Investigating the development of lexical representations during the language acquisition process in the preschool years
Published:
Jul 1, 2008
Keywords:
Vocabulary acquisition language development preschool age
Abstract
Lexical acquisition is very important for all the children. It has been found that lexical acquisition is related with children's performance in reading and writing later in school. The aim of the present study is to give some insight into how the children of preschool age learn new words through listening to stories. 192 children (3;6-4;6) took part in the study. The children were introduced to novel words in different linguistic contexts through the reading of storybooks. After hearing the story children's word knowledge was assessed on seven different lexical tasks. Particular emphasis is given on the qualitative analysis of children's responses in order to give some insight into the development of children's lexical representations during the process of lexical acquisition. The results show that the process of lexical acquisition varies according to the linguistic context and the method of assessment.
Article Details
- How to Cite
-
Ράλλη (Asimina Ralli) Α. (2008). Investigating the development of lexical representations during the language acquisition process in the preschool years. Investigating the child’s World, 8, 155–176. https://doi.org/10.12681/icw.18217
- Issue
- Vol. 8 (2008)
- Section
- Scientific articles & educational projects
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
· Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
· Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
· Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (preferably in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Au, Τ.Κ. (1990). Children's use of information in word learning. Journal of Child Language, 17(2), 393-416.
Carey, S. and E. Bartlett (1978). Acquiring a single new word. Papers and reports on child language development, 15, 17-29.
Banigan, R., L., & Mervis, C.B. (1988). The role of adult input in young children's category evolution: II an experimental study. Journal of Child Language, 15, 493-504.
Burroughs, G.E.R. (1957). A study of the vocabulary of young children. Birmingham: Oliver and Boyd.
Caroli, J., Davies, P. & Richman, B. (1971). The American Heritage Word Frequency Book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Clark E. V. (1987). The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhiney (Eds) Mechanisms of Language Acquisition. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
Dockrell, J., (1981). The child's acquisition of unfamiliar words, University of Sterling, Sterling Scotland.
Dockrell, J.E. and Campbell, R.N. (1986). Lexical acquisition strategies. In S. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.), Semantic Development. New York: Springer Verlag.
Donaldson, M.L. & Laing , K. (1993). Children's comprehension and production of locative expressions. In DJ. Messer and G. J. Turner (Eds) Critical influences on child language acquisition and development: St Martins Press.
Eller, R., Pappas, C. and Brown, E. (1988). The lexical development of kindergarteners: Learning from written context. Journal of Reading Behaviour, 20(1), 5-24.
Elley, W. (1989). Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(2), 174-187.
Fenson, L., Dale, P.S., Reznick, J.S., Thai, D., Bates, E., Hartug, J., Pethick, S., & Reily, J. (1993). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories:user's guide and technical manual. San Diego: Singular Publishing Group.
Gentner, D. and Holoyoak, J. K. (1997). Reasoning and learning by Analogy. American Psychologist, 52, 32-34.
Gottfried, G.M., and Tonks, S.J.M. (1996). Specifying the relation between novel and known: Input affects the acquisition of novel colour terms. Child Development, 67, 850-866.
Heibeck, T. H., and Markman, E. M. (1987). Word learning in children: an examination of fast mapping. Child Development, 58, 1021-1034.
Huttenlocher, J. (1974). The origins of language comprehension. In R. Solso (Eds) Theoriesin cognitive psychology. Potomac MD: Erlbaum.
Katz, N., Baker, E. and Macnamara, J. (1974). What's in a name? A study of how children learn common and proper names. Child Development, 45, 469-473.
Leung, C, and Pikulski, J.J. (1990). Incidental word learning of kindergarten and first grade children through repeated read aloud events. In J. Zuteil and S. McCormick (Eds.), Literacy, theory and research: Analyses from multiple paradigms. Chicago, National Reading Conference.
Meadows S. (1993). The child as a thinker.The development and acquisition of cognition in childhood. London and New York.
Nagy, W.E., Anderson, R.C., and Herman, P.A. (1987). Learning word meanings from context during normal reading. American Educational Research Journal, 24, 237-270.
Nelson, K. (1988). Constraints on word learning ? Cognitive Development, 3, 221-246.
Nelson, K. (1990). Comment on Behrend's "Constraints and Development". Cognitive development, 5, 331-339.
Nelson, Κ. Hampson, J. & Shaw L. (1993). Nouns in early lexicons: evidence, explanations and implications. Journal of Child Language, 20, 61-84.
Oviatt, S. L. (1980). The emerging ability to comrehend language: An experimental approach. Child Development, 51, 97-106.
Oviatt, S. L. (1982). Infering what words mean: Early development in infants comprehension of common object names. Child Development, 53, 274-277.
Ralli, A. M. (1999). Investigating lexical acquisition patterns: context and cognition. Unpublished thesis, Institute of Education, University of London.
Ralli A. & Dockrell J. (2005). Multiple measures of assesing vocabulary acquisition: Implications for understanding lexical development. Ψυχολογία 12 (4), 587-603.
Robbins, C, and Ehri, L.C. (1994). Reading storybooks to kindergarteners helps them learn new vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 54-64.
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorisation. In E. Rosch & B.B. Lloyd (Eds) Cognition and categorisation. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
Senechal, M and Cornell, E. (1993). Vocabulary acquisition through shared reading experiences. Reading Research Quarterly, 28, 361-373.
Stanovich, K.E. and Cunnigham, A.E. (1993). "Where does knowledge come from? Specific associations between print exposure and information acquisition". Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 211-229.
Sternberg, R. and Powell, J. (1983). Comprehending verbal comprehension, American Psychologist, 38, 878-893.
Thompson, J. R. & Chapman, R. S. (1977) "Who is Daddy" revisited ? The status of two- yearolds overextended words in use and comprehension. Journal of Child Language, 4, 359 - 375.
Werner, H.F and Kaplan, E. (1952). The acquisition of word meanings: A developmental study. Monographs of Social Research in Child Development, 15, (Whole number 51).
