The Oculus: Online Proceedings (Vol. 17)

The Oculus 2018-19 The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

TheThe

Oculus Oculus 2018 -19

The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research Volume 17

Volume 17

Selling Sex in Tokugawa-Era Japan Isabelle Burke University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America1 The Tokugawa Era, spanning from approximately 1600 AD to 1868, marks a period in Japanese history in which the expansion of internal commerce played a key role in redefining societal and cultural norms, particularly within urban spaces.2 The chōnin, an emergent class of merchants and craftspeople whose successes in trade endowed them with new economic and cultural influence, were significant contributors to and consumers of popular entertainment in urban centers.3 The chōnin’s indulgence in entertainment and leisure activities developed in contrast to the asceticism of the reigning warrior class of samurai, thus leading to the consolidation of popular entertainment in distinctly-partitioned urban spaces known as the yūkaku, or “pleasure quarters.”4 These yūkaku spaces became the seat of popular culture for indulgent urbanites, who visited these quarters not only to view fantastic theatrical spectacles, but also to seek out a different kind of gratification in the form of both male and female sex workers. As the entertainment and sex industries developed (quite literally) side by side within the yūkaku quarters, the consumerist lifestyle of the chōnin—who were a significant source of revenue and patronage—heavily influenced the way that themes of sex and romance were conceived of in popular media. Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693), a renowned writer and cultural critic of the Tokugawa Era, provides insight into the powerful economic and social impacts of consumerism on conceptions of sex and romance in his satirical piece, The Fair Mistress of a Provincial Lord.5 Though Saikaku’s writing cannot provide a comprehensive explanation of each facet of Tokugawa society, this author’s fascination with chronicling the trends and mores of Edo’s yūkaku quarters—and the unique individuals who frequented these spaces—allow his works to function as a penetrating (if narrow) lens through which to observe the radical social changes which took place in Japan’s urban spaces at this time. Through the fictitious account of a young woman who experiences fleeting fame as a concubine, Saikaku’s Fair Mistress provides insight into the commodification of sex in Tokugawa society while portraying a decidedly unromantic conception of sex—one which contrasts sharply against the glamorous dramatizations of love which dominated the theatrical landscape of the time.

Keywords: Tokugawa Era, Japan, Saikaku, concubine, prostitution, commerce

The Tokugawa Era, spanning from approximately 1600 to 1868, was characterized by rapid urbanization which initiated substantial reorganizations of physical, social, and economic landscapes in Japan.6 This era came immediately after a period of political turmoil known as the Warring States Period, during which time provincial lords 1 Published August 12, 2019. https://doi.org/10.25893/uvaurn/st47-vy60 2 Hauser, William B. Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan. Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1974. Pg. 1; Rozman, Gilbert. “Edo’s Importance in the Changing Tokugawa Society.” Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 1974, pp. 91–112., doi:10.2307/133438. Pg. 97.

3 Rozman, Pg. 103.

4 Shively, Donald H. “Sumptuary Regulation and Status in Early Tokugawa Japan.”

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 25, 1964, pp. 123–164., doi:10.2307/2718340. Pg. 131.

5 Shively, Pg. 124.

6 Hauser, Pg. 1; Rozman, Pg. 97.

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mobilized self-organized militias to vie for hegemonic power. This chaos concluded when the Tokugawa Shogunate asserted its military preponderance and established a capital in Edo (present-day Tōkyō).8 In addition to the capital, cities such as Kyōto and Ōsaka benefitted from the newly-established peace and transformed into centers of material production and consumption,9 garnering populations which rivaled those of even Western titans like Paris and London at that time.10 As a result, the denizens of these urban centers played a key role in facilitating the expansion of internal commerce across the Japanese archipelago.11 A particular class of city-dwellers known as the chōnin attained new economic and cultural heights by participating in the burgeoning consumerist economy.12 This social stratum, chiefly consisting of specialized craftspeople, artisans, and merchants, championed a uniquely urban savoir-faire which was rooted in the mass consumption of pleasurable goods and experiences.13 These chōnin were distinguished from the servile class of hōkōnin who were hired as wage laborers to tend to the estates of wealthy samurai (the elite warrior class at the top of the Tokugawa social hierarchy).14 Being untied to any estate, the chōnin participated freely in the production and exchange of material goods, and in the process many of them accumulated a substantial amount of wealth to rival even the landed samurai elites.15 In accordance with the consumerist lifestyle of the chōnin, the yūkaku, or pleasure quarters, became the seat of popular culture for indulgent urbanites. Rather than blending into the urban sprawl, these pleasure quarters were distinctly cordoned-off areas (oftentimes enclosed or separated by physical barriers such as walls or moats) which were bestowed licenses for housing theaters, “tea houses”, and other fronts for prostitution.16 Yūkaku spaces were additionally marginalized by the fact that samurai were technically forbidden from entering such areas of ill-repute (though many still flocked to the pleasure quarters disguised as unassuming chōnin);17 in this way, the culture which flourished in the yūkaku quarters was distinctly flavored to suit the tastes of the chōnin.

With the yūkaku quarters serving as the locus of urban culture and the veritable “heart of a city,” conceptions of intercourse and its romantic associations naturally underwent changes to reflect the new social and economic functions sex fulfilled in Tokugawa Japan.18 While the courtesans of past centuries—particularly of the luxuriant Heian Era— were by no means strangers to incorporating sexual desire and romance into works of literature and art, the way in which sex is treated in Tokugawa Era writings is a departure from these old traditions. In contrast to the Heian classics such as The Tale of Genji, which were lavished with details about the complex (and often politically-driven) romantic liaisons between distinguished courtesans, sex in Tokugawa culture is portrayed less 7

7 Morillo, Stephen. “Guns and Government: A Comparative Study of Europe and Japan.” Journal of World History, vol. 6, no. 1, 1995, pp. 75–106. Pg. 82.

