scholarly journals Vois-tu le kem? Do you see the bos? Foreign word learning at 14-months

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea da Estrela ◽  
Krista Byers-Heinlein
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Old English ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Sentential Context ◽  
Foreign Word ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Word Forms

How easily can infants regularly exposed to only one language begin to acquire a second one? In three experiments, we tested 14‐month‐old English and French monolingual infants’ ability to learn words presented in foreign language sentence frames. Infants were trained on two novel word‐object pairings and then tested using a preferential looking task. Word forms were phonetically and phonotactically legal in both languages, and cross‐spliced across conditions, so only the sentence frames established the word as native or foreign. In Experiment 1, infants were taught one native and one foreign word and successfully learned both. In Experiment 2 and 3, infants were taught two foreign words, but only showed successful learning of the first word they encountered. These results demonstrate that infants can successfully learn words embedded in foreign language sentences, but this is more challenging than native word learning. More broadly, they show that the sentential context of a novel word, and not just the word form itself, influences infants’ early word learning.

Form-first approach in foreign language word learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Aleck Shih-wei Chen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
First Graders ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Word Use ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Learning Success ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Beginning Learners

This article reports a study examining whether foreign language (FL) word learning can be improved with reduction in cognitive load. Cognitive load theory has received substantial supports in various fields of learning but never in FL word learning. Due to the defined poverty in exposure to the FL, hence deprived cognitive pre-requisites for natural FL development, cognitive load could be critical to FL learning success. Thus while word learning may be a simple attempt of associating word forms with their meanings for L1 children, for FL learners, the cognitive load is multiplied by the additional task of taming the often intractable phonological forms (both perceptive and productive) at the same time they are making the association. In light of cognitive burden reduction, FL learners could thus benefit from learning phonological forms first as their L1 counterparts do. The present study examined whether beginning learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) learn English novel names better if first familiarized with the phonological rimes of target names whose referents are taught only later. Chinese-speaking first graders were assigned to one of three teaching conditions: rime familiarization, which familiarized children with rimes through rhyming activities without any meanings involved; spoken vocabulary, which taught words in rhyming groups together with their referents; and semantic control, which focused on word use. As the results showed, the rime familiarization group outperformed the other two by an improvement score several times greater, suggesting the critical role of cognitive load in FL word learning success.

Pregnantie Van Context en Effect Ervan op Het Raden, Leren en Onthouden Van Vreemdtalige Woorden

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 32-41
Author(s):  
Jan-Arjen Mondria
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Classroom Setting ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Sentential Context ◽  
Learning Stage ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This paper reports research into the acquisition of vocabulary in a foreign language, more specifically into the supposition that 'guessing' (i.e. inferring the meaning of an unknown word from context and word-form) contributes substantially to retention. Although much is to be said for the latter, the empirical underpinning of this supposition has so far been slight and various questions have remained. In order to gain a better insight into these we have carried out an experiment in a classroom setting, focussing on the following questions: 1.Which factors of context influence the guessability of words? 2.What is the influence of these factors on receptive retention (after guessing and learning)? 3.What is the relationship between guessing and retention? (Are words which have been correctly guessed better retained than words which have not been correctly guessed?) The chief findings of the experiment are: l.A specific ('pregnant') filler of the slots 'subject', 'verb' and 'function' contributes to the guessability of a word in a particular sentential context. 2. A specific ('pregnant') filler of the slots mentioned in guessing and learning has no effect on the retention ('subject' and 'verb') or even a negative effect ('function'). 3.There is no positive correlation between guessing and retention (after guessing and learning; for some words there is even a negative correlation. To sum up: a 'pregnant' context does indeed induce better guessing, but subsequently it does not induce a better retention of the meaning involved, at least not if the guessing stage is followed by a learning stage using the same context as in guessing.

Language experience and preschoolers' foreign word learning

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER MENJIVAR ◽  
NAMEERA AKHTAR
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Old English ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Foreign Word ◽  
Novel Objects

Four-year-old English speakers (N = 48) who were monolingual, bilingual, or regularly exposed to a second language were taught what they were told were foreign labels for familiar and novel objects. When task demands were low, there was no difference in word learning among the three groups. However, when task demands were higher, bilinguals learned more words than monolingual children, and exposed children's performance fell between the two. These findings indicate that the bilingual word learning advantage seen in adults may begin as early as the preschool years.

scholarly journals Children’s Tolerance of Word-Form Variation

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Bruening ◽  
Patricia J. Brooks ◽  
Louis Alfieri ◽  
Vera Kempe ◽  
Ineta Dabašinskienė
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Morphological Variation ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Word Onset ◽  
Morphological Patterns

How much morphological variation can children tolerate when identifying familiar words? This is an important question in the context of the acquisition of richly inflected languages where identical word forms occur far less frequently than in English. To address this question, we compared children’s (N=96, mean age 4;1, range 2;11–5;1) and adults’ (N=96, mean age 21 years) tolerance of word-onset modifications (e.g., for stug: wug and wastug) and pseudoaffixes (e.g., kostug and stugko) in a label-extension task. Word-form modifications were repeated within each experiment to establish productive inflectional patterns. In two experiments, children and adults exhibited similar strategies: they were more tolerant of prefixes (wastug) than substitutions of initial consonants (wug), and more tolerant of suffixes (stugko) than prefixes (kostug). The findings point to word-learning strategies as being flexible and adaptive to morphological patterns in languages.

