Acquisition Of Words Research Articles

Recoded words in Russian media space

The relevance of the study is determined by the active use of foreign words in the media space, this fact contributes to widespread occurrence of anglicisms and their penetration into the Russian language. The research aims to define peculiarities of using foreign words in modern Russian newspapers and specific features of their assimilation in the Russian language. The novelty is characterized both by the analyzed language material and the research approach which focuses attention not on the result but mainly on the process of borrowing foreign words, defines stages of their assimilation in the receiving language. The research is carried out on the basis of newspaper subcorpus of the National Corpus of the Russian Language since 2000. All the examples of recoded lexical items were analyzed according to their graphics, semantics, morphology, syntax and stylistics. The methods of comparative, contextual and distributive analysis as well as statistic methods were used during the research. The proposed theory of step-by-step acquisition of foreign words at different language levels has theoretical relevance. A particular group of foreign words recoded from foreign languages but not yet adopted by the Russian language system has been examined. The practical relevance consists in revealing some peculiarities of recoded words assimilation in written texts. The author shows that foreign words receive some morphological features, display particular word-building activity and have syntagmatic associations typical for the host language just before they enter the receiving language system. The research may be useful for further studies and finding solutions to the problems of the penetration of lexical items with foreign origin and their assimilation in the receiving language.

Spot It and Learn It! Word Learning in Virtual Peer‐Group Interactions Using a Novel Paradigm for School‐Aged Children

AbstractWe use a novel paradigm to examine the effect of language exposure and variable input on the acquisition of words in primary school–aged children. Children growing up with different languages and foreign or regional accents in their input might benefit from their experience with variability when learning new words from peers with unfamiliar accents. We ask to what extent language and accent experience helps monolingual and bilingual children learn new words in the context of accent variability. Children (aged 7–11 years) played a computerized card game with virtual peers that resembles natural advanced lexical acquisition, during which new words are learned from child speakers and are produced actively in peer‐group interactions. Successful word learning was predicted by the amount of input in regional and foreign accents but not by exposure to other languages (i.e., bilingualism). We discuss how accent experience affects word learning under variable input conditions.

Effects of Parent-Implemented Language Intervention on Communication Skills of Iranian Toddlers: A Pilot Randomized Control Trial

Introduction: In recent years, some studies have indicated that some aspects of language performance of children from low socioeconomic status (SES) families are lower in language tests. Appropriate and timely interventions can partially prevent communication problems in these children. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a parental education program on word acquisition rates in Iranian toddlers from low SES families.
 Materials and Methods: Sixty-six mothers (toddlers aged 12-14 months) participated in this randomized controlled trial study. These mothers were allocated to the experimental group and control group using the randomization method of the permuted block (each block=6). After baseline assessments, mothers in the experimental group received parental education program aimed at enriching the mother-child interactions and mothers’ knowledge of communication development for 9 weeks. The control group did not receive any education. The outcome measures were children’s scores on the Persian version of the McArthur-Bates communicative development inventories and mothers’ scores in multiple-choice exams regarding workshops’ contents. Data were analyzed using of Chi-square test, independent t test and paired samples t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
 Results: Both groups had a significant increase in vocabulary size, while changes in the experimental group were more than double that of the control group (P<0.001). Other aspects of communicative behaviors, such as imitation, naming, and intentionality were changed only in the experimental group according to the course of typical development (P<0.001). Mothers significantly got higher scores after the workshops in a multiple-choice exam regarding children’s communication, language, and interaction (P<0.001).
 Conclusion: The results demonstrate that mothers’ knowledge of communication development is malleable and probably has positive effects on the communication behaviors of toddlers from low SES backgrounds.

Current Research on Individual Differences in Early Expressive Word Acquisition

This study reviews recent research on individual differences in early word production and examines the necessary research on this topic for children with atypical development. Previous studies on children’s early lexical processing efficiency have suggested that the formation of mental representations for lexical structure and phonological representations with language input from ambient language may be related to individual differences in children’s early expressive word acquisition. Considering the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and early word acquisition in children, related factors, such as language experience, mind-mindedness, and sharing mental representation with their caregivers, are essential. In addition, it is necessary to confirm whether the trajectory of each factor, including fine motor skills and cognitive development in the child’s home, affects individual differences in expressive word acquisition. To date, the dynamic systems and domain-relevant approaches from the viewpoint of self-organization are still essential. Thus, by using these techniques, evidence of continuity from the pre-linguistic period, based on the viewpoint of individual differences in early word production for children with atypical development, can be obtained.

The effect of content retelling on incidental vocabulary acquisition for Chinese EFL learners

As the foundation of English learning, the acquisition of vocabulary has always been a hot topic in the fields of second language acquisition and foreign language teaching. Contrasted with intentional vocabulary acquisition, incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) relates to lexical gains as a by-product of main cognitive activities. In the field of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Chinese high schools, the incidental acquisition of English vocabulary has increasingly attracted the academic attention in recent years. However, few empirical studies have focused on the incidental acquisition of English vocabulary engendered by doing content retelling tasks. In light of the inadequacy, this study adopted the quality audio-visual material as input and content retelling as output (forming an input-output-input circle), aiming at exploring the effect of retelling on Chinese high school EFL learners’ IVA. Results indicated that learners who retold the content of the audio-visual material between two viewings can pick up more words. In this process, the attempted use of new words in oral reproduction plays a positive role in strengthening the immediate acquisition and long-term retention of the target words.

Effects of Incremental Rehearsal on Sight Word and Letter Acquisition among Students with Autism and Cognitive Impairment

Incremental rehearsal (IR) is a flashcard intervention that involves the interspersal of previously mastered targets and immediate error correction. Previous research indicates IR is an effective intervention for teaching discrete skills. Much of existing research, however, was conducted with typically developing students. The current study aimed to extend the literature by being the first to implement IR with students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and an intellectual disability receiving instruction in a self-contained special-education setting. A multiple probe design across sets of stimuli was used to evaluate the effectiveness of IR on sight word and letter acquisition among three early elementary students with autism and cognitive impairment. Results indicated that IR was effective for all participants. Further, the results provided evidence that IR can be used with known stimuli from a stimulus class other than the stimulus class from which unknown stimuli are being drawn. Future research should compare IR to other flashcard interventions regularly employed with this student population.

Role of Semantic Teaching in the Acquisition of New Words

Fast mapping refers to the acquisition of new words in children just by the virtue of mere exposure. With a minimal exposure the words are imbibed. This study was carried with the aim of comparing the fast mapping and slow mapping in typically developing children. A total of 20 children in the age range of 5-6 years were considered for the study and the participants were divided into two groups on random basis. Fast mapping and slow mapping methods were used to train the first and group respectively. In fast mapping, the participants were exposed to the label of the target word for 5 times. In slow mapping method, the semantic features related to the target word was taught to the participants. The number of words learnt by group 1 and group 2 children was computed on immediate naming task and delayed naming. Statistically there was no significant difference between number of words learnt on fast mapping and slow mapping as observed on Mann-Whitney U test. While there was significant difference between the two methods on delayed naming as proven by the same statistic. More number of words learnt through slow mapping suggested that it was effective in evoking learning.

Applying adaptive distributed practice to self-managed computer-based anomia treatment: A single-case experimental design

IntroductionThere is a pressing need to improve computer-based treatments for aphasia to increase access to long-term effective evidence-based interventions. The current single case design incorporated two learning principles, adaptive distributed practice and stimuli variability, to promote acquisition, retention, and generalization of words in a self-managed computer-based anomia treatment. MethodsTwo participants with post-stroke aphasia completed a 12-week adaptive distributed practice naming intervention in a single-case experimental design. Stimuli variability was manipulated in three experimental conditions: high exemplar variability, low exemplar variability, and verbal description prompt balanced across 120 trained words. Outcomes were assessed at 1-week, 1-month, and 3-months post-treatment. Statistical comparisons and effect sizes measured in the number of words acquired, generalized, and retained were estimated using Bayesian generalized mixed-effect models. ResultsParticipants showed large and robust acquisition, generalization, and retention effects. Out of 120 trained words, participant 1 acquired ∼77 words (trained picture exemplars) and ∼63 generalization words (untrained picture exemplars of treated words). Similarly, participant 2 acquired ∼57 trained words and ∼48 generalization words. There was no reliable change in untrained control words for either participant. Stimuli variability did not show practically meaningful effects. ConclusionsThese case studies suggest that adaptive distributed practice is an effective method for re-training more words than typically targeted in anomia treatment research (∼47 words on average per Snell et al., 2010). Generalization across experimental conditions provided evidence for improved lexical access beyond what could be attributed to simple stimulus-response mapping. These effects were obtained using free, open-source flashcard software in a clinically feasible, asynchronous format, thereby minimizing clinical implementation barriers. Larger-scale clinical trials are required to replicate and extend these effects.

