What do we know when we claim to know nothing? Partial knowledge of word meanings may be ontological, but not hierarchical

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeannette M. Stein ◽  
Wendelyn J. Shore
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Partial Knowledge ◽  
Ontological Category ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Ontological Categories ◽  
Low Levels

AbstractTwo studies investigated whether knowledge about ontological category membership exists early in the word learning process—specifically, when words are partially known—and if so, how such knowledge is represented. Participants made decisions about the ontological category membership of words at three levels of knowledge: words they correctly defined (known), words recognized as familiar (frontier), and words mistakenly identified as nonwords (unknown). Accuracy on this task improved as a function of word level. Participants were able to identify the broad ontological categories to which words at all three levels of knowledge belonged, as well as the more specific ontological categories to which the words belonged. Overall, results indicated that knowledge about ontological category membership is available for words at very low levels of knowledge, and that this knowledge does not necessarily follow the strict hierarchical organization some ontological systems are thought to embody (e.g. Keil 1979). Implications for the acquisition and representation of word meanings are discussed.

scholarly journals Word learning from context : relations with language ability, socioeconomic status, and executive function

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Margaret Hill
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Function ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Word Meanings

During the school-age years, children learn most new word meanings from context rather than through deliberate vocabulary instruction. However, the actual process of word learning from context among schoolage children remains poorly understood. Prior research suggests that language ability and higher-order executive function skills such as working memory and inhibitory control of attention may aid children in acquiring new word meanings from context, but studies have not examined the effect of cognitive flexibility on word learning. In addition, although research has shown that children from families of low socioeconomic status (SES) often lag behind their peers from higher-SES backgrounds in vocabulary, there is no evidence to suggest that SES directly influences the word learning process itself. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of language ability, SES, and executive function on word learning from context among typically developing children. Fifty children of ages nine to 11 years completed a standardized measure of language ability and tasks of working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility along with a pretest to assess their understanding of 12 rare target words. Approximately one week later, the children read along with two short stories containing the target words while listening as the stories were narrated aloud by a computer. Posttest results showed that as a group, children made small but significant gains in knowledge of target word meanings from the stories. Analyses showed that both language ability and cognitive flexibility were related to gains in word knowledge, and that children tended to rely more on the stronger of these two skills if either language or cognitive flexibility was relatively weak. Children's SES backgrounds were not directly related to word knowledge gains, but results suggested that SES may influence the word learning process indirectly through an effect on children's cognitive flexibility.

Could we please lose the mapping metaphor, please?

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1119-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
One Year

Although Bloom gives more credit to social cognition (mind reading) than do most other theorists of word learning, he does not go far enough. He still relies fundamentally on a learning process of association (or mapping), neglecting the joint attentional and cultural learning skills from which linguistic communication emerges at one year of age.

The effects of emotional context and exposure frequency on L2 contextual word learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110165
Author(s):  
Sijia Hao ◽  
Lijuan Liang ◽  
Jue Wang ◽  
Huanhuan Liu ◽  
Baoguo Chen
Keyword(s):  
Recognition Test ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Recall Test ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Neutral Context ◽  
Emotional Context ◽  
Exposure Frequency ◽  
Form Recognition

Objectives: An experiment was conducted to explore how emotional valence of contexts and exposure frequency of novel words affect second language (L2) contextual word learning. Methodology: Chinese native speakers who learned English in a formal classroom setting were asked to read English paragraphs with different emotional valence (positive, negative or neutral) across five different days. These paragraphs were embedded with pseudowords. During this learning process, form recognition test and meaning recall test were carried out for these pseudowords. Data and analysis: Data were analyzed using mixed-model ANOVA. Accuracy for each task was compared among the three kinds of emotional contexts. Findings/Conclusions: In the form recognition test, the accuracy in the negative context was higher than in the positive and neutral contexts, and the pseudowords were acquired much earlier. In the meaning recall test, the accuracy in the positive and negative contexts was higher than that in the neutral context. Accuracy increased gradually with the increase of exposure frequency of the pseudowords. More importantly, we found that less exposure times were needed for emotional context relative to neutral context in contextual word learning. Originality: This may be the first study to explore the influence of emotional valence and exposure frequency on L2 contextual word learning. Significance/Implications: This study underlined the importance of emotional information in L2 contextual word learning and contributed to the understanding of how emotional information and exposure frequency functions in this learning process.

