Wittgenstein and contemporary theories of word learning

Abstract

Wittgenstein's positions on word learning, rules of use, and the impossibility of a private language, as expounded in his Philosophical Investigations, are examined in relation to issues of early child word learning. Current theoretical positions in the cognitivist mode are contrasted with the social cultural pragmatic approach, and each is compared to the principles that Wittgenstein advanced. Bloom's [(2000). How children learn the meanings of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] version of the cognitivist theory rejects most of the principles that Wittgenstein advanced, relying on innate cognitive endowments to explain children's success in word learning, using the word-referent mapping paradigm. Nelson's “use without meaning” and Tomasello's [(2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press] social-pragmatic model of learning from use are presented as representative of Wittgensteinian principles that meaning exists in and is inferred from the uses of words within communal activities (“language games” in “forms of life”).