Infants'' Contribution to the Achievement of Joint Reference

This research examines whether infants actively contribute to the achievement of joint reference. One possibility is that infants tend to link a a label with whichever object they are focused on when they hear the label. If so, infants would make a mapping error when an adult labels a different object than the one occupying their focus. Alternatively, infants may be able to use a speaker's nonverbal cues (e.g., line of regard) to interpret the reference of novel labels. This ability would allow infants to avoid errors when adult labels conflict with infants' focus. 64 16-19-month-olds were taught new labels for novel toys in 2 situations. In follow-in labeling, the experimenter looked at and labeled a toy at which infants were already looking. In discrepant labeling, the experimenter looked at and labeled a different toy than the one occupying infants' focus. Infants' responses to subsequent comprehension questions revealed that they (a) successfully learned the labels introduced during follow-in labeling, and (b) displayed no tendency to make mapping errors after discrepant labeling. Thus infants of only 16 to 19 months understand that a speaker's nonverbal cues are relevant to the reference of object labels; they already can contribute to the social coordination involved in achieving joint reference.     

Children’s Social Information Seeking is Sensitive to Referential Ambiguity

We examined children’s spontaneous information seeking in response to referential ambiguity. Children ages 2–5 (n = 160) identified the referents of familiar and novel labels. We manipulated ambiguity by changing the number of objects present and their familiarity (Experiments 1 and 2), and the availability of referential gaze (Experiment 2). In both experiments, children looked to the face of the experimenter more often while responding, specifically when the referent was ambiguous. In Experiment 2, 3- to 4-year olds also demonstrated sensitivity to graded referential evidence. These results suggest that social information seeking is an active learning behavior that could contribute to language acquisition in early childhood.     

Establishing word-object relations: a first step

This work explores how infants in the early phases of acquiring language come to establish an initial mapping between objects and their labels. If infants are biased to attend more to objects in the presence of language, that could help them to note word-object object pairings. To test this, a first study compared how long 18 10-14-month-old infants looked at unfamiliar toys when labeling phrases accompanied their presentation, versus when no labeling phrases were provided. As predicted, labeling the toys increased infants' attention to them. A second study examined whether the presence of labeling phrases increased infants' attention to objects over and above what pointing, a powerful nonlinguistic method for directing infants' attention, could accomplish on its own. 22 infants from 2 age groups (10-14- and 17-20-month-olds) were shown pairs of unfamiliar toys in 2 situations: (a) in a pointing alone condition, where the experimenter pointed a number of times at one of the toys, and (b) in a labeling + pointing condition, where the experimenter labeled the target toy while pointing to it. While the pointing occurred, infants looked just as long at the target toy whether or not it was labeled. During a subsequent play period in which no labels were uttered, however, infants gazed longer at the target toys that had been labeled than at those that had not. Thus language can increase infants' attention to objects beyond the time that labeling actually occurs. These studies do not pinpoint which aspects of labeling behavior contribute to the attentional facilitation effect that was observed. In any case, however, this tendency for language to sustain infants' attention to objects may help them learn the mappings between words and objects.     

Symbolic gesturing in normal infants

2 studies are presented that document the spontaneous development by normal infants of nonverbal gestures to symbolically represent objects, needs, states, and qualities. These symbolic gestures are shown to be a typical rather than rare phenomenon of early development and to function in ways similar to early verbal symbols. Indeed, the case is made that these gestures and early words are both representative of common underlying mechanisms, in particular, the recognition that things have names. In the first study, mothers of 38 17-month-old infants were interviewed in regard to their infants' verbal and nonverbal development. The second study, designed to document with greater precision the findings of the interview study, is a longitudinal study of 16 infants who were followed from 11 to 24 months. Both studies provide evidence that symbolic gestures tend to develop in tandem with the child's early words, that girls tend to rely more heavily than boys on such gestures, that structured parent-child interactions are important to the development of these gestures, that the gestures tend to depict the function rather than the form of objects, and that the use of gestural labels is positively related to verbal vocabulary development. Implications of these findings for theories of language development and for speech pathology are discussed.     

