scholarly journals Repetition, but not acoustic differentiation, facilitates pseudohomophone learning by children

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Conwell ◽  
Felix Pichardo ◽  
Gregor Horvath ◽  
Amanda Auen
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Learning ◽  
Familiar Word ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Mapping Bias ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
One To One ◽  
Children's Learning

Children’s ability to learn words with multiple meanings may be hindered by their adherence to a one-to-one form-to-meaning mapping bias. Previous research on children’s learning of pseudohomophones has yielded mixed results, suggesting a range of factors that may impact when children entertain a new meaning for a familiar word. One such factor is repetition of the new meaning (Storkel & Maekawa, 2005) and another is the acoustic differentiation of the two meanings (Conwell, 2017). This study asked 72 4-year-old English-learning children to assign novel meanings to familiar words and manipulated how many times they heard the words with their new referents as well as whether the productions were acoustically longer than typical productions of the words. The results show that repetition supports the learning of a pseudohomophone, but acoustic differentiation does not. There was no evidence of an interaction of the two factors. Homophone learning is facilitated by increased exposure to a second meaning, but children do not use acoustic differences in homophone learning, despite the availability of such differences in their experience.

The implications of polysemy for theories of word learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahesh Srinivasan ◽  
Hugh Rabagliati
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Polysemous Words ◽  
Review Current ◽  
Children's Learning

Word learning is typically studied as a problem in which children need to learn a single meaning for a new word. According to most theories, children’s learning is itself guided by the assumption that a new word has only one meaning. However, most words in languages are polysemous, having many related and distinct meanings. In this article, we consider the implications of this disjuncture. As we review, current theories predict that children should struggle to learn polysemous words. Yet recent research shows that young children readily learn multiple meanings for words and represent them in ways that are qualitatively similar to adults. Moreover, polysemy may facilitate word learning by allowing children to use their knowledge of familiar meanings of a word to learn its other meanings. These findings motivate a new perspective on word learning that recognizes polysemy as a fundamental feature of language instead of treating it as an outlying case.

Cultural variation in children's observation during a demonstration

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz ◽  
Barbara Rogoff ◽  
Ruth Paradise
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Formal Schooling ◽  
Primary Analysis ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Mexican Heritage ◽  
European Heritage ◽  
Us Children ◽  
Children's Learning

Ethnographic research indicates that in a number of cultural communities, children's learning is organised around observation of ongoing activities, contrasting with heavy use of explanation in formal schooling. The present research examined the extent to which first- to third-grade children observed an adult's demonstration of how to fold origami figures or observed the folding of two slightly older children who also were trying to make the figures, without requesting further information. In the primary analysis, 10 Mexican heritage US children observed without requesting additional information to a greater extent than 10 European heritage US children. Consistent with the ethnographic literature, these two groups differed in the extent of their family's involvement in schooling; hence, we explored the relationship with maternal schooling in a secondary analysis. An additional 11 children of Mexican heritage whose mothers had extensive experience in formal school (at least a high school education) showed a pattern more like that of the European heritage children, whose mothers likewise had extensive experience in school, compared with the Mexican heritage children whose mothers had only basic schooling (an average of 7.7 grades). The results suggest that a constellation of cultural traditions that organise children's learning experiences—including Western schooling—may play an important role in children's learning through observation and explanation.

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