8 Shively, Pg. 123.

9 Rozman, Pg. 97.

10 Rozman, Pg. 93-94.

11 Shively, Pg. 123.

12 Rozman, Pg. 103.

13 Shively, Pg. 123.

14 Rozman, Pg. 102.

15 Shively, Pg. 124.

16 Shively, Pg. 131.

17 Sato, Yasuko. “Early Modern Prostitutes, Concubines, and Mistresses.” Journal of Women’s History, vol. 28, no. 2, 2016, pp. 156-165. doi:10.1353/jowh.2016.0015. Pg. 158.

18 Johnson, Jeffrey. “Saikaku and the Narrative Turnabout.” The Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, 2001, pp. 323-345. doi:10.2307/3591969. Pg. 330.

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as a symbolic manifestation of romantic bonds, and more so as a pragmatic means for achieving gratification.19 Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693), as the paramount satirical writer and cultural critic of this period, recorded some of the most insightful and thorough observations of this newly-redefined conception of sex in Tokugawa society.20 Saikaku has been described by some modern literary critics as a writer of “carnivalesque” narratives, which are stories that utilize “comedy, irony, parody, satire, and other rhetorical tropes” in order to engage in “a festive critique through the inversion of hierarchy, of high culture.”21 Furthermore, carnivalesque narratives have been referred to as “a means for displaying otherness.”22 This particular characterization of the carnivalesque genre makes the writing of Ihara Saikaku incredibly applicable as a lens through which to examine the treatment of the “othered” population of Tokugawa sex workers, who were persecuted in all spaces except within the limited confines of the yūkaku quarters.23 Saikaku’s short story The Fair Mistress of a Provincial Lord is a particularly compelling piece of literature to study in this regard.

Through the fictional account of a so-called “professional concubine” hailing from Uji, Saikaku reveals a decidedly unromantic view of sex—one in which intercourse is itself treated as a commodity divorced from any poetic connotations, and sexual gratification is achievable without any kind of emotional intimacy or attachment.

One of the most interesting qualities of this piece is Saikaku’s decision to write the story from the first-person perspective of a female concubine. This perspective accomplishes many things at once. For one, since this piece centrally focuses on exploring the inner workings of the pleasure industry, who better than a concubine herself to relay to the audience novel or scintillating details about this line of work? The female narrator lends a special authenticity to the story, particularly in the sections which explain the myriad costs concubines must incur to maintain an edge in this competitive labor market. These costs are laid out in scrupulous detail which only someone intimately involved in the business of pleasure would have knowledge of. She describes how for twenty mommé of silver per day, a girl can rent “a kimono of white silk or figured black satin, a wide sash of Nishijin brocade… a petticoat of scarlet silk crepe, and a cloak.”24 Less fortunate girls who arrived at cities without any kind of financial backing from their families could hire a “substitute parent—some townsman… who can present her as his own daughter.”25 In addition to these costs, there were fees for housing and meals, as well as a commission required to be paid to the girl’s agent.26 These expenses would have posed significant barriers to entry for many girls seeking to become concubines, making employment in this field fairly competitive. This detailed cost-breakdown from the narrator is clear evidence that the pleasure industry operated within a fairly sophisticated commercial sex economy, and so to call the role of concubine a “profession” is entirely appropriate. In this sense, the narrator’s comment that “to be a professional concubine is indeed a hard way to make one’s living in the world” certainly seems to ring true.27 In addition to lending authenticity to the text, the female narrator serves as an effective vehicle through which Saikaku inserts his trademark satirical comments. While readers 19 Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Translated by Royall Tyler, Penguin Books, 2001. Print.

20 Shively, Pg. 124.

21 Johnson, Pg. 326.

22 Johnson, Pg. 326.

23 Johnson, Pg. 330.

24 Saikaku, Ihara. The Fair Mistress of a Provincial Lord. [online]. Pg. 133.

25 Saikaku, Pg. 133.

26 Saikaku, Pg. 134.

27 Saikaku, Pg. 134.

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are not privy to many of the personal details about this woman who is relaying the story, we are from time to time presented with brief moments where her jaded, irreverent, and at times wickedly witty personality shines through. Readers can begin to see the narrator’s cheekiness in the first few lines of the piece. At first, the story is introduced in a manner almost similar to an old tale, beginning with the lines, “In the auspicious days of this Reign, when even the winds that blow through the pine trees do not disturb the peace of Edo…”28 This preamble of sorts is highly reminiscent of an old romantic tale from perhaps the Heian Era; the allusion to pine trees, which carry significant poetic connotations of longevity and steadfastness, further solidifies this connection. Yet in contrast to the seemingly fairytale-like premise of this story, the narrator’s account is peppered with unromantic details about the workings of the pleasure industry—such as the way young concubines were sometimes forced into nonconsensual sex with merchants who bribed the girls’ proprietors,29 or the strict frugality which novice concubines adhered to in order to eke out a living.30 The surprising contrast this generates contributes to the darkly humorous tone of the piece.

Another instance of the narrator’s subtle satire is found in her introduction of the aged retainer who is sent to Kyōto in search of a suitable concubine for his master. Alluding to this man’s utter lack of appreciation for pleasurable things such as a woman’s physical beauty, she remarks that “to assign a man like this to journey up to Kyōto and pass judgement on its women was to place a stone Buddha before a cat.”31 The narrator’s biting remarks continue in an even more provocative fashion when she states, “the wares that he was now to judge were such as one would not have entrusted even to the Buddha in his younger days,” essentially implying that even the pious Buddha might have been tempted by youthful lust to fall for one of these ravishingly beautiful concubines.32 This kind of comment would have no doubt been rather scandalous to devout Buddhist readers; yet this flagrantly immoral jesting perfectly encapsulates the essence of the yūkaku pleasure quarters. The narrator’s playful irreverence contributes to the overall tone of the piece as a provocative, no-holds-barred account of the Tokugawa pleasure industry and the fascinating characters involved in it.

