Toddler illeism and TV imitation

[mmcirvin]

I hadn't known that parents actually blame toddler illeism (the reference to oneself in the third person) on Sesame Street's Elmo. I also didn't know the word "illeism".

I have heard of parents and child-development authorities worrying that exposure to other Sesame Street characters such as Cookie Monster (whose idiolect is, shall we say, highly nonstandard) and Baby Bear (who speaks with an impediment) will delay or warp language development.

Jorie rarely watches Sesame Street, and her exposure to Elmo's speech is mostly through some talking toys--he isn't a significant figure in her life, but she refers to herself as "Jorie" most of the time. She also hasn't yet completely mastered "I"/"you" context shifting when she picks up phrases from us ("I can get you some yogurt" means "give me some yogurt"), and I've always just regarded illeism on our part and hers as a way of working around the resulting ambiguity. I suppose parents who are dead set on stamping out toddler illeism as early as possible could regard Elmo's use of it as an implicit license, but at the moment I see no reason to rush. I'm not that fond of Elmo, but that's just because I was born in 1968 and started watching Sesame Street in '69.

Imitation of TV characters does happen to some degree. I've mentioned earlier that Jorie pronounces certain words with an Australian accent after hearing them on the Wiggles show, which she dearly loves. It tends to be limited to the context of the original phrases, though. For example, in the specific context of making an origami whale out of paper, she pronounces the word "whale" with a vowel that sounds to me like "while", because she heard Murray and Jeff refer to it that way; but I don't think she pronounces "whale" this way in all contexts, not that she has many opportunities to discuss whales. Since she's exposed mostly to a variety of US accents in real-life interactions, I doubt she will actually develop Strine vocabulary to any great degree. I do, however, wonder if she will start talking like a proper inhabitant of the Merrimack Valley after she goes to school.

Comments

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that we have so many children's shows on TV with wildly un-American accents. But then again, not all of America has the same accent either. And indeed, in the UK, accents differ even more wildly. Apparently, the north part of the country hasn't caught on to the Great Vowel Shift yet.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing that the Wiggles initially had some trouble getting their show distributed in the US; some networks insisted that it would have to be overdubbed with American accents.

The Thomas the Tank Engine shorts initially aired here as part of the American PBS show "Shining Time Station" with narration from Ringo Starr (who also appeared on the frame-show as Mr. Conductor), but he was replaced before long by George Carlin. Lately I've seen the shorts on cable with Carlin's narration and with British narrators. Thomas the Tank Engine is still so ineluctibly British that it's weird to see him with American narration; since the fictional island he operates on is supposed to be between the Isle of Man and Wales, when I'm reading storybooks about him I sometimes give the human characters quasi-Welsh accents, but I'm too lazy to do it for the locomotives.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...And of course I'm an idiot, because it's actually supposed to be between the Isle of Man and England; Wales is to the south.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I wonder if illeism is what rappers mean when they say they're "illin'".

[smashingstars.livejournal.com]

Apparently, when I was a kid I knew a lot of Spanish thanks to Rita Moreno and The Electric Company. It all went away, just like a toddler's illeism. There are no roaming hoardes of teenagers on the streets referring to themselves in the third person; kids grow out of it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

She did lapse into Spanish periodically on the show, didn't she? (In general, the awesomeness of Rita Moreno deserves note.)

Sesame Street in its original US version went out of its way to introduce some Spanish vocabulary (the Canadian edition replaces those segments with French), and most of that did stick with me.

Another thing that occurs to me with regard to crazy voices on kids' shows is that, at age two, Jorie already perfectly well understands the difference between a strange comedy voice and a regular voice. She has two voices she uses in addition to her regular speaking tone: an even-higher-pitched one she uses for dolls and such, and a lower, pursed-lips voice that I think arose partly as an imitation of crazy voices we use, and partly as an imitation of the voice TMBG bassist Danny Weinkauf uses in "Number Two" on Here Come the 123s (in the video he's represented by a monkey puppet dressed as Elton John).

[smashingstars.livejournal.com]

Strange comedy voice? Will not mention El Brendel, will not mention El Brendel...

That video sounds adorable, even if it does invoke the spectre of Elton John. Sadly, I can't find the video on YouTube.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Here you go. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBJe78SztnE) With added President's Day goodness, and "E Eats Everything".

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...With an embarrassment of riches over in the "related videos" sidebar, too. These are from TMBG's Friday Night Family Video Podcast on iTunes, which they ran for a time while they were promoting "Here Come the 123s"; most episodes had one video from that and one from "Here Come the ABCs" connected by increasingly droll clowning with the Linnell and Flansburgh puppets. It's on hiatus now but apparently will return.

June was Spaceman And Robot Month.

[smashingstars.livejournal.com]

My goodness that was adorable! And the song is now happily stuck in my head!

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

started watching Sesame Street in '69.

Really? Sesame Street hit the airwaves in November 1969 (except Philly, which got test broadcasts in the summer). Are you one of the original audience?

Further to Rita Moreno up-thread, Sesame Street is somewhat responsible for what Spanish I have ("CASA!") I grew up in Montreal, and at the time of the English-language stations roughly half were coming in from Vermont. So I got the American episodes with Spanish breaks rather than the Canadian ones with French skits.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yes, I watched it from the very first episode. I don't remember much before about 1971 or '72, of course.

Re: merrimack valley

[sirreality.livejournal.com]

I've heard stories of toddlers loudly demanding "I WANT MY BEER" in public when asking for an ursine plush animal.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

1. Sensitizing children to foreign language patterns is neato and could help them discriminate their sounds later (you probably know this).
2. You TOTALLY should google up a torrent of or send away for some Pingu for the enjoyment of Child. Pingu is language-free (although there are languagelike noises) but still Swiss in flavor, and it's pretty great classic stop-motion. Also it appears that David Hasselhoff enjoys it?

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

My mother refused to let me watch Sesame Street. I was only allowed to watch Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

Sadly, he's been taken off the air in most markets.

I think she was afraid of this exact kind of linguist nightmare -- she flipped out when I came home from kindergarten having learned to say "brung" instead of "brought" from the other kids (even though she'd taught me better).

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Through several years of my childhood I watched the block on our PBS affiliate consisting of Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and The Electric Company. Mr. Rogers was an incredibly soothing presence; I still think of him as sort of a spiritual adviser. As I've said before, I think The Electric Company taught me as much about comedy as about reading.

There were other shows in their afternoon kids' lineup that came and went over the years ("Villa Allegre" which was 50% in Spanish and 50% English, "Hodgepodge Lodge" which I didn't like that much, a weird show called "Vegetable Soup", later on "3-2-1 Contact"), but those three were the ones I thought of as the core, even after The Electric Company was years out of new episodes.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, and "Zoom", the show that taught everyone in the country WGBH's ZIP code.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

FWIW, Spud is 11, and he still says "next day" instead of "tomorrow" sometimes. I have no idea why. I think he'll grow out of it before college.