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Relevance and early word learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2002

NAMEERA AKHTAR
NAMEERA AKHTAR
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Abstract

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Several theorists have proposed that children may interpret an ambiguous word by attending to the dimension that is most relevant in the immediate discourse context. The current study offers a direct test of this hypothesis. Children aged 2;6 and 3;4 (N = 24 in each group) were presented with a novel object with an unusual shape and texture and were told ‘This is a dacky one’. In the Shape-Relevant condition, two other objects' shapes were described before the target object was labelled (‘This is a round one; this is a square one’). In the Texture-Relevant condition, two preceding objects' textures were described (‘This is a smooth one; this is a fuzzy one’). Subsequent comprehension tests indicated that, in extending the novel adjective to other exemplars, children attended to the dimension that was most relevant to the preceding discourse context.

Type
Note
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , August 2002 , pp. 677 - 686
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

Footnotes

Thanks to Maureen Callanan and two anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript. Thanks also to Nicole Wilson, Patricia Bravo, Kathrina Firme, and Crissy Comber for their assistance with data collection, and of course to the parents and children for their enthusiastic participation.