08.04.2025 Johanna Schick

Abstact: Child-directed speech is a strong predictor of language development. Yet, in many societies children receive only limited exposure to this type of input. Instead, children frequently encounter child-surrounding speech from third-party interactions, but little is known about its role in language acquisition. In this talk, I will present evidence that child-surrounding speech can serve as a valuable source of input for language learning.

To shed light on the evolutionary roots of infant-directed speech, we will also explore the prevalence and function of communicative input in other species by comparing directed and surrounding vocal communication in human infants and infants of wild non-human great apes. Our findings suggest that infant-directed speech evolved anew in the hominin lineage, whereas infant-surrounding input is the main source of input for non-human great apes.

By combining experimental, corpus-based, and interdisciplinary approaches, this talk will explore the role of both directed and surrounding input across cultures and species, shedding light on their roles in language learning and evolution.