It is intriguing, as well, that in this line about the lord’s retainer, Saikaku’s narrator chooses to refer to female concubines—and ostensibly, herself—as “wares”. This single word introduces a key theme which courses throughout the text: that to members of the chōnin class, sex was viewed as a commodifiable good which could be as easily bought or sold as any other product on the market. To extrapolate even further, this theme implies that as the main purveyors of sexual pleasure, concubines were transformed into sexual objects based on their role in this labor economy. At the same time, the great expenses these women incurred in order to be successful in the sex industry show that concubines were some of the greatest consumers of material goods such as fine clothing and ornaments. This paradoxical conclusion is affirmed by Amy Stanley’s observation in Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan that “prostitutes were both objects of exchange and economic actors”.33 This idea is best exemplified in the section of Saikaku’s text which describes the provincial lord’s search for his ideal concubine. The manner in which this lord carries out this search for the perfect woman says a great deal about how he and the other involved 28 29 30 31 32 33

Saikaku, Pg. 130.

Saikaku, Pg. 134.

Saikaku, Pg. 133.

Saikaku, Pg. 131.

Saikaku, Pg. 131.

Sato, Pg. 157.

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men conceive of women as mere sexual objects. First of all, the lord does not even bother to engage in the search himself, and instead delegates the task to his retainer.

This action is decidedly unromantic. There is no laborious effort expended in the hunt for this woman, no passionate exclamation when she is finally discovered amongst the masses, and no romantic tension involved in their first meeting. Instead, the lord chooses to forego these romantic notions in exchange for convenience—a choice which might seem like the perfectly rational result of a consumer’s cost-benefit analysis, but one which utterly fails to capture the romantic idealism once associated with intimate encounters.

The fact that the lord’s emissary is “an old carpet knight” whose sensibilities regarding female beauty are hopelessly dull only seems to further insult and dispel the romantic traditions of prior eras.

It is also worth pointing out that the lord commissions a painting to aid in the hunt for his ideal woman, yet the finished product gives off the impression of an advertisement rather than an artistic expression of passion. The narrator describes this painting in great detail, providing readers with an exhaustive list of every single feature this hypothetical woman possesses. Each physical attribute is isolated and expounded upon separately, as if the woman’s body is being reduced to a collection of compartmentalized fragments. First, there is her face, “well-rounded in the modern style,” then her complexion with “the delicate tint of a single-petalled cherry blossom.”34 Next come her four flawless features: eyes of “perfect width”, capped by thick brows; a “high-bridged and finely tapered” nose; her “delicately shaped” ears; and her hairline and neck of “perfect natural beauty.”35 The narrator goes on to describe this painted woman’s fingers, nails, feet, big toes, torso, hips, and even buttocks, leaving hardly any part of her appearance to the imagination.

The list of features, in its entirety, comes off as a comically ambitious “wish list” of sorts—an assemblage of body parts which could not possibly coalesce into an actual fleshand-blood woman. One could even liken the experience to a customer who commissions a craftsman to build a custom piece of furniture, or someone who delivers sketches of their “dream home” to an architect for construction. The fact that the lord constructs this image of his ideal concubine before ever even determining whether such a woman exists is further evidence that his passion is driven by a selfish desire to consume. Furthermore, the way that this painted woman’s features are so matter-of-factly rattled off suggests that the whole is, in fact, no greater than the sum of its parts, which again reaffirms the unromantic nature of the lord’s pursuit.

This mention of sexualized imagery also opens up a broader conversation on the topic of pornography, which became widely available during the Tokugawa Era.36 The increased popularity of pornographic images is largely attributable to two factors: the popularization of new woodblock printing methods,37 and the chōnin’s fascination with the sexually explicit yūkaku culture. The intermingling of sex workers and theatrical performers who lived side by side in the yūkaku districts contributed to sexuality and scandal becoming associated with the celebrities of the theater in the eyes of the middling urban class; this created an atmosphere of glamour and intrigue surrounding the pleasure quarters, which was supported by the sumptuous displays of material wealth by concubines and theater actors.38 Additionally, actors and actresses were often the subjects

34 Saikaku, Pg. 132.

35 Saikaku, Pg. 132.

36 Malamuth, Niel. “Chapter 6 - Pornography in Japan: Cross-Cultural and Theoretical Considerations.” Pornography and Sexual Aggression. Academic Press, 1984. Pg. 174.

37 Fahr-Becker, Gabriele. Japanese Prints. Benedikt Taschen, 1994. Pg. 1.

38 Malamuth, Pg. 174.

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of erotic prints (which served a dual role as promotional material for theaters).39 Thus, the chōnin’s idolization of famous actors from the yūkaku districts similarly contributed to the incorporation of pornography into the daily lives of average citizens.

Saikaku includes an explicit example of this normalization of pornography in The Fair Mistress—interestingly, from the perspective of the female narrator, who encounters a print showing “a fascinating depiction by Hishikawa of an erotic scene.”40 At this point in the story, the narrator is living at the house of the provincial lord who initially sought her out using his own sexualized painting of an ideal woman. It is an interesting inversion to see the female concubine deriving pleasure from her own erotic painting.

From the beginning, the narrator and her lord were already distant due to the circumstances of how their relationship began. They shared no intimate bond, nor was there any emotional investment in the relationship from either party. Considering how concubines were objectified and commodified at this time, it is perhaps more appropriate to call their arrangement a transaction, rather than a relationship. The scene with the pornographic painting separates the two of them even further by showing how neither partner requires the other to achieve sexual gratification; with pornography as an aid, both parties are capable of satisfying themselves completely autonomously. All notions of romantic intimacy or poetic beauty are essentially stripped away from sex, reducing it to nothing more than the base satisfaction of desire.

