Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:55:15.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Differences in how monolingual and bilingual children learn second labels for familiar objects*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2015

LINDSEY ROWE ,
REBECCA JACOBSON  and
MEGAN M. SAYLOR
LINDSEY ROWE
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
REBECCA JACOBSON
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
MEGAN M. SAYLOR*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
*
Address for correspondence: Megan M. Saylor, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College #552, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Monolingual children sometimes resist learning second labels for familiar objects. One explanation is that they are guided by word learning constraints that lead to the assumption that objects have only one name. It is less clear whether bilingual children observe this constraint. In the current study, we test the hypothesis that bilingual children might be more willing to accept second labels for objects and ask how they are affected by different amounts of information relevant to the second label. Although monolingual and bilingual children benefited from increased levels of information, only bilingual children chose the referent at above chance levels when they were offered increased levels of information. They were also more likely than monolingual children to accept second labels. Differences emerged even when English language vocabulary size was controlled for in the analyses.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 1219 - 1236
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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

[*]

Lindsey Rowe, Rebecca Jacobson, and Megan M. Saylor, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University. We thank all families who participated. Portions of these data were used for Lindsey Rowe's Honors Thesis.

References

REFERENCES

Adi-Japha, E., Berberich-Artzi, J. & Libnawi, A. (2010). Cognitive flexibility in drawings of bilingual children. Child Development 81(5), 1356–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Akhtar, N. & Menjivar, J. (2012). Cognitive and linguistic correlates of early exposure to more than one language. Advances in Child Development and Behavior 42, 41–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Au, T. K.-f. & Glusman, M. (1990). The principle of mutual exclusivity in word learning: To honor or not to honor? Child Development 61(5), 1474–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Barac, R., Blaye, A. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2010a). Word mapping and executive functioning in young monolingual and bilingual children. Cognitive Development 11(4), 485–508.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., Peets, K. F. & Yang, S. (2010b). Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13(4), 525–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E. & Martin, M. (2004). Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: evidence from the dimensional change sort card task. Developmental Science 7, 325–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, P. (2002). How children learn the meanings of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Callanan, M. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2004). Multiple labels for objects in conversations with young children: parents’ language and children's developing expectations about word meanings. Developmental Psychology 40(5), 746–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, E. V. (1983). Convention and contrast in acquiring the lexicon. In Seiler, T. B. & Wannenmacher, W. (Eds.), Concept development and the development of word meaning, 67–89. Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1997). Conceptual perspective and lexical choice in acquisition. Cognition 64, 1–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, E. V. (2004). How language acquisition builds on cognitive development. TRENDS in Cognitive Science 8, 472–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, E. V. & Svaib, T. A. (1997) Speaker perspective and reference in young children. First Language 17, 57–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D., Jergovic, D., Imami, Z. & Theodos, V. (1997). Monolingual and bilingual children's use of the mutual exclusivity constraint. Child Language 24, 3–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davidson, D. & Tell, D. (2005). Monolingual and bilingual children's use of mutual exclusivity in the naming of whole objects. Experimental Child Psychology 92, 25–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunn, L. & Dunn, D. (2012). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition (PPVT-4). Johannesburg: Pearson Education Inc.Google Scholar
Farhadian, M., Abdullah, R., Mansor, M., Redzuan, M. A., Gazanizad, N. & Kumar, V. (2010). Theory of mind in bilingual and monolingual preschool children. Journal of Psychology 1(1), 39–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, I. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2002). Young monolingual and bilingual children's responses to violation of the mutual exclusivity principle. International Journal of Bilingualism 6(2), 125–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goetz, P. J. (2003). The effects of bilingualism on theory of mind development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 6(1), 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golinkoff, R. M., Mervis, C. B. & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (1994). Early object labels: the case for a developmental lexical principles framework. Journal of Child Language 21, 125–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollich, G. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., Brand, R. J., Brown, E., Chung, H. L., Hennon, E., Rocroi, C. & Bloom, L. (2000). Breaking the language barrier: an emergentist coalition model for the origins of word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.Google ScholarPubMed
Jaswal, V. K. (2010). Explaining the disambiguation effect: don't exclude mutual exclusivity. Journal of Child Language 37(1), 95–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jaswal, V. K. & Hansen, M. B. (2006). Learning words: children disregard some pragmatic information that conflicts with mutual exclusivity. Developmental Science 9(2), 158–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kovács, Á. M. (2009). Early bilingualism enhances mechanism of false-belief. Developmental Science 12(1), 48–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markman, E. M. (1992). Constraints on word learning: speculations about their nature, origins, and domain-specificity. In Gunnar, M. R. & Maratsos, M. (eds), Modularity and constraints in language and cognition: the Minnesota symposia on child psychology: Vol. 25 (pp. 59–103). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Markman, E. M. (1994). Constraints on word meaning in early language acquisition. In Gleitman, L. & Landau, B. (eds), The acquisition of the lexicon, 199–229. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Elsevier.Google Scholar
Markman, E. & Wachtel, G. (1988). Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words. Cognitive Psychology 20, 121–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Masur, E. F. (1997). Maternal labelling of novel and familiar objects: implications for children's development of lexical constraints. Journal of Child Language 24(2), 427–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Macnamara, J. (1982). Names for things. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Merriman, W., Bowman, L. & MacWhinney, B. (1989). The mutual exclusivity bias in children's word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 54(3/4), 1–129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Merriman, W. & Kutlesic, V. (1993). Bilingual and monolingual children's use of two lexical acquisition heuristics. Applied Psycholinguistics 14, 229–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohades, S. G., Struys, E., Schuerbeek, P. V., Mondt, K., Craen, P. V. D. & Luypaert, R. (2012). DTI reveals structural differences in white matter tracts between bilingual and monolingual children. Brain Research 1435, 72–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morales, J., Calvo, A. & Bialystok, E. (2013). Working memory development in monolingual and bilingual children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 114(2), 187–202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ninio, A. (1980). Ostensive definition in vocabulary teaching. Journal of Child Language 7, 565–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quine, W. V. (1960) Word and object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ricciardelli, L. A. (1992). Creativity and bilingualism. Journal of Creative Behavior 26(4), 242–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, M. & Woodsmall, L. (1988). Lessons from television: children's word learning when viewing. Child Development 59, 420–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saylor, M. M., Baldwin, D. A. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2004). Word learning: a complex product. In Hall, G. & Waxman, S. (eds). Weaving a lexicon, 512–31. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.Google Scholar
Saylor, M. M. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2004). Different kinds of information affect word learning in the preschool years: the case of part-term learning. Child Development 75(2), 395–408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saylor, M. M., Sabbagh, M. A. & Baldwin, D. A. (2002). Children use whole–part juxtaposition as a pragmatic cue to word meaning. Developmental Psychology 38, 993–1003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shipley, E. F., Kuhn, I. & Madden, E. C. (1983). Mothers’ use of superordinate category terms. Journal of Child Language 10, 571–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tare, M. & Gelman, S. A. (2010). Can you say it another way? Cognitive factors in bilingual children's pragmatic language skills. Journal of Cognitive Development 11, 137–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Torrance, E. P., Gowan, J. C., Wu, J. J. & Aliotti, N. C. (1970). Creative functioning of monolingual and bilingual children in Singapore. Journal of Educational Psychology 61(1), 72–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yow, W. & Markman, E. (2011). Bilingualism and children's use of paralinguistic cues to interpret emotion in speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14, 562–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar