How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

Abstract

How Children Learn the Meanings of Words by Paul Bloom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2000, xii+300 pp. Reviewed by Masahiko Minami San Francisco State University How do children learn the meanings of words? In his new book, Paul Bloom examines a variety of issues associated with children's word learning, a process intricately connected with other aspects of language acquisition. Bloom claims that children learn words via cognitive abilities that already exist for other pur- poses, such as the ability to infer others' intentions, the ability to acquire concepts, and an appreciation of syntactic In structure. Bloom's book provides a series of el- egant and convincing arguments concerning how children learn words. briefly Chapter First Words, Bloom lays out the plan for the book and describes issues surrounding the overall topic. In Chapter 2 the author explores fast mapping, in which children make a quick guess about a word's denotation on the basis of limited experience. Chapter 3, Theory of Mind, deals with a wide range of topics, including the listener's ability to determine the references made by his or her interlocutor's choice of words; here also, Bloom investigates children's appreciation of the mental states of others, through which children acquire lexical items (and syntax as well) by means of associative acquire are nouns, learning. Because the majority of words that children initially Bloom gives special treatment to nouns and pronouns: Common nouns are discussed in Chapter 4, and pronouns and proper names are dealt with in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, Concepts and Categories, Bloom extends his analysis to the conceptual foundations of word learning. In Chapter Naming Representations, he discusses a case study important to any theory of concepts and naming visual representations. From here, Bloom moves to other parts of speech: In Chapter 8, Learning Words through Linguistic Context, he offers an account of how chil- dren learn verbs and adjectives, as the development of syntactic abilities cannot be dissociated from the development of lexical abilities. Chapter 9 deals with learn the how we numbers and Chapter 10 with how the words we learn affect our mental life. In Chapter 11, Final Words, Bloom provides a brief summary and some general remarks. Throughout the book, the author weaves in ideas pro- posed by such linguists, psychologists, and philosophers as B. F. Skinner, Noam Chomsky, and Jean Piaget, who, through different lenses, have closely observed words for and analyzed how human beings develop and around them. issue long relevant to how they conceptualize the world As with most language acquisition texts, Bloom makes early reference to an human development: the nature/nurture debate. These alter- ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 12 Issues in Applied Linguistics © 2001, Regents of the University of California No.