Resolving referential ambiguity across ambiguous situations in young foreign language learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHIEH-FANG HU
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
First Language ◽  
English Word ◽  
Retention Performance ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Referential Ambiguity

ABSTRACTFirst language learners can track word-referent co-occurrence information across situations and evaluate co-occurrence probabilities across situations to determine the best-of-fit mappings. However, cross-situational word learning can be difficult to foreign language learners, because in addition to aggregating information across situations, they have to build robust representations for foreign-sounding words. In Experiment 1, third-grade Mandarin-speaking children learned four English word-referent pairs in two conditions, varying in within-trial ambiguity. In one condition, information about word-referent association was determinable across trials but not within a trial. In the other, word-referent association within a trial was inferable. In Experiment 2, participants learned words in a condition where referential ambiguity across trials, though not within a trial, was reduced by successive presentation of certain word-referent pairs. The results revealed that participants learned more word-referent pairs than expected by chance. Reducing ambiguity within a trial facilitated word mapping and word retention (Experiment 1), but reducing ambiguity across trials did not (Experiment 2). Across two experiments, word mapping and retention performance was associated with phonological awareness, whether measured in children's first language or a foreign language, but not with digit span, suggesting that success in cross-situational word learning in a foreign language rests on specification of word forms.

Measuring Word Learning Ability in Sequential Bilingual Children

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pui Fong Kan
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract The purpose of this article is to look at the word learning skills in sequential bilingual children—children who learn two languages (L1 and L2) at different times in their childhood. Learning a new word is a process of learning a word form and relating this form to a concept. For bilingual children, each concept might need to map onto two word forms (in L1 and in L2). In case studies, I present 3 typically developing Hmong-English bilingual preschoolers' word learning skills in Hmong (L1) and in English (L2) during an 8-week period (4 weeks for each language). The results showed gains in novel-word knowledge in L1 and in L2 when the amount of input is equal for both languages. The individual differences in novel word learning are discussed.

scholarly journals Why Words Are Hard for Adults With Developmental Language Impairments

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 1845-1856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karla K. McGregor ◽  
Ulla Licandro ◽  
Richard Arenas ◽  
Nichole Eden ◽  
Derek Stiles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Normal Development ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Language Impairments ◽  
Learning Problems ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Purpose To determine whether word learning problems associated with developmental language impairment (LI) reflect deficits in encoding or subsequent remembering of forms and meanings. Method Sixty-nine 18- to 25-year-olds with LI or without (the normal development [ND] group) took tests to measure learning of 16 word forms and meanings immediately after training (encoding) and 12 hr, 24 hr, and 1 week later (remembering). Half of the participants trained in the morning, and half trained in the evening. Results At immediate posttest, participants with LI performed more poorly on form and meaning than those with ND. Poor performance was more likely among those with more severe LI. The LI–ND gap for word form recall widened over 1 week. In contrast, the LI and ND groups demonstrated no difference in remembering word meanings over the week. In both groups, participants who trained in the evening, and therefore slept shortly after training, demonstrated greater gains in meaning recall than those who trained in the morning. Conclusions Some adults with LI have encoding deficits that limit the addition of word forms and meanings to the lexicon. Similarities and differences in patterns of remembering in the LI and ND groups motivate the hypothesis that consolidation of declarative memory is a strength for adults with LI.

Factors Affecting the Learning of Foreign Language Vocabulary: Imagery Keyword Mediators and Phonological Short-Term Memory

1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Ellis ◽  
Alan Beaton
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Foreign Word ◽  
Lexical Factors

In order to investigate the cognitive processes involved in learning Foreign Language (FL) vocabulary, this study evaluates different methods of instruction. It demonstrates that keyword techniques are effective for receptive learning but that repetition is a superior strategy for learning to produce the foreign word. Performance is optimal when learners combine both strategies. The nature of the keyword is crucial–-whereas imageable noun keywords promote learning, verb keywords actually impede it. A theoretical analysis of the roles of phonological short-term memory, imagery, and lexical factors in FL vocabulary learning is presented.

Vocal production and novel word learning in the first year

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 606-616
Author(s):  
Marinella MAJORANO ◽  
Tamara BASTIANELLO ◽  
Marika MORELLI ◽  
Manuela LAVELLI ◽  
Marilyn M. VIHMAN
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
First Year ◽  
Vocal Production ◽  
Only Children ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractPrevious studies have demonstrated an effect of early vocal production on infants’ speech processing and later vocabulary. This study focuses on the relationship between vocal production and new word learning. Thirty monolingual Italian-learning infants were recorded at about 11 months, to establish the extent of their consonant production. In parallel, the infants were trained on novel word–object pairs, two consisting of early learned consonants (ELC), two consisting of late learned consonants (LLC). Word learning was assessed through Preferential Looking. The results suggest that vocal production supports word learning: Only children with higher, consistent consonant production attended more to the trained ELC images.

Context and paradigms

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Current Work ◽  
Yield Reduction ◽  
Exemplar Model ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Pronunciation Variation ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Verbal Agreement

A small but growing body of research on English and Dutch has found that pronunciation of affixes in a word form is sensitive to paradigmatic probability – i.e., the probability of using that form over other words in the same morphological paradigm. Yet it remains unclear (a) how paradigmatic probability is best measured; (b) whether an increase in paradigmatic probability leads to phonetic enhancement or reduction; and (c) by what mechanism paradigmatic probability can affect pronunciation. The current work examines pronunciation variation of Russian verbal agreement suffixes. I show that there are two distinct patterns of variation, corresponding to two different measures of paradigmatic probability. One measure, pairwise paradigmatic probability, is associated with a pronunciation pattern that resembles phonetic enhancement. The second measure, lexeme paradigmatic probability, can show enhancement effects, but can also yield reduction effects more similar to those of contextual probability. I propose that these two patterns can be explained in an exemplar model of lexical storage. Reduction effects are the consequence of faster retrieval and encoding of an articulatory target, while effects that resemble enhancement result when the pronunciation target of both members of a pair of competing word forms is shifted towards the more frequent of two.

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