And yet, even while the erotic scene encountered in this text might be enough to arouse the narrator, she does concede that she “was overcome with desire for a more solid form of love.”41 While romance may not be necessary for a fulfilling sex life, physical partnership (to an extent) still is, according to the narrator. This leads her to bring up the topic of so-called boy love, the cultural phenomenon in which men sought out younger males (oftentimes actors or performers in the yūkaku districts) to serve as sexual companions. This practice gained great popularity during the Tokugawa Era, again thanks in part to the role theater played in glamorizing young male actors.42 While this kind of freedom to choose same-sex partners is on the one hand liberating, Saikaku’s narrator points out that the widespread glamorization of boy love has a detrimental impact on female concubines. She remarks that for many great lords, “their feeling for these boys is deeper than that which they have for a woman.”43 She continues to say that this obsessive love for young boys can lead many men to neglect their own wives, who in turn become jealous and resentful. In this way, boy love was another component to the complex pleasure economy—one which opened up opportunities for more fluid sexual expression, yet simultaneously deprived many women of opportunities to receive sexual gratification from their male partners.

The conclusion of Saikaku’s text drives home the notion that sex and romance were no longer synonymous with one another. While the narrator may have been able to satisfy her lord in a purely physical sense, in the end all of her efforts to maintain a relationship with him “came to naught.”44 Ironically, the reason behind their failed relationship is that the lord was apparently “utterly impotent,” meaning he was unable to perform sexually despite the narrator’s best efforts to arouse him.45 Because of this, the narrator is unable to conceive a child with this man, which would have been the only true guarantee of his 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Malamuth, Pg. 174.

Saikaku, Pg. 135.

Saikaku, Pg. 135.

Malamuth, Pg. 174.

Saikaku, Pg. 135.

Saikaku, Pg. 136.

Saikaku, Pg. 136.

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financial and social support in the future. She is unceremoniously discharged from the lord’s household, and sent packing back to her own hometown. This lackluster ending is decidedly unromantic, given that it places the story’s narrator back to her exact starting place as if the entire series of events had never even occurred. In this way, Saikaku keeps readers guessing as to whether the prevailing attitudes about sex are worth celebrating, or if the lack of poetic romanticism leaves something to be desired.

Regardless of what stance individuals may take on this issue, Saikaku’s satirical tone prevents readers from pondering over it too deeply. This humorous, irreverent style of narrative writing functions very much like a mirror reflecting back the prevailing values of the chōnin readership. The writing is funny, bombastic, suggestive, and scintillating, yet it never attempts to venture much deeper than a surface-level depiction of human emotions. Rather than diving deeply into the psyche of the various characters in this narrative, Saikaku instead provides a rough sketch of the passionate emotions and physical sensations which motivate their actions. In doing so, he is able to present a provocative snapshot of the inner workings of the pleasure industry and the powerful economic and social impacts of consumerism, which radically reshaped conceptions of sex and romance in the Tokugawa Era.

References Fahr-Becker, Gabriele. Japanese Prints. Benedikt Taschen, 1994. [online]. Accessed 12 March 2019.

Hauser, William B. Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan. Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1974. [online]. Accessed 11 March 2019.

Johnson, Jeffrey. “Saikaku and the Narrative Turnabout.” The Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, 2001, pp. 323-345. doi:10.2307/3591969. Accessed 10 March 2019.

Malamuth, Neil. “Chapter 6 - Pornography in Japan: Cross-Cultural and Theoretical Considerations.” Pornography and Sexual Aggression. Academic Press, 1984. [online]. Accessed 11 March 2019.

Morillo, Stephen. “Guns and Government: A Comparative Study of Europe and Japan.” Journal of World History, vol. 6, no. 1, 1995, pp. 75–106. Accessed 12 March 2019.

Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Translated by Royall Tyler, Penguin Books, 2001. Print.

Accessed 10 March 2019.

Rozman, Gilbert. “Edo’s Importance in the Changing Tokugawa Society.” Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 1974, pp. 91–112., doi:10.2307/133438. Accessed 13 March 2019.

Saikaku, Ihara. The Fair Mistress of a Provincial Lord. [online] Accessed 10 March 2019.

Sato, Yasuko. “Early Modern Prostitutes, Concubines, and Mistresses.” Journal of Women’s History, vol. 28, no. 2, 2016, pp. 156-165. doi:10.1353/jowh.2016.0015. Accessed 12 March 2019.

Shively, Donald H. “Sumptuary Regulation and Status in Early Tokugawa Japan.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 25, 1964, pp. 123–164., doi:10.2307/2718340. Accessed 11 March 2019.

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Teaching with Baby Talk: The Socialization Effects of a Specialized Register Abbi Traaseth University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America1 Baby talk (BT) is a simplified register, and for much of the world, it is considered a natural way of talking to preverbal infants and even young children. Most adults feel that this register is necessary to properly pass on language, and its observance in many of the world’s languages seems to support this intuition. In this paper, I approach BT from a linguistic socialization perspective, and propose that BT is not in fact natural, but is merely a specialized register used mainly towards children for a variety of socialization purposes. This claim is supported by many crosscultural linguistic ethnographies, including language communities where BT is absent. In these communities, language is acquired just as effectively and fluently as in communities where it is used, thus contradicting intuitive assumptions of its language-teaching purpose. But this irrelevance in regards to language acquisition does not suppose that BT is without purpose entirely: BT communicates other culturally significant lessons, including teaching cultural values and expressing affect. In one case, its use may be tied to the continued lifespan of what would otherwise be an endangered language. In all, my hypothesis regarding the justified use of BT is related to the particular culture’s ideology of language acquisition. That is, it is used in communities where language is believed to be taught, but is absent in communities where language is believed to be innate. Where it is used, the next generation of speakers is socialized to use it with their own infants, and BT becomes a successful artifact of cultural reproduction. Suggested follow-up research is discovering whether a simplified register is used when speaking with linguistically compromised individuals (e.g. non-native language speakers, disabled persons) in communities where BT is absent, as this would either dispute or strengthen this ideology hypothesis.

