Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T04:41:52.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vocabulary development in Greek children: a cross-linguistic comparison using the Language Development Survey*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2011

CHRISTINA F. PAPAELIOU  and
LESLIE A. RESCORLA
CHRISTINA F. PAPAELIOU*
Affiliation:
Department of Preschool Education and of Educational Planning, University of the Aegean, Greece
LESLIE A. RESCORLA
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa., USA
*
[*]Address for correspondence: Christina Papaeliou, Miltiadou 39, P. Faliro, 175–63, Greece. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigated vocabulary size and vocabulary composition in Greek children aged 1 ; 6 to 2 ; 11 using a Greek adaptation of Rescorla's Language Development Survey (LDS; Rescorla, 1989). Participants were 273 toddlers coming from monolingual Greek-speaking families. Greek LDS data were compared with US LDS data obtained from the instrument's normative sample (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). Vocabulary size increased markedly with age, but Greek toddlers appeared to get off to a slower start in early word learning than US children. The correlation between percentage word use scores in Greek and US samples was moderate in size, indicating considerable overlap but some differences. Common nouns were the largest category among the fifty most frequent words in both samples. Numbers of adjectives and verbs were comparable across languages, but people and closed-class words were more numerous in the Greek sample. Finally, Greek late talkers showed similar patterns of vocabulary composition to those observed in typically developing Greek children.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , September 2011 , pp. 861 - 887
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Achenbach, T. M. & Rescorla, L. A. (2000). Manual for ASEBA preschool forms & profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, & Families.Google Scholar
Au, T. K., Dapretto, M. & Song, Y. K. (1994). Input versus constraints: Early word acquisition in Korean and English. Journal of Memory and Language 33, 567–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassano, D. (2000). Early development of nouns and verbs in French: Exploring the interface between lexicon and grammar. Journal of Child Language 27(3), 521–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E., Marchman, V., Thal, D., Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J. S., Reilly, J. & Hartung, J. (1994). Development and stylistic variation in the composition of early vocabulary. Journal of Child Language 21, 85–123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bavin, E. L., Prior, M., Reilly, S., Bretherton, L., Williams, J., Eadie, P., Barrett, Y. & Ukoumunne, O. C. (2008). The Early Language in Victoria study: Predicting vocabulary at age one and two years from gesture and object use. Journal of Child Language 35(3), 687–701.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benedict, H. E. (1979). Early lexical development: Comprehension and production. Journal of Child Language 6, 183–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bleses, D., Vach, W., Slott, M., Wehberg, S., Thomsen, P., Madsen, T. O. & Basboll, H. (2008a). Early vocabulary development in Danish and other languages: A CDI-based comparison. Journal of Child Language 35(3), 619–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bleses, D., Vach, W., Slott, M., Wehberg, S., Thomsen, P., Madsen, T. O. & Basboll, H. (2008b). The Danish Communicative Developmental Inventories: Validity and main developmental trends. Journal of Child Language 35(3), 651–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bornstein, M. H., Cote, L. R., Maital, S., Painter, K., Park, S.-Y. & Pascual, L. (2004). Cross-linguistic analysis of vocabulary in young children: Spanish, Dutch, French, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, and American English. Child Development 75(4), 1115–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Camaioni, L. & Longobardi, E. (1995). Nature and stability of individual differences in early lexical development of Italian-speaking children. First Language 15, 203–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caselli, C. M., Bates, E., Casadio, P., Fenson, J., Fenson, L., Sanderl, L. & Weir, J. (1995). A cross-linguistic study of early lexical development. Cognitive Development 10, 159–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, S. & Gopnik, A. (1995). Early acquisition of verbs in Korean: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Child Language 22(3), 497–529.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christofidou, A. & Stephany, U. (2003). The emergence of nominal inflection in Greek. In Sthephany, U. & Voeikova, M. D. (eds), Development of nominal inflection in first language acquisition: A cross-linguistic perspective, 217–64. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences, 2nd edn.New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
D'Odorico, L., Carubbi, S., Salerni, N. & Calvo, V. (2001). Vocabulary development in Italian children: A longitudinal evaluation of quantitative and qualitative aspects. Journal of Child Language 28, 351–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dale, P. & Goodman, J. (2005). Commonality and individual differences in vocabulary growth. In Tomasello, M. & Slobin, D. I. (eds), Beyond nature–nurture: Essays in honor of Elizabeth Bates, pp. 41–78. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dromi, E. (1987). Early lexical development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, E. & Phethick, J. P. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Serial no. 242), 59(5).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Thal, D. J., Bates, E., Hartung, J. P., Pethick, S. & Reilly, J. S. (1993). MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: User's guide and technical manual. San Diego, CA: Singular.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Pethick, S., Renda, C., Cox, J. L., Dale, P. & Reznick, J. S. (2000). Short-form versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. Applied Psycholinguistics 21(1), 95–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D. & Boroditsky, L. (2001). Individuation, relational relativity and early word learning. In Bowerman, M. & Levinson, S. (eds), Language acquisition and conceptual development, pp. 215–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldfield, B. A. & Reznick, J. S. (1990). Early lexical acquisition: Rate, content, and the vocabulary spurt. Journal of Child Language 17, 171–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, A., Plunkett, K. & Schafer, G. (2000). Infant vocabulary development assessed with a British communicative development inventory. Journal of Child Language 27, 689–705.