scholarly journals The growth of children’s semantic and phonological networks: insight from 10 languages

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdellah Fourtassi ◽  
Yuan Bian ◽  
Michael C. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Word Frequency ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Network Growth ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Developmental Mechanism ◽  
Internal Lexicon ◽  
External Learning

Children tend to produce words earlier when they are connected to a variety of other words along the phonological and semantic dimensions. Though these semantic and phonological connectivity effects have been extensively documented, little is known about their underlying developmental mechanism. One possibility is that learning is driven by lexical network growth where highly connected words in the child's early lexicon enable learning of similar words. Another possibility is that learning is driven by highly connected words in the external learning environment, instead of highly connected words in the early internal lexicon. The present study tests both scenarios systematically in both the phonological and semantic domains across 10 languages. We show that phonological and semantic connectivity in the learning environment drives growth in both production- and comprehension-based vocabularies, even controlling for word frequency and length. This pattern of findings suggests a word learning process where children harness their statistical learning abilities to detect and learn highly connected words in the learning environment.

Using Speakers' Referential Intentions to Model Early Cross-Situational Word Learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 578-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Noah D. Goodman ◽  
Joshua B. Tenenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Object Individuation ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Inference Problems ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Situational Learning

Word learning is a “chicken and egg” problem. If a child could understand speakers' utterances, it would be easy to learn the meanings of individual words, and once a child knows what many words mean, it is easy to infer speakers' intended meanings. To the beginning learner, however, both individual word meanings and speakers' intentions are unknown. We describe a computational model of word learning that solves these two inference problems in parallel, rather than relying exclusively on either the inferred meanings of utterances or cross-situational word-meaning associations. We tested our model using annotated corpus data and found that it inferred pairings between words and object concepts with higher precision than comparison models. Moreover, as the result of making probabilistic inferences about speakers' intentions, our model explains a variety of behavioral phenomena described in the word-learning literature. These phenomena include mutual exclusivity, one-trial learning, cross-situational learning, the role of words in object individuation, and the use of inferred intentions to disambiguate reference.

The early acquisition of word meaning

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Reich
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Early Acquisition ◽  
Special Case

ABSTRACTThe development of the meaning of shoe in one pre-lingual child, plus additional examples drawn from the literature, support a notion that word meanings start out very narrow and only become overextended later, though sometimes before the word is spoken. This appears to contradict the course of development of meaning hypothesized by Clark (1973). It is argued that the early development of word meaning is simply a special case of a much more general learning process.

Partial knowledge of word meanings.

1991 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis T. Durso ◽  
Wendelyn J. Shore
Keyword(s):  
Partial Knowledge ◽  
Word Meanings

scholarly journals A “Bird’s Eye View” on Communication Acts in a Classroom of Low Literacy Adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
Carlos Luís ◽  
Helena Afonso ◽  
Maria José Marcelino
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Low Literacy ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Contextual Design ◽  
Educational Challenges ◽  
Training Courses ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Teaching Learning

This paper starts by discussing the relevance of dialogues in Adult Education and Training courses with low levels of literacy. In this group, the educational challenges are complex, and innovating the knowledge creation process involves a better understanding of the teaching/learning process. With these case study, we pretend to understand which Communicative Acts are effective in adult learning process, mainly in adults with low literacy. Based on a mixed methods, applied to a convenience sample, we used an ethnographic approach, and the Grounded Theory Methodology. Using the Contextual Design approach, we developed several models of the context (work models) and got a bird's-eye view of the way the communicational acts and the dynamic acts flow in the classroom. The results showed that it was important to integrate the learners' emotions in an existing framework, the SEDA Framework. We found also essential to expand the Communicative Acts coding, with a new set of 17 codes organized in 3 categories in order to understand better the flow of communication in the classroom.

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