Keywords: Linguistics, linguistic ethnography, language acquisition, children, mother, behavior

Introduction Baby talk, the high-pitched, melodic speech so often directed at infants and young children has been found in the most far-reaching languages around the world. In fact, its near-uniformity as a register within languages of arguably the greatest linguistic variation from one another (e.g. their phonologies, syntaxes, lexicons) is striking (Ferguson, 1964). This has led many scholars early in the field of baby talk (BT) research to assume it is a universal register. Even as late as 1996, it has been described as “virtually universal” and an “irresistible impulse” among “any adult who has interacted with a baby” (Bombar & Littig, 1996). Like most claims of universality, however, this too has been contested and proven false. With more ethnographic research completed in recent years (such as those cited and explored in this paper: Heath, 1983; Philips, 1983; Schieffelin, 1990; Crago, 1992; Kulick, 1992), a greater understanding of culturally constructed norms and language socialization has shown that BT is not a default form of child-directed speech.2 1 Published August 12, 2019. https://doi.org/10.25893/uvaurn/w3jb-c578 2 Shively, Pg. 123.

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That said, while its universality can no longer be supported, the nearly universal features of BT are still worth reporting. Ferguson’s (1964) review of six linguistically diverse languages (Arabic, Marathi, Comanche, Gilyak, English, Spanish) found impressive commonality in their BT registers. In almost all cases, the languages’ BT registers exhibited intonational features, patterned modifications of normal language, a special set of lexical items, similar vocalic structures, reduplication, and diminutive suffixation (113). These features were further present and confirmed in Latvian (Rūķe-Draviņa, 1977), Nootka (Kess & Kess, 1986), Patwa (Paugh, 2012), Taiap (Kulick, 1992), Berber (Bynon, 1977), Japanese (Chew, 1969), and Cocopa, Greek, Hidatsa, Kannada, Maltese, and Romanian (Ferguson, 1977). Clearly, the diversity of linguistic data in comparison to the homogeneity of BT does give it an air of innateness. In “Prelinguistic evolution in early hominids: Whence motherese?” (2004), Dean Falk goes so far as to propose that BT’s origin is a biological phenomenon dating back to human’s split with chimpanzees, where the loss of infant clinging contributed to a natural selection bias towards mothers whose nurturing vocalizations calmed their children when gathering food. While Falk’s larger assertions go beyond BT to explain protolanguage itself, the clear absence of BT in several of the world’s communities (e.g. Trackton in Heath, 1983; Gapun in Kulick, 1992; the Warms Springs Indian reservation in Philips, 1983; etc.) either disputes Falk’s universality claim, or begs the question: whence was BT lost? But that line of inquiry will not be pursued here, as BT is more broadly accepted as a culturally socialized phenomenon.

In the absence of BT, the ethnographies reviewed for this paper suggest that most speech communities view interactions with children as distinct from adult-adult interactions. This and various ideologies about language and learning impact the way in which adults structure their social and speech interactions with children. In other words, even without a specialized BT register, children tend to be treated and spoken to differently than adults, thus socializing them in other ways. These cases will be treated briefly.

In this paper, I will present the socialization effects of BT in the communities where it has been observed, focusing on 1) how it socializes the children to whom it is directed; 2) how it constructs child interlocutor identity, and its impact on the peripheral children in the community; 3) how it socializes adults into their new parental roles; and 4) how it contributes to various affective associations. Before concluding, I will offer a review of a few communities where BT is absent. Critically, it is my belief that the main factor that determines whether a BT register is used or not is the community’s ideologies of learning; that is, to what degree adults believe they can influence a child’s language acquisition.

In communities who use BT, language is perceived as something that must be taught to children (Heath, 1983; Garnica, 1977; Newport et al., 1977; Ferguson, 1977; Bynon, 1977), with the side effect of socializing various values and stances. In communities who do not use BT, ideologies range from believing that language already exists in the child (Heath, 1983; Kulick, 1992; Paugh, 2012); to judging children’s linguistic competence not by what language they produce, but what they understand (Philips, 1983); and considering observation the best means for learning, including learning language (Crago, 1992).

In addition to ideologies of language learning and teaching, BT also has an affective function, which serves to strengthen the nurturing bond between the caretaker and child (or pet [Hirsh-Pasek & Treiman, 1980], plant [Brown, 1977], lover [Bombar and Littig, 1996] or elderly person [Caporael et al., 1983]). This raises the question of whether BT is used as an affective register in communities where ideologies of learning correspond to those where specialized child-directed speech is absent. The following analysis indicates no: if the features of BT are in use in situations outside of child rearing, it also occurs in that community’s situations with babies. However, I believe more research could be done in this area to explore the many situations and corresponding motivations that

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contribute to the use of an affective register, keeping in mind the various cross-cultural learning ideologies that I propose are linked to BT.

Teaching Language with Baby Talk Adults who use BT register with children provide a few consistent justifications for its use, including their desire to communicate, to convey affection, and to teach language (Snow, 1977; Ferguson, 1977; Newport et al., 1977). To this last point, most BT speakers admit to viewing BT as a simplified version of their adult speech, thereby aiding language acquisition for the child by offering them a bite-sized version of what will eventually become full language (Ferguson, 1964; 1977). Unfortunately, contrary to parental intentions, studies have found that not only is BT an inconsistent register (it is not syntactically simple in any intuitive language-teaching way [Newport et al., 1977]), but it also does not help a child acquire language in any clear, linear way (Snow, 1977; Van der Geest, 1977; Newport et al., 1977). Instead, it may be that it is the quantity, not necessarily the quality or type of adult-to-child input that makes an impact on children’s language skills (Sachs, 1977). This also means that for all users of “foreigner talk,” a register that’s used with non-native- or non-speakers of the area’s language and whose features have been described as similar to BT (Brown, 1977; Ferguson, 1977), the results are likely the same: inconsistent simplifications are unlikely to aid language learners. As with the affective register, this occurrence and similarity to BT raises the question of whether there are instinctive linguistic modifications one makes when talking to someone believed to have comprehension difficulties, such as with elders in a nursing home (Caporael et al., 1983).

Once again, more research will have to be completed to ascertain whether this register is also used in communities where BT is absent; my research indicates that it does not, but I must admit to the limitations of the reports I have read, which did not draw connections between the presence of BT and any other simplified registers in their communities of study.

A few positive effects of using BT includes cuing children into which speech is directed at them with its dynamic tonal, pitch, and volume fluctuation, which can promote shared attention and may lead to the acquisition of commonly used sentence constructions (Sachs, 1977; Newport et al., 1977). That said, those children who are never exposed to BT (discussed later) do not fail to learn grammatical sentence structures; therefore, the true effect of BT on children’s attention may be training a selective listening skill, where the absence of BT may force children to pay closer attention to the surrounding speech in order to discern what is meant for them. Under this hypothesis, the register is rendered either redundant or useless as a teaching tool.

Socializing Children with Baby Talk One of the socialization effects of BT is the teaching of values through its specialized BT lexicon. As first noted and described by Ferguson (1964), the specialized lexicon of BT tends to fall into four categories: kin, body parts, qualities, and animals and games (107-109). These categories are corroborated by Sarah Benin Benor’s (2012) research on an Orthodox Jewish community, where their BT register (mostly from Yiddish loanwords), describes body parts like tuches (rear end), keppy (little head), pupik (belly button), and hetalech (little hands), animals like shefelach (lambs) and activities, where “[c] hildren are instructed to ‘go shlofy’ (go to sleep), and if they disobey they might receive a patsh ([playful] smack)” (89-90).These terms, used in everyday interaction with children, raise children’s awareness of cultural values, including age hierarchies, age differences, and evaluative stances. Ferguson cites the differentiated use of male-female pronouns in Japanese BT register as one of the most striking examples of this early-life inculcation of cultural mores, and writes that “[a]ge, sex and kin roles are thus signaled insistently by

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BT” (1977: 234).

Ferguson (1977) also highlights the importance of the ‘qualities’ category in teaching society’s values to young children. “From its earliest exposure to speech the child has objects and events around it called good, bad, dirty, dangerous, hot, cold, painful, sweet and the like” (234). Some authors suggest that the specialized evaluative lexicon is limited to the activities that concern both adults and children (Newport et al., 1977); while this may be true, few things are of greater concern to a caretaker than the instillation of cultural norms. Everyday evaluations remind children what they ought to pay attention to in the community, and caretakers (and peers) assigning objects and events positive or negative values has a critical impact on a child’s developing perception of the world. Accepting and incorporating these evaluations is equally important for becoming competent and accepted members of a community. After all, knowing the correct kin term to use or dressing the right way are culturally significant distinctions, and doing it correctly can have a great impact on one’s full acceptance into a community. This is made especially apparent in Benor’s (2012) and Fader’s (2014) studies of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, where the way that you wear your hat or the length of your skirt can mark you as a novice or an expert in the community. Children in communities that use a BT register learn these values in part through the repetitious nature of the specialized lexicon.

The use of BT socializes not just the recipients of the register, but also the children in the surrounding community. Its use with preverbal infants and children constructs them as interactional partners worthy of questions and expectant pauses. Caretakers take burps and coos as conversational cues and respond to them in turn (Snow, 1977; Heath, 1983). This social stance demonstrates to other children that babies should be treated as communicative partners, thereby passing on cultural ideologies of personal development, stages of learning, and the appropriateness of BT register with children younger than themselves.

This last point, the socialization of how to appropriately use BT, is also important as a linguistic opportunity for young speakers in the community: it shows children how to use a socially restricted register. Like other hierarchically restricted behaviors, BT can only be used in a limited setting; in this case, by older people with younger people. This restriction gives children an opportunity to practice their social awareness and competence by testing and playing with the language, as described by Amy L. Paugh (2012) in Penville, a village in the Caribbean. Penville is a unique village in that Patwa, the creole language of the area, is discouraged from use in certain social situations and physical spaces. While adults frequently interact with each other in Patwa, infants and young children are spoken to in English and a BT register whose primary linguistic source is Patwa (122-123). This is due to the fact that adults view Patwa as a nurturing, emotional, affective language, while English is viewed as being more limited in expression (more on this below). Upon entering school, however, adults expect older children to speak exclusively English, which is the language of education and formal communication, even though adults continue to speak Patwa with each other (122). Older children caught speaking Patwa in inappropriate contexts are interrupted and scolded (143-144). This abrupt shift in linguistic expectations and boundaries creates a complicated linguistic arena for children to navigate, and their successful use of BT (e.g. they are not scolded) during interactions in socially sanctioned spaces with the correct age group demonstrates their linguistic competence in a mostly opaque language situation, which they impressively manage as young as 3 years old (149).

