Distinguished Lecture: "Why Talking With Your Children Matters: Parental Feedback and Language Acquisition"

Join us for an inspiring evening with Dr. Eve Vivienne Clark, a world-renowned expert on how children learn language. 

Dr. Clark, Professor Emerita at Stanford University’s Linguistics Department, has spent decades researching how children acquire language, and her work has transformed our understanding of this process. Professor Clark’s groundbreaking research delves into how children learn language, focusing on word learning, word formation, and the role of conversation in language acquisition.

In this talk, Dr. Clark will share insights from her extensive body of research on how everyday conversations between parents and children shape language development. She’ll explore how simple interactions—like talking about the world around you, reading together, or listening carefully to what your child says—can have a profound impact on their ability to communicate and learn.

Honors 

In 2021, Dr. Clark received the Roger Brown Award from the International Association for the Study of Child Language. Her distinguished honors include being named a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Linguistic Society of America. She is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Works

Dr. Clark has authored numerous widely-cited articles and chapters in psycholinguistics and linguistics and is the co-author of Psychology and Language (1977). Her other influential works, such as The Ontogenesis of Meaning (1979), Acquisition of Romance, with Special Reference to French (1985), The Lexicon in Acquisition (1993), First Language Acquisition (2003, 2009, 2016, 2024), and Language in Children (2017), have shaped our understanding of this crucial developmental process.