From Play to Language: Infants’ Actions on Objects Cascade to Word Learning

AbstractInfants build knowledge by acting on the world. We conducted an ecologically grounded test of an embodied learning hypothesis: that infants’ active engagement with objects in the home environment elicits caregiver naming and cascades to learning object names. Our home‐based study extends laboratory‐based theories to identify real‐world processes that support infant word learning. Frame‐by‐frame coding of 2‐hr video recordings of 32 mothers and their 18‐ to 23‐month‐old infants focused on infant manipulation and mother and infant naming of 245 unique objects. Objects manipulated by infants and/or named by mothers were more likely to appear in infants’ vocabularies and spontaneous speech relative to nonmanipulated objects and objects that mothers did not name. Furthermore, the vocabularies of 5,520 infants hosted on Wordbank revealed an early age of acquisition of words for objects that mothers named and infants manipulated. Infants actively build object–word mappings from everyday engagements with objects in the context of social interactions.

EFEKTIVITAS SEMANTIK PRIMING DALAM ATASI FENOMENA TIP OF THE TONGUE

The obstacle in accessing words that have been stored in memory is called the Tip of the Tongue phenomenon (ToT). This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of semantic priming techniques and sub lexicon codes in facilitating the process of accessing the lexicon when the subjects are in ToT state. This research is a qualitative descriptive study where the researcher conducted an experiment with a psycholinguistic analysis approach. The data are in the form of target words, prime words, and the success rate of the subject in recalling words. The data were obtained from the experiments, interviews, and observations involving 8 students at the tertiary level with an age range of 18-22 years. The results showed that the effectiveness rate of semantic priming in the process of accessing the lexicon is 67,6%, onset 8,9%, first syllable 23,5%. In addition, there were also factors that influenced the subjects' success in recalling words, such as age, character and intelligence, subject selective processes, inhibiting words, health and word acquisition processes. To conclude, priming associative semantics was quite effective in helping the subject recall words when the subject in the Tip of the Tongue State.

Nursery Rhymes: Its Effectiveness in Teaching of English among Pre-Schoolers

Nursery rhymes play an important role in young children as they help develop their English language. This study investigated the teachers’ perceptions on the use of lyrics and animation of the nursery rhymes in helping pre-schoolers to learn vocabulary skills and spelling of English words as well as improving their grammar knowledge. The study employed a survey design among 48 kindergarten teachers using a Google link form. The preliminary findings indicated that generally the teachers agree that nursery rhymes should be used in the teaching of English as the initial results indicated that preschool children’s acquisition of new words and grammar was significant using nursery rhymes. This shows that nursery rhymes not only motivate pre-schoolers to learn the language but also create a platform to encourage them to be more interactive while listening to the rhymes.

Study on acquisition of time words by children with autism spectrum disorders

Study on acquisition of time words by children with autism spectrum disorders

Reference and morphology*

AbstractThe dominant tradition in analytic philosophy of language views reference as paradigmatically enabled by the acquisition of words from other speakers. Via chains of transmission, these words connect the referrer to the referent. Such a picture assumes the notion of a word as a stable mapping between sound and meaning. Utterances are constructed out of such stable mappings. While this picture of language is both intuitive and historically distinguished, various trends and programs that have developed over the last few decades in theoretical linguistics suggest an alternative. According to these approaches, the word, conceived of as a linguistic ‘building block’, has no special theoretical significance. While natural language systems generate structures mapping sounds onto meanings, they need not do so by composing elements which themselves specify such mappings. I shall describe some of these developments, and show how they pose a problem for traditional philosophical views of language and communication, before identifying an alternative approach to reference which does not rely on this common‐sense picture of words.