Socializing Adults with Baby Talk Children aren’t the only subjects to socialization. Lave and Wenger (1991) propose legitimate peripheral participation as a model for adult learning and describe the

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socialization process achieved by communities of practice. Part of their theory includes access to the desired skills and models of correct behavior, often leading to mentor-apprentice relationships. As such, parenthood can also be conceived of as a community of practice: there are ways of interacting with and speaking to children that must be learned in order to be considered a competent member, including the BT register. Benor (2012) writes about her own experience being socialized as a mother and the strangeness she felt at first about speaking to her baby. She explains that it felt like she was acting, and used the specialized lexicon in a marked way, “sometimes with air quotes.” But as she interacted with more parents, she “learned that this language of parenthood was common and expected in [her] middle-class American community” (194). In other words, using BT was an expected behavior, even if it did not come naturally for her, and in order to ‘do’ motherhood correctly in her community, she had to learn how to use BT. Like most willing participants in a new community, with practice and the help of veteran parents, the language of motherhood (including BT) became second nature for her.

Shirley Brice Heath (1983) and her research on mill communities in the Piedmont region of the Carolinas also reported the use of BT in Roadville. There, it is often used with children in order to interact with them in one-on-one situations (children are often the mother’s primary human company during the day, as most stop working when they begin a family). But besides interaction, it is also an instructive register, used by more veteran parents as a way of indirectly advising or criticizing mothers. The register often takes the form of question-statements directed at infants (“You’re too warm, aren’t you?”

[129]), which have the dual-purpose of casting secondary messages at the mother. These secondary messages include advice about keeping up with clothing sizes as the child grows, and critiquing the mother for inadequately tending to the baby’s needs (“Wha’s a matter, Bobby, yo’ widdle tum-tum all empty?” [118]). This register is useful because it allows fellow mothers to indirectly offer pointers about how to take care of a new baby (desired or not), while avoiding confrontation with the mother. Like in Benor’s experience, routine visits between experienced and novice mothers give new mothers opportunities to “take an apprentice-like role,” and to “hear and practice ‘baby talk’ with her new baby” (119). This practice is very similar to other situations of adult socialization and exemplifies how peripheral participation socializes new mothers into the community’s cultural expectations of the motherhood role (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Young mothers “begin to use question-statements in their talk with their baby, usually within the first month for the first child and almost immediately with subsequent children” (Heath, 1983: 129), which simultaneously demonstrates the unnaturalness of this form of speech, and the mothers’ ability to learn and adapt to a new register required by their new role.

Communicating Affect with Baby Talk Other than building communicative competence, the most commonly cited reason for using BT is to convey feelings of tenderness and affection. For many, BT is an expressive and affective register, and the desire to express affection is the only reasonable explanation for the use of BT with others that will not benefit from linguistic aid, such as pets (Hirsh-Pasek & Treiman, 1980) and adult friendships (Bombar & Littig, 1996).

In Penville, in addition to building positive relationships between caretaker and child, BT constructs Patwa as an affective language in a circular, habitus-like way (Bourdieu, 1990). BT is used specifically in Patwa, as opposed to English. As previously mentioned, Patwa is considered a more expressive language than English, making it the more appropriate language for BT than English. But why is Patwa considered more expressive? This description comes from many adults who claim to feel more comfortable speaking Patwa than English, even when they are equally proficient in both of them. This is reinforced by the fact that most adults were observed switching to Patwa during emotional, urgent

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or conflict situations (120-121). But feelings and associations such as these are culturally built, and the use of Patwa in exclusively emotionally-charged situations is both derived from and contributes to the community’s opinions of its appropriateness for those situations (à la habitus).

Paugh offers insights into this construction of affection, explaining, “[t]he associations between Patwa and intimacy become clear in that despite the privileging of English with children, Patwa baby talk forms have been retained and are frequent in speech directed at infants and children under age five” (121). Further, older siblings use the same BT register with their younger siblings, especially while playing games and singing together.

Referring to such games, Paugh observes: “This routine entertains [3-year-old] Reiston while socializing positive affective associations with Patwa and his relationship with [thirteen-year-old] Kenneth … The use of baby talk, child-oriented routines and lullabies, altered voice quality, and reduplication key positive affective stances in interactions with small children” (123). Therefore, she claims that Patwa’s association with affect “is transmitted to children as such from their very first encounters with language” (123), which is reflected in adults’ choice to use Patwa in emotional contexts even after shedding their use of BT. In this example, we see that BT has the ability to impact not just personal relationships, but associations with language and opinions about its function.

These opinions and functions can even help preserve a language. It was in her research on Patwa and its uses in the village in relation to the island’s shift to English that Paugh discovered this affective association and purpose. It is possible that its significance as an affective language has kept the language alive and relevant in the face of adults actively encouraging children to speak only English. In other words, emotional investment (such as BT) in a language may be key to its survival in the face of local and global pressures to language shift.

Losing Baby Talk In Gapun, the Papua New Guinea village described by Don Kulick (1992), the language situation is much further along its shift to the dominant lingua franca, Tok Pisin, yet it still offers fascinating insights into language learning ideologies. There, the indigenous language Taiap used to have a form of BT, complete with simplified consonant clusters, a specialized lexicon that corresponded to Ferguson’s (1964) four categories, and reduplication. In the process of shifting to Tok Pisin, however, “this vernacular baby-talk register has been virtually abandoned” (198). This is interesting for the fact that a BT register was motivated to exist at one point, but through the introduction of Tok Pisin, it was deemed no longer necessary. This suggests that whatever Taiap BT accomplished was made possible through Tok Pisin without a specialized register. As Kulick explains, this is a practical result of their ideas about language.

Language, Kulick’s analysis reveals, is perceived by Gapuners as breaking open from within the child, and cannot be taught explicitly (the concept of save, or an inner knowledge). As a result, little to no language is directed at children before their first words (which is the first indication that their save has broken open). That said, certain languages are perceived as being more difficult to learn than others. Villagers explained that Taiap was made easier for children with a BT register, but with the arrival of Tok Pisin, it became redundant: “No real baby-talk register exists in the villagers’ Tok Pisin, perhaps because the language itself has taken on connotations of a kind of ‘baby-code,’ and switches to that language serve the same accommodating function as switches to the vernacular baby-talk register did in the past” (198). In this situation, language shift was the catalyst for the disappearance of a BT register, whose loss sheds light on its original purpose in this particular community: to verbally accommodate the perceived “limited processing and productive capabilities of young children” (196-197).

