old children and to adults in a relaxed home environment. The recordings were analyzed with respect to number of applications of four commonly used phonological rules. It was found that speech to children shows significantly greater phonological reduction in most cases. It is hypothesized that this manifestation of informality may express an affectionate attitude towards the child, thus providing emotional support even if complicating the language-learning task for her or him.
Shockey et al. (1980) studied this question.