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson-Maldonado, D., Thal, D., Marchman, V., Bates, E. & Gutierrez-Clellen, V. (1993). Early lexical development in Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers. Journal of Child Language 20, 523–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Junker, D. A. & Stockman, I. J. (2002). Expressive vocabulary of German–English bilingual toddlers. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11, 381–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karousou, A., Katis, D. & Stambouliadou, C. (2008). The emergence of protowords: Empirical evidence on the gradual convergence of parameters of wordiness. Psychology: The Journal of the Hellenic Psychological Society 15(2), 119–38.Google Scholar
Kauschke, C. & Hofmeister, C. (2002). Early lexical development in German: A study on vocabulary growth and vocabulary composition during the second and third year of life. Journal of Child Language 29(4), 735–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, H. (2002). Development as the interface between biology and culture: A conceptualization of early ontogenetic experiences. In Keller, H., Poortings, Y. H. & Schoelmerich, A. (eds), Between culture and development. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, H., Papaligoura, Z., Kuensemueller, P., Voleker, S. et al. , (2003). Concepts of mother–infant interaction in Greece and Germany. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 34, 677–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotsakidis, H. (2003). Vocabulary acquisition and input influence in early child Greek – A study of the vocabulary spurt and function words. PhD dissertation, University of Göteborg.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. B. (2000). Specific language impairment across languages. In Bishop, D. V. M & Leonard, L. B. (eds), Speech and language impairments in children: Causes, characteristics, intervention and outcome, pp. 115–30. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Leopold, W. (1939). Speech development of a bilingual child. A linguist's record: Vol. I. Vocabulary growth in the first two years. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Mackridge, P. (1985). The modern Greek grammar. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Maital, S. L., Dromi, E., Sagi, A. & Bornstein, M. H (2000). The Hebrew Communicative Development Inventory: Language specific properties and cross-linguistic generalizations. Journal of Child Language 27, 43–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Natsopoulos, D. & Xeromeritou, A. (1989). Children's and adults' perception of missing subjects in complement clauses: Evidence from another language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 18(3), 313–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 38 (serial no. 149).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogura, T., Dale, P. S., Yamashita, Y., Murase, T. & Mahieu, A. (2006). The use of nouns and verbs by Japanese children and their caregivers in book-reading and toy playing contexts. Journal of Child Language 33, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patterson, J. L. (1998). Expressive vocabulary development and word combinations of Spanish–English bilinguals. Journal of Speech and Language Pathology 7, 46–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petinou, K. & Okalidou, A. (2006). Speech pattern in Cypriot-Greek late talkers. Applied Psycholinguistics 27(3), 335–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philippaki-Warburton, I. & Spyropoulos, V. (2004). A change of mood: The development of the Greek mood system. Linguistics 42(4), 791–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reese, E. & Read, S. (2000). Predictive validity of the New Zealand MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and sentences. Journal of Child Language 27(2), 255–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescorla, L. (1989). The Language Development Survey: A screening tool for delayed language in toddlers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 54, 587–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rescorla, L. & Achenbach, T. M. (2002). Use of the Language Development Survey (LDS) in a national probability sample of children 18 to 35 months old. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 45, 733–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescorla, L. & Alley, A. (2001). Validation of the Language Development Survey (LDS): A parent report tool for identifying language delay in toddlers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44, 434–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rescorla, L., Alley, A. & Book, C. J. (2001). Word frequencies in toddlers' lexicon. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44(3), 598–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescorla, L., Ratner, N. B., Jusczyk, P. & Jusczyk, A. M. (2005). Concurrent validity in the Language Development Survey: Associations with the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Words and sentences. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology 14(2), 156–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1992). Introduction. In The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 3, 1–13. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stephany, U. (1997). The acquisition of Greek. In Slobin, D. I. (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 4, 183–334. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Bornstein, M. H., Cyphers, L., Toda, S. & Ogino, M. (1992). Language and play at one year: A comparison of toddlers and mothers in the United States and Japan. International Journal of Behavioural Development 15, 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tardif, T. (1996). Nouns are not always learned before verbs: Evidence from Mandarin speakers' early vocabularies. Developmental Psychology 32, 492–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomadaki, E. & Stephany, U. (2007). Diminutives in Greek child language. In Savickienė, I.& Wolfgang, U. D. (eds), The acquisition of diminutives, 89–123. John Benjamin Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Merriman, E. (eds)1995. Acquisition of the verb lexicon. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar