|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
Developmental trends in semantic acquisition: Evidence from over-extensions in child language
Jennifer Bloomquist
Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania
Children aged 2 through 6 years and adults were shown a series of pictures including `normal' referents (e.g., cat or car), and unfamiliar combination tokens (e.g., a clock with a telephone handset), which they were asked to identify. There were age-dependent differences in terms of naming (i.e., the number of words and morphemes and linguistic constructions) and criteria for category membership. The older participants used more morphemes and sophisticated linguistic strategies (e.g., descriptive phrases) than the younger participants, and the younger children showed a greater tendency to rely on holistic shape as a category determiner. These disparities suggested that the participants not only employed different strategies by age, but that they also had different criteria for categorization.
Key Words: Essentialism • manufactured objects • naming • natural objects • over-extension • semantic development
References
- Clark, E.V. (1975). Some aspects of the conceptual basis for first language acquisition. In R. L. Schiefelbusch & L. L. Lloyd (Eds), Language perspectives: Acquisition retardation and intervention (pp. 105—128). Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.
- Clark, E.V. (1993). The lexicon in acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gelman, S.A. & Wellman, H.M. (1991). Insides and essences: Early understandings of the non-obvious. Cognition, 38, 213—244.[CrossRef][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Gentner, D. (1978). What looks like a jiggy but acts like a zimbo? A study of early word meaning using artificial objects. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University), 15, 1—6 (reprinted in J. Gardner (Ed.), Readings in developmental psychology (2nd ed., pp. 137—142). Boston: Little Brown, 1982).
- Goldin-Meadow S., Seligman M. & Gelman, R. (1976). Language in the two-year-old. Cognition, 4(2) 189—202.[CrossRef]
- Huttenlocher, J. & Smiley, P. (1987). Early word meaning: The case of object names. Cognitive Psychology, 19, 63—89.[CrossRef]
- Jones, S.S., Smith, L.B. & Landau, B. (1991). Object properties and knowledge in early lexical learning. Child Development, 62, 499—516.[CrossRef][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
- Keil, F.C. (1987). Conceptual development and category structure. In U. Neisser (Ed.), Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Keil, F.C. (1989). Concepts, kinds, and cognitive development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Keil, F.C. & Batterman, N. (1984). A characteristic-to-defining shift in the development of meaning. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 221—236.[CrossRef]
- Nelson, C.A. & De Haan, M. (1996). A neurobiological approach to the recognition of facial expressions in infancy. In J. A. Russell and J. M. Fernandez-Dols (Eds), The psychology of facial expressions (pp.176—204). New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Tomikawa, S.A. & Dodd, D.H. (1980). Early word meanings: Perceptually or functionally based? Child Development, 51, 1103—1109.[CrossRef][Medline]
[Order article via Infotrieve]
First Language, Vol. 27, No. 4,
407-420 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0142723707081731
 CiteULike  Complore  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati  Twitter What's this?
|
|
