Lecture | LUCL Colloquium
How infants learn about language within their social context - experimental and observational evidence
- Date
- Friday 27 February 2026
- Time
- Serie
- LUCL Colloquium
- Address
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 0.02
Abstract
Language acquisition proceeds rapidly and robustly across diverse languages, yet the linguistic input available to infants is highly variable, context-dependent, and embedded in interaction. In this talk, I present studies from three lines of research that demonstrate how social interaction plays a central role in shaping the structure of infants’ linguistic input, thereby supporting the acquisition of speech sounds and early lexical knowledge.
First, experimental studies using socially contingent interactive paradigms demonstrate how moment-to-moment interaction can enhance infants’ learning of linguistic contrasts. Second, meta-analytic work on infant-directed speech and developmental trajectories clarifies how input supports language acquisition across the first years of life. Third, ongoing work using wearable audio recordings provides an ecologically valid view of infants’ cumulative exposure to linguistic input at home, revealing how communicative sequences over time relate to language outcomes.