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Life Without Baby Talk

As we see elsewhere, the use of a BT register is just one way that children receive cultural lessons and examples of appropriate forms of cultural interaction. Even when BT is absent (or unmentioned), children are socialized into the mores of their community through language and behaviors. Ayala Fader (2014) writes about how Hasidic mothers naturalize preverbal infants into ritual blessings by repeating single Hebrew words when they eat, building associations between eating and prayer: “[f]rom the time a Hasidic child is eating solid food, eating and prayer go hand in hand” (333). In Bambi B. Schieffelin’s (1990) ethnography of the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea, complex language ideologies inform how the community interacts with children: children’s language is “soft,” and must eventually “harden” into its adult form (66, 73). There are no special BT lexical terms in Kaluli (73), and certain speech styles, especially those resembling bird sounds (which are associated with negative traits), are taboo and must be avoided if language is to harden appropriately (66-68). Interestingly, in sharp contrast to communities where melodic intonation signals positive affect (a highly characteristic feature of the world’s BT registers), to the Kaluli it is explicitly forbidden. Interactions with children are therefore strictly structured in order to promote the desired adult form of language, such as with calling routines and the use of “ɛlɛma” (“say it like this”), which offers children opportunities to practice adult interaction forms, such as ordering adults around and defending themselves against personal intrusion (75-111).

In Susan U. Philips’ (1983) research on communication in the Warm Springs Indian reservation, child-directed interactions are far sparser than in mainstream American households. Here, caregivers place more emphasis on “the child’s receptive linguistic competence than to productive competence … children are given many directions and then watched closely to see if they do what they are told. If they do what they are told, it is taken as evidence of comprehension” (64). This learning ideology contrasts with those who value first-words as signs of language competence, such as in Roadville (Heath, 1983) and Gapun (Kulick, 1992). Instead of the auditory channel, socialization is communicated through physical activity and the visual channel, and speech is reserved for experienced elders who have something of value to share with the community. As such, BT would be out of place since its most general motivations fail to align with cultural values. A similar case is reported by Martha Crago (1992), whose findings from two small Inuit communities in arctic Quebec reveal more contrasting ideologies of language and learning. Children are not treated as legitimate interlocutors by adults, and so questions prove to be a fruitless avenue for learning: when they are posed by children to adults, the children are ignored, while adults simply do not ask questions of children. Thus, like the Warm Springs Indians, children are socialized to learn through observation rather than instruction, and affect is communicated physically rather than verbally.

Trackton, the other American South mill community studied by Heath (1983), is another example of a community where BT does not exist. Like Crago’s (1992) and Philips’ (1983) findings, these adults speak about preverbal infants, but never to them.

Adults believe “a baby ‘comes up’ a talker; adults cannot make babies talk” (75). Like the Warms Springs Indians, they do not look for meaning in babbling, and they dismiss other children who encourage their parents to hear early attempts at words. In the absence of BT, however, Trackton babies are constantly surrounded by human communication, and are held by community members during all manner of social interaction.

Heath writes, “[the babies] literally feel the body signals of shifts in emotion of those who hold them; they are never excluded from verbal interactions. They are listeners and observers in a stream of communication which flows about them” (75). Language is therefore constantly accessible to them, and their careful observations (and later, a

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role-playing phase specifically acceptable for young children to practice different speech styles) both facilitates their language learning and ingrains in them culturally valued observation skills that are necessary for their adult social lives.

These examples show that despite cultural differences of language and learning ideologies, all children acquire language and become competent communicative members according to their community’s expectations. This is significant for disproving the claim that BT is a prerequisite for language learning.

Conclusion People who live in communities where BT is used report a feeling of ease and naturalness that informs their opinion that BT must be innate. But personal accounts of initial discomfort with BT and the existence of communities where BT does not occur suggest that it is merely a behavioral manifestation of habitus, defined by Bourdieu (1990) as history that informs history-making decisions that contribute to the creation of more of the same history, otherwise known as the process of cultural reproduction. For those communities whose histories do not inform the reproduction of BT, its use is as foreign and silly as any other culturally misplaced register.

The issue of whether BT should or should not be used with children is tied to the mystery of language acquisition. Olga Solomon puts its succinctly: “the question about the role of caregivers in human development goes to the core of the social-science debate about the sources of linguistic and cultural competence” (2014: 122). This debate is made real in communities where BT is either used to aid learning, or absent because of alternative ideologies of learning. Like Heath (1983) discovered in Roadville, parents use BT explicitly because they believe they can help their children learn. One parent was quoted saying “I figure it’s up to me to give ‘im a good start. I reckon there’s just some things I know he’s gotta learn, you know, what things are, and all that. ‘n you just don’t happen onto doin’ all that right” (127-128). On the opposite end of the spectrum, Heath’s research in Trackton reveals a culture that dismisses the effectiveness of a baby register.

On the occasions where she accidentally used BT in Trackton, the adults made fun of her for doing so (95). Like in the Warm Springs Indian reservation and the Inuit communities, Trackton adults believe learning happens through observation and practice: some things simply cannot be taught, and the same is true of language.

In conclusion, following the revelations that BT does not contribute to language learning in any particularly robust way and has been shown to be less than universal cross-culturally, it should be no less interesting to scholars in fields outside of language acquisition. The register as a phenomenon is still a rich source for future research and should be pursued for its socializing effects on children, adults, culture, and language itself.

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