VeraKempe studied Psychology at Moscow State University and gained her PhD working on sentence processing from Humboldt University in Berlin and now holds the Chair of Psychology of Language Learning at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. Her interests include cross-linguistic research on the learning and processing of complex morphology and the role of child-directed speech in this process, the role of affect in communication as well as the conditions that shape cultural evolution of language.
Much research has focused on how the prosodic and distributional effects of child-directed speech (CDS) can facilitate language development and how these effects may differ across cultures. In this talk, I will explore what drives caregivers and alloparents to use CDS in the first place. I will consider two possible factors that could potentially shape this speech register — positive affect expression and learner-oriented input modification aka teaching – and will present some empirical evidence that scrutinises their role in the use of CDS. I will discuss the findings with respect to processes of conventionalisation of CDS in an attempt to gain a better understanding of what shapes the language input of children.