The Use of Total Physical Response in Teaching Vocabulary Integrated with Meaningful Classroom Interaction

The deep consideration in teaching vocabulary is promosing a deep level of processing that can involve either long-term or short-term memory. This study was aimed at investigating the use of total physical response in the teaching of vocabulary integrated with meaningful classroom interaction. To attain the research aim, this study employed classroom action research. The steps of classroom action consisted of Planning, Acting, Evaluating and Reflecting. In the planning phase, researchers prepared lesson plans in line with students’ vocabulary problems and mastery. The students’ vocabulary problems were determined on how their solutions were before applying it in the class. The phase of the Acting is the session of applying total physical response as learning activities to improve students’ vocabulary. The acting activities should be done in accordance with the previous plan prepared. The last but not least is evaluating and reflecting. It referred to the evaluation process since researchers applied the learning strategies in the class. The upcoming process is then reflection, and it is emphasized on whether the learning plans are on the track. This study was carried out in middle schools. The sample was chosen by using purposive sampling technique. 37 students in the eleventh-grade class were involved in this study. The successful criteria were enacted in 75, and the indicators covered expanding word knowledge, adding specific words, word-learning strategies, and word-play activities. Based on the analysis result, students were able to conduct various learning activities to improve wide and extensive independent reading activities to expand their word acquisition and knowledge; students were able to perform meaningful strategies relating to specific words to improve their comprehension of texts containing those words; students were able to perform word-play activities to improve learning atmospheres in the class. Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of total physical response was able to improve students’ vocabulary mastery in integration with meaningful classroom interaction. The implementation of this strategy with paying attention to classroom interaction is strongly recommended to be applied for other language elements.

Corpus-based age of word acquisition: Does it support the validity of adult age-of-acquisition ratings?

Age of acquisition (AoA) is presumed to reflect the age or relative order in which words are learned, but is often measured using adult ratings or adult-reported observations and might thus reflect more about the adult language than about the acquisition process. Objective AoA estimates are often limited to words whose referents can be shown in pictures. We created a corpus-derived AoA estimate based on first word occurrences in a longitudinal corpus of child English, and evaluated its reliability and validity against other measures of AoA. Then we used these different measures as concurrent predictors of adult lexical decision times. Our results showed adequate reliability and good relations with other AoA measures, especially with parent-reported AoA (r = 0.56). Corpus AoA did not predict unique variance in lexical decision times, while adult AoA ratings and parent-reported AoA did. We argue that this pattern is due to two factors. First, the adult AoA ratings and parent-reported AoA are confounded with adult memory, lexical processing and reading difficulty variables. Second, the adult AoA ratings are related to actual age of acquisition only for words acquired during later preschool and school age. Our analyses support the utility of corpus-derived AoA estimates as an objective measure of acquisition age, especially for early-acquired words.

Learning new words by reading books: Does semantic information help?

Encountering new words during reading is a common experience of any adult reader and it constitutes an important source of word knowledge. Despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon, studies remain scarce in adults. Here, we addressed new word acquisition in adults using a natural contextual exposure, and we focused on the influence of context informativeness on orthographic learning. Indeed, previous studies suggest that the availability of semantic information plays an important role in orthographic learning in adults, but no such advantage was found in children. We hypothesised that this discrepancy comes from the fact that new word learning was examined almost only through artificial settings in adults. On the contrary, in the present study, adult participants were exposed to new words by reading a book. Half of the new words were embedded in informative contexts (easy to infer new word meaning) and the other half in less informative contexts. Both recall and recognition tasks were used to assess orthographic and semantic learning. The results showed efficient learning of the orthographic form and no reliable effect of the context informativeness. Regarding semantic learning, we found that if a word was correctly spelled, its definition was more likely to be retrieved. This shows that the orthographic and semantic dimensions of a word co-occurring in context are likely to influence each other during lexical acquisition. More generally, the present experiment showed that using an ecological learning design is essential to understand the mechanism of new word learning.

Faroese children’s first words

AbstractResearch has shown the importance of vocabulary development in relation to other parts of language development, e.g. grammar and reading development. Cross-linguistic research has shown similar as well as dissimilar tendencies regarding content in different languages. This study examines, for the first time, the characteristics of Faroese children’s early productive vocabulary utilizing a Faroese adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI). The study participants were 415 children aged 8 to 20 months. The results provide information on the composition and characteristics of lexical development in Faroese children and demonstrate that nouns are dominant among first words, as are onomatopoetic words and words describing family relationships. Faroese children are comparable to children learning other languages with respect to rate of acquisition and composition of words, with a somewhat higher share of words describing family members as stable words in the emerging language.

Explicit encoding vs. fast mapping of novel spoken words: Electrophysiological and behavioural evidence of diverging mechanisms

It has been claimed that two major neurocognitive mechanisms – instruction-based explicit encoding (EE) and inference-driven fast mapping (FM) may be involved in rapid acquisition of novel words, but their exact neural underpinnings remain poorly understood. To address this, we trained 36 adult participants with 20 novel spoken words in an audio-visual task, carefully balanced between the EE and FM conditions for physical, psycholinguistic and pragmatic properties as well as the overall task setup. To assess the neural dynamics associated with novel word acquisition, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by these words before and after training, and analysed their relationship with the behavioural learning outcomes, measured in a semantic matching task. Both learning regimes led to successful acquisition, which was somewhat more efficient for EE than FM, as indicated by higher accuracy in the behavioural task. We also found that, whereas words learnt via both EE and FM protocols elicited most pronounced ERP peaks at ∼196 and ∼280 ms, these two phases of activity diverged with respect to the learning type. Multiple linear regression and correlation analyses indicated that the learning-induced amplitude dynamics in the earlier peak was significantly related to behavioural performance for FM-learned items, which may possibly be explained by FM's stronger reliance on early automatic mechanisms of word processing. Performance on EE words was, in turn, significantly linked to the amplitude of the second peak only, potentially due to the involvement of later, top-down controlled processes in this type of word acquisition. Grand-average ERP-based source analysis indicated a left-lateralised activity in the anterior-temporal lobe for FM learning, and a bilateral activation for EE. The results confirm the existence of partially diverging neurocognitive systems for word acquisition and suggest that the configuration of newly established word memory circuits depends on the mode of their acquisition.

Investigation into the Effective Use of Dictionaries in Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Words lay in the core position in language acquisition, however, acquiring a word is far more than its meaning acquisition. Aiming at helping foreign language learners who want to become good language learners or native-like learners through the word (or vocabulary) acquisition, the goal of becoming high intake generators at vocabulary acquisition is targeted and the learning method concerning the effective use of a carefully selected dictionary is explored. How to select a desirable dictionary and how to effectively use the carefully selected dictionary are the two main aspects to be investigated. The essence of the two investigation aspects is to guarantee the optimal input and strategically maximized intake developed from the input. Based on the analyses of the required functions and components of dictionary, it is investigated thoroughly that an optimal monolingual foreign dictionary is selected out, with the optimal input including a desirable type of meaning definitions, corresponding pictures to vocabulary items and “complete knowledge”. Next, effective learning strategies when using the selected dictionary are explored to realize learners’ strategically maximization of language intake from the input, which includes the adaption to the monolingual model, the applications of transfer, note-taking, effective mnemonic strategies and the psychological preparations.

The effect of frequency of exposure on the processing and learning of collocations: A comparison of first and second language readers’ eye movements

AbstractThis study examined the processing and acquisition of novel words and their collocates (i.e., words that frequently co-occur with other words) from reading and the effect of frequency of exposure on this process. First and second language speakers of English read a story with 1) eight exposures of adjective-pseudoword collocations, 2) four exposures of the same collocations, or 3) eight exposures of control collocations. Results of recall and recognition tests showed that participants acquired knowledge not only of the form and meaning of the pseudowords but also of their collocates. The analysis of eye movements showed a significant effect of exposure on the processing of novel collocations for both first and second language readers, with reading times decreasing as a function of exposure. Eight exposures to novel adjective-pseudoword collocations were enough to develop processing speed comparable to that of known collocations. However, when analyzing the processing of the individual components of the collocations, results showed that eight exposures to the pseudowords were not enough for second language readers to develop processing speed comparable to known words. The frequency manipulation in the present study (four vs. eight exposures) did not lead to differences in the learning or processing of collocations. Finally, reading times were not a significant predictor of vocabulary gains.