Judging Words by Their Covers and the Company They Keep: Probabilistic Cues Support Word Learning

Statistical learning may be central to lexical and grammatical development. The phonological and distributional properties of words provide probabilistic cues to their grammatical and semantic properties. Infants can capitalize on such probabilistic cues to learn grammatical patterns in listening tasks. However, infants often struggle to learn labels when performance requires attending to less obvious cues, raising the question of whether probabilistic cues support word learning. The current experiment presented 22‐month‐olds with an artificial language containing probabilistic correlations between words' statistical and semantic properties. Only infants with higher levels of grammatical development capitalized on statistical cues to support learning word‐referent mappings. These findings suggest that infants' sensitivity to correlations between sounds and meanings may support both word learning and grammatical development.     

Infants' Reliance on a Social Criterion for Establishing Word-Object Relations

The language children hear presents them with a multitude of co-occurrences between words and things in the world, and they must repeatedly determine which among these manifold co-occurrences is relevant. Social factors—such as cues regarding the speaker's referential intent—might serve as one guide to whether word-object covariation should be registered. In 2 studies, infants (15–20 months and 18–20 months in Studies 1 and 2, respectively) heard novel labels at a time when they were investigating a single novel object; in one case the label was uttered by a speaker seated within the infant's view and displaying concurrent attention to the novel toy (coupled condition), whereas in the other case the label emanated from a speaker seated out of the infant's view (decoupled condition). In both studies, subsequent comprehension questions indicated that infants of 18–20 months registered a stable link between label and object in the coupled condition, but not in the decoupled condition, despite the fact that covariation between label and object was equivalent in the 2 conditions. Thus, by 18–20 months children are inclined to establish a mapping between word and object only when a speaker displays signs of referring to that object.     

Modeling referential actions in 6- to 18-month-old infants: a precursor to symbolic understanding

Social precursors to symbolic understanding of pictures were examined with 100 infants ages 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 months. Adults demonstrated 1 of 2 stances toward pictures and objects (contemplative or manipulative), and then gave items to infants for exploration. For pictures, older infants (12, 15, and 18 months) emulated the adult's actions following both types of demonstration trials. For objects, infants did not emulate actions following either stance at any age. The findings suggest that infants enlist their imitative learning skills in the context of learning the conventions of action on pictorial symbols. The data are interpreted as pointing to the importance of social learning in developing an understanding of the referential function of pictorial symbols.     

Sound symbolic word learning in written context

Sound symbolism is the notion that the relation between word sounds and word meaning is not arbitrary for all words, but rather there is a subset of words in the world’s languages for which sounds and their symbols have some degree of correspondence. This research investigates sound symbolism as a possible means of gaining semantic knowledge of unknown words within written context. Two studies assessed adults’ expressive knowledge of word meanings for sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic obsolete words. These words were presented in varying types of contextual surroundings: no context, varied context, unhelpful context, and helpful context. In each study, participants were able to generate more correct definitions for sound symbolic words compared to non-sound symbolic words. It is concluded that sound symbolism is a word property which influences the learning of unknown words.     

Referential Labeling Can Facilitate Phonetic Learning in Infancy

All languages employ certain phonetic contrasts when distinguishing words. Infant speech perception is rapidly attuned to these contrasts before many words are learned, thus phonetic attunement is thought to proceed independently of lexical and referential knowledge. Here, evidence to the contrary is provided. Ninety‐eight 9‐month‐old English‐learning infants were trained to perceive a non‐native Cantonese tone contrast. Two object–tone audiovisual pairings were consistently presented, which highlighted the target contrast (Object A with Tone X; Object B with Tone Y). Tone discrimination was then assessed. Results showed improved tone discrimination if object–tone pairings were perceived as being referential word labels, although this effect was modulated by vocabulary size. Results suggest how lexical and referential knowledge could play a role in phonetic attunement.     

Sound symbolic word learning in the middle grades

Sound symbolism is the notion that there is a subset of words in the world’s languages for which sounds and their symbols have some degree of correspondence. Two studies assessed 5th and 6th graders’ knowledge of word meanings for English sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic words. Both studies found that the meanings of sound symbolic words were guessed more often than those for non-sound symbolic words. Study 1 found this for words presented in isolation and for both native speakers of English and those learning English as a second language. Study 1 also found that there was no difference in the ability to use sound symbolic word information between these two participant groups. Study 2 found superior performance on sound symbolic words presented both in isolation and in context and found that the combination these two types of information yielded greater word learning than either alone. We conclude that sound symbolism is a word property which influences the learning of unknown words.     

指称与析句问题

词典中的词属于无指 ;而句子中的词属于有指 ,包括定指与不定指。汉语里 ,定指与不定指是语义的分析 ,跟句法没有联系。     

The Influence of Shape Similarity and Shared Labels on Infants'' Inductive Inferences about Nonobvious Object Properties

This study examined the influence of object labels and shape similarity on 16- to 21-month-old infants' inductive inferences. In three experiments, a total of 144 infants were presented with novel target objects with or without a nonobvious property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity to the target. When objects were not labeled, infants generalized the nonobvious property to test objects that were highly similar in shape (Experiment 1). When objects were labeled with novel nouns, infants relied both on shape similarity and shared labels to generalize properties (Experiment 2). Finally, when objects were labeled with familiar nouns, infants generalized the properties to those objects that shared the same label, regardless of shape similarity (Experiment 3). The results of these experiments delineate the role of perceptual similarity and conceptual information in guiding infants' inductive inferences.     

A Horse of a Different Color: Specifying With Precision Infants' Mappings of Novel Nouns and Adjectives

A precisely controlled automated procedure confirms a developmental decalage: Infants acquiring English link count nouns to object categories well before they link adjectives to properties. Fourteen- and 18-month-olds ( n = 48 at each age) extended novel words presented as count nouns based on category membership rather than shared properties. When the same words were presented as adjectives, infants revealed no preference for either category- or property-based extensions. The convergence between performance in this automated procedure and in more interactive tasks is striking. Perhaps more importantly, the automated task provides a methodological foundation for (a) exploring the development of form–meaning links in infants acquiring languages other than English and (b) investigating the time course underlying infants' mapping of novel words to meaning.     

Communicating to Learn: Infants’ Pointing Gestures Result in Optimal Learning

Infants’ pointing gestures are a critical predictor of early vocabulary size. However, it remains unknown precisely how pointing relates to word learning. The current study addressed this question in a sample of 108 infants, testing one mechanism by which infants’ pointing may influence their learning. In Study 1, 18‐month‐olds, but not 12‐month‐olds, more readily mapped labels to objects if they had first pointed toward those objects than if they had referenced those objects via other communicative behaviors, such as reaching or gaze alternations. In Study 2, when an experimenter labeled a not pointed‐to‐object, 18‐month‐olds’ pointing was no longer related to enhanced fast mapping. These findings suggest that infants’ pointing gestures reflect a readiness and, potentially, a desire to learn.     

Soothing pain-elicited distress in infants with swaddling and pacifiers

The effectiveness of pacifiers and swaddling in reducing pain-induced distress was compared in 2-week-old infants who underwent heel-sticks and 2-month-old infants who received injections. Crying, state, and heart rate were measured on 32 infants at each age during baseline, the stress of heel-stick or injection, and during 3-min soothing intervention and postintervention periods. At 2 weeks, infants' HR levels and crying declined significantly more rapidly in the pacifier than in the swaddling condition. At 2 months, both conditions produced similar rates of decline in HR and crying. At both ages, infants in the pacifier group spent significantly more time in an alert state than did swaddled infants. Following termination of the intervention at both ages, HR and crying tended to rebound more in the pacifier than in the swaddling group. Swaddling and pacifiers thus reduce pain-elicited distress differently.     

Use orthography in L2 auditory word learning: Who benefits?

The effect of capitalizing on orthography in auditory learning of English words was examined in 74 children who spoke Mandarin Chinese as their primary language. To use orthographic information for auditory word learning, children must recode printed words phonologically to assist the reconstruction of the speech single misheard or underspecified, an ability that may depend heavily on phonological awareness (PA). In this study, children with poorer PA of Chinese and those with better PA were taught novel English words in an auditory learning task under two exposure conditions: auditory words presented with their written forms and auditory words presented with undecodable symbols. Word learning performance was better in the written form condition than in the symbol condition, but the effect was smaller for children with poorer PA. The facilitative effect was associated with L2 PA for children with poorer PA but not for children with better PA. The results are discussed with regard to how poor PA may constrain auditory word learning in an L2 context.     

The birth of words: ten-month-olds learn words through perceptual salience

A core task in language acquisition is mapping words onto objects, actions, and events. Two studies investigated how children learn to map novel labels onto novel objects. Study 1 investigated whether 10-month-olds use both perceptual and social cues to learn a word. Study 2, a control study, tested whether infants paired the label with a particular spatial location rather than to an object. Results show that 10-month-olds can learn new labels and do so by relying on the perceptual salience of an object instead of social cues provided by a speaker. This is in direct contrast to the way in which older children (12-, 18-, and 24-month-olds) learn and extend new object names.     

Representational Abilities and the Hearing Status of Child/Mother Dyads

Two representational abilities, expressive and receptive language and symbolic play, were assessed in multiple formats in hearing and deaf 2-year-old children of hearing and deaf mothers. Based on maternal report, hearing children of hearing and deaf mothers produced more words than deaf children of hearing mothers, hearing children of hearing mothers more words than deaf children of deaf mothers, and deaf children of deaf mothers more words than deaf children of hearing mothers. Based on experimenter assessments, hearing children in both groups produced and comprehended more words than deaf children in both groups. By contrast, no differences emerged among these groups in child solitary symbolic play or in child-initiated or mother-initiated child collaborative symbolic play; all groups also increased equivalently in symbolic play between solitary and collaborative play. Representational language and symbolic play were unrelated in hearing children of hearing mothers and in deaf children of deaf mothers, but the 2 abilities were associated in children in the 2 child/mother mismatched hearing status groups. These findings are placed in the context of a proposed developing modularity of verbal and nonverbal symbol systems, and the implications of hearing status in communicative exchanges between children and their mothers in diverse hearing and deaf dyads are explored.     

Young Word Learners’ Interpretations of Words and Symbolic Gestures Within the Context of Ambiguous Reference

Early in development, many word‐learning phenomena generalize to symbolic gestures. The current study explored whether children avoid lexical overlap in the gestural modality, as they do in the verbal modality, within the context of ambiguous reference. Eighteen‐month‐olds’ interpretations of words and symbolic gestures in a symbol‐disambiguation task (Experiment 1) and a symbol‐learning task (Experiment 2) were investigated. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), children avoided verbal lexical overlap, mapping novel words to unnamed objects; children failed to display this pattern with symbolic gestures. In Experiment 2 (N = 32), 18‐month‐olds mapped both novel words and novel symbolic gestures onto their referents. Implications of these findings for the specialized nature of word learning and the development of lexical overlap avoidance are discussed.     

再辩“老师”与“教师”——从“他是王刚的老师”和“*他是王刚的教师”之别说起

从结构、语义、语用三个层面入手,全面分析"老师"和"教师"的用法区别,揭示了其句法表现差异的深层原因是语义上的有指和无指、单指和通指的不同,以及语用上的色彩差异、面称和背称及语体的不同。