Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-08T19:55:52.521Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eighteen-month-old children learn words in non-ostensive contexts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michael Tomasello ,
Randi Strosberg  and
Nameera Akhtar
Michael Tomasello*
Affiliation:
Emory University
Randi Strosberg
Affiliation:
Emory University
Nameera Akhtar
Affiliation:
Emory University
*
Department of Psychology, Emery University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that children aged 2;0 can learn new words in a variety of non-ostensive contexts. The current two studies were aimed at seeing if this was also true of children just beginning to learn words at 1;6. In the first study an adult interacted with 48 children. She used a nonce word to announce her intention to find an object (‘Let's find the gazzer’), picked up and rejected an object with obvious disappointment, and then gleefully found the target object (using no language). Children learned the new word as well in this condition as in a condition in which the adult found the object immediately. In the second study the adult first played several rounds of a finding game with each of 60 children, in which it was first established that one of several novel objects was always in a very distinctive hiding place (a toy barn). The adult then used a nonce word to announce her intention to find an object (‘Let's find the toma’) and then proceeded to the barn. In the key condition the barn was mysteriously ‘locked’; the child thus never saw the target object after the nonce word was introduced. Children learned the new word as well in this condition as in a condition in which the adult found the object immediately. The results of these two studies suggest that from very early in language acquisition children learn words not through passive, associative pro- cesses, but rather through active attempts to understand adult behaviour in a variety of action and discourse contexts.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 157 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the first author and an NSERC postdoctoral award to the third author. Thanks to the children and mothers who participated.

References

REFERENCES

Akhtar, N., Carpenter, M. & Tomasello, M. (in press). The role of discourse novelty in early word learning. Child Development.Google Scholar
Akhtar, N., Dunham, F. & Dunham, P. (1991). Directive interactions and early vocabulary development: the role of joint attentional focus. Journal of Child Language 18, 41–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Akhtar, N. & Tomasello, M. (in press). Two-year-olds learn words for absent objects and actions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. (1993 a). Infants' ability to consult the speaker for clues to word reference. Journal of Child Language 2, 395–418.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. (1993 b). Early referential understanding: young children's ability to recognize referential acts for what they are. Developmental Psychology 29, 1–12.Google Scholar
Bates, E., Bretherton, I. & Snyder, L. (1988). From first words to grammar: individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1983). Child's talk. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Dunham, P. J., Dunham, F. S. & Curwin, A. (1993). Joint attentional states and lexical acquisition at 18 months. Developmental Psychology 29, 827–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golinkoff, R., Mervis, C. & Hirsh-Pasek, J. (1994). Early object labels: the case for a developmental lexical principles framework. Journal of Child Language 21, 125–56.Google Scholar
Harris, M., Jones, D. & Grant, J. (1983). The nonverbal context of mothers' speech to infants. First Language 10, 21–31.Google Scholar
Markman, E. (1989). Categorization and naming in children. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Markman, E. (1992). Constraints on word learning: speculations about their nature, origins, and word specificity. In Gunnar, M. & Maratsos, M. (eds), Modularity and constraints in language and cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Reznick, J. S. & Goldsmith, L. (1989). A multiple form word production checklist for assessing early language. Journal of Child Language 16, 91–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schieffelin, B. & Ochs, E. (1986). Language socialization across cultures. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1992). The social bases of language acquisition. Social Development 1, 67–87.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1995 a). Pragmatic contexts for early verb learning. In Tomasello, M. & Merriman, W. (eds), Beyond names for things: young children's acquisition of verbs. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1995 b). Joint attention as social cognition. In Moore, C. & Dunham, P. J. (eds), Joint attention: its origins and role in development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Barton, M. (1994). Learning words in nonostensive contexts. Developmental Psychology 30, 639–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development 57, 1454–63.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Kruger, A. (1992). Acquiring verbs in ostensive and non-ostensive contexts. Journal of Child Language 19, 311–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., Kruger, A. & Ratner, H. (1993). Cultural learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16, 495–552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar