Pub Date : 2023-06-28DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2023.2224786
Y. Oshima-Takane
{"title":"20-Month-Old infants’ Use of Noun and Verb Morphosyntactic Cues in Novel Word Learning in Dynamic Events","authors":"Y. Oshima-Takane","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2023.2224786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2023.2224786","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"511 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75231779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-04DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2023.2196531
B. Landau, E. Davis, Özge Gürcanlı, Colin Wilson
{"title":"How Does English Encode ‘Tight’ Vs. ‘Loose-fit’ Motion Events? It’s Complicated","authors":"B. Landau, E. Davis, Özge Gürcanlı, Colin Wilson","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2023.2196531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2023.2196531","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88201888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2050236
Elspeth Wilson, Rebecca Lawrence, N. Katsos
ABSTRACT Young children excel at pragmatic inferences known as ad hoc quantity implicatures: they can infer, for example, that a speaker who said “the card with apples” meant the card with nothing but apples. However, it is not known whether children take into account the speaker’s perspective in deriving such inferences, as adults are able to do, and as the received theories of pragmatics claim. In two experiments, we tested children (5–7 years, N = 33 and N = 25) and adults using a picture-matching director task, in which participants played a game giving cards to the speaker, with some cards being in common ground and some in privileged ground. We found that adults can both derive implicatures when all information is in common ground and not derive them when relevant information is in privileged ground. Children also derive ad hoc implicatures when relevant information is in common ground but, crucially, fail to not derive them when it is in privileged ground. Children’s difficulty with integrating perspective-taking with pragmatic inferencing challenges the received theories about the necessity of perspective-taking in pragmatics.
{"title":"The Role of Perspective-Taking in Children’s Quantity Implicatures","authors":"Elspeth Wilson, Rebecca Lawrence, N. Katsos","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2050236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2050236","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Young children excel at pragmatic inferences known as ad hoc quantity implicatures: they can infer, for example, that a speaker who said “the card with apples” meant the card with nothing but apples. However, it is not known whether children take into account the speaker’s perspective in deriving such inferences, as adults are able to do, and as the received theories of pragmatics claim. In two experiments, we tested children (5–7 years, N = 33 and N = 25) and adults using a picture-matching director task, in which participants played a game giving cards to the speaker, with some cards being in common ground and some in privileged ground. We found that adults can both derive implicatures when all information is in common ground and not derive them when relevant information is in privileged ground. Children also derive ad hoc implicatures when relevant information is in common ground but, crucially, fail to not derive them when it is in privileged ground. Children’s difficulty with integrating perspective-taking with pragmatic inferencing challenges the received theories about the necessity of perspective-taking in pragmatics.","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"46 1","pages":"167 - 187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86894579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2060833
Eija Aalto, Katri Saaristo-Helin, Suvi Stolt
ABSTRACT Background noise challenges auditory recognition of speech and may reveal the underlying deficits in auditory word recognition skills. Previous studies have reported an association between children’s auditory skills and various linguistic skills, including phonology, although in some languages only. However, language-specific features influence these connections. This study describes the associations between auditory word recognition ability and phonological skills in a representative group of 3;6-year-old children in less studied language, Finnish (N = 65). Auditory recognition was assessed using a closed-set word recognition task presented in multi-talker babble noise (+13 dB) and the phonological skills using Finnish Phonology Test. A significant, moderate correlation was found between Finnish-speaking children’s auditory word recognition and phonological skills. The late-developing phoneme /r/ challenged word recognition. The sibilant /s/ was noted to be the most noise resistant consonant, and the phoneme pair /r/ and /l/ created the most mutual confusion. The accuracy of phonological representations may be a moderating factor for both auditory recognition and phonological skills. Children with strong phonological skills may recognize spoken words more accurately in noisy everyday situations than children with weaker phonological skills. This should be taken into consideration in children’s daily environments, such as daycare centers and preschools.
{"title":"Auditory Word Recognition Ability in Babble Noise and Phonological Development in Children at 3;6 Years of Age","authors":"Eija Aalto, Katri Saaristo-Helin, Suvi Stolt","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2060833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2060833","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Background noise challenges auditory recognition of speech and may reveal the underlying deficits in auditory word recognition skills. Previous studies have reported an association between children’s auditory skills and various linguistic skills, including phonology, although in some languages only. However, language-specific features influence these connections. This study describes the associations between auditory word recognition ability and phonological skills in a representative group of 3;6-year-old children in less studied language, Finnish (N = 65). Auditory recognition was assessed using a closed-set word recognition task presented in multi-talker babble noise (+13 dB) and the phonological skills using Finnish Phonology Test. A significant, moderate correlation was found between Finnish-speaking children’s auditory word recognition and phonological skills. The late-developing phoneme /r/ challenged word recognition. The sibilant /s/ was noted to be the most noise resistant consonant, and the phoneme pair /r/ and /l/ created the most mutual confusion. The accuracy of phonological representations may be a moderating factor for both auditory recognition and phonological skills. Children with strong phonological skills may recognize spoken words more accurately in noisy everyday situations than children with weaker phonological skills. This should be taken into consideration in children’s daily environments, such as daycare centers and preschools.","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"71 1","pages":"230 - 247"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86972722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2149401
M. Vihman, Mitsuhiko Ota, T. Keren-Portnoy, Rui Qi Choo, Shanshan Lou
ABSTRACT Phonological models of early word learning often assume that child forms can be understood as structural mappings from their adult targets. In contrast, the whole-word phonology model suggests that on beginning word production children represent adult targets as holistic units, reflecting not the exact sound sequence but only the most perceptually salient elements or those that align with their own vocal patterns. Here we ask whether the predictions of the whole-word model are supported by data from children learning Japanese or Mandarin, both languages with phonotactic structures differing from any so far investigated from this perspective. The Japanese child word forms are found to include some characteristics suggestive of whole-word representation, but in Mandarin we find little or no such evidence. Instead, some children are found to make idiosyncratic use of whole syllables, substituting them for target syllables that they match in neither onset nor rime. This result, which neither model anticipates, forces reconsideration of a key tenet of the whole-word model – that early word production is based on word-size holistic representations; instead, at least in some languages, the syllable may serve as the basic representational unit for child learners.
{"title":"A Challenge to Whole-word Phonology? A Study of Japanese and Mandarin","authors":"M. Vihman, Mitsuhiko Ota, T. Keren-Portnoy, Rui Qi Choo, Shanshan Lou","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2149401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2149401","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Phonological models of early word learning often assume that child forms can be understood as structural mappings from their adult targets. In contrast, the whole-word phonology model suggests that on beginning word production children represent adult targets as holistic units, reflecting not the exact sound sequence but only the most perceptually salient elements or those that align with their own vocal patterns. Here we ask whether the predictions of the whole-word model are supported by data from children learning Japanese or Mandarin, both languages with phonotactic structures differing from any so far investigated from this perspective. The Japanese child word forms are found to include some characteristics suggestive of whole-word representation, but in Mandarin we find little or no such evidence. Instead, some children are found to make idiosyncratic use of whole syllables, substituting them for target syllables that they match in neither onset nor rime. This result, which neither model anticipates, forces reconsideration of a key tenet of the whole-word model – that early word production is based on word-size holistic representations; instead, at least in some languages, the syllable may serve as the basic representational unit for child learners.","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"1 1","pages":"480 - 500"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86668952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2157580
P. Jusczyk, A. Noiray
{"title":"Announcement of the Peter Jusczyk Best Paper Award","authors":"P. Jusczyk, A. Noiray","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2157580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2157580","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"66 1","pages":"124 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76643305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2022-06-11DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2081573
J M Schneider, A D Abel, M J Maguire
Socioeconomic status (SES)-related language gaps are known to widen throughout the course of the school years; however, not all children from lower SES homes perform worse than their higher SES peers on measures of language. The current study uses mediation and moderated mediation to examine how cognitive and language abilities (vocabulary, reading, phonological processing, working memory) account for individual differences in a children's ability to infer a novel word's meaning, a key component in word learning, in school-aged children from varying SES backgrounds. Vocabulary and reading comprehension mediated the relationship between SES and accuracy when inferring word meanings. The relationship between SES, vocabulary, and inferring word meaning was moderated by age, such that the influence of vocabulary on task performance was strongest in young children. The reading pathway did not interact with age effects, indicating reading is an important contributor to SES-related differences in how children infer a word's meaning throughout grade school. These findings highlight different paths by which children's trajectories for inferring word meanings may be impacted.
{"title":"Vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension account for SES-differences in how school-aged children infer word meanings from sentences.","authors":"J M Schneider, A D Abel, M J Maguire","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2081573","DOIUrl":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2081573","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Socioeconomic status (SES)-related language gaps are known to widen throughout the course of the school years; however, not all children from lower SES homes perform worse than their higher SES peers on measures of language. The current study uses mediation and moderated mediation to examine how cognitive and language abilities (vocabulary, reading, phonological processing, working memory) account for individual differences in a children's ability to infer a novel word's meaning, a key component in word learning, in school-aged children from varying SES backgrounds. Vocabulary and reading comprehension mediated the relationship between SES and accuracy when inferring word meanings. The relationship between SES, vocabulary, and inferring word meaning was moderated by age, such that the influence of vocabulary on task performance was strongest in young children. The reading pathway did not interact with age effects, indicating reading is an important contributor to SES-related differences in how children infer a word's meaning throughout grade school. These findings highlight different paths by which children's trajectories for inferring word meanings may be impacted.</p>","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"19 4","pages":"369-385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10530852/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41134500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-15DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2149402
Irena Lovcevic, D. Burnham, M. Kalashnikova
{"title":"Infants’ Lexical Processing: Independent Contributions of Attentional and Clarity Cues","authors":"Irena Lovcevic, D. Burnham, M. Kalashnikova","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2149402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2149402","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72657484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-25DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2149399
Keshu Xiang, Hui Chang
ABSTRACT The present study investigates the multiple constraints on the processing of English dative alternation by Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. The intermediate and advanced learners completed an acceptability judgment task which was composed of 30 dative alternations selected from a spoken corpus. The results showed that the intermediate learners were constrained by only one predictor (pronominality of Recipient), whereas the advanced learners were constrained by eight predictors, including animacy of Recipient, syntactic complexity, pronominality of Theme, pronominality of Recipient, person of Recipient, number of Theme, concreteness of Theme as well as preemption. The results demonstrated that the advanced learners were sensitive to multiple constraints when they processed the dative alternation, but the intermediate learners were not. Our findings imply that L2 learners’ sensitivity toward multiple constraints increased as their L2 proficiency improved.
{"title":"Multiple Constraints on Second Language Processing of English Dative Alternation","authors":"Keshu Xiang, Hui Chang","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2149399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2149399","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The present study investigates the multiple constraints on the processing of English dative alternation by Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. The intermediate and advanced learners completed an acceptability judgment task which was composed of 30 dative alternations selected from a spoken corpus. The results showed that the intermediate learners were constrained by only one predictor (pronominality of Recipient), whereas the advanced learners were constrained by eight predictors, including animacy of Recipient, syntactic complexity, pronominality of Theme, pronominality of Recipient, person of Recipient, number of Theme, concreteness of Theme as well as preemption. The results demonstrated that the advanced learners were sensitive to multiple constraints when they processed the dative alternation, but the intermediate learners were not. Our findings imply that L2 learners’ sensitivity toward multiple constraints increased as their L2 proficiency improved.","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"6 1","pages":"437 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75327957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-30DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2138401
Mélanie Canault, Naomi Yamaguchi, S. Kern
ABSTRACT Cross-linguistic studies describing the syllabic structures of babbling productions agree on the high prevalence of the CV structure, but few have addressed the other types of syllables emerging during this pre-linguistic stage. However, studying the evolution of the distribution of syllabic structures during babbling would make it possible to test both the influence of motor constraints and the influence of the perceptually based patterns from the infant’s language environmental input on the production of early syllables. A monthly follow-up of 22 French infants from 8 to 14 months showed that the distribution CV>V> CCV>CVC>VC was shared by the majority of infants in the sample and remained the same throughout the observation period. The comparison of the frequencies of the structures observed with those attested in adult-French and in 4 other languages (Dutch, Korean, Moroccan Arabic and Tunisian Arabic) revealed significant differences between all adult samples and infant productions. The results have implications for understanding the nature of factors impacting syllable production at the babbling stage. We discuss the possibility that the target language does not affect the production of babbled syllables.
{"title":"Early Development of Syllable Structure in French","authors":"Mélanie Canault, Naomi Yamaguchi, S. Kern","doi":"10.1080/15475441.2022.2138401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2138401","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Cross-linguistic studies describing the syllabic structures of babbling productions agree on the high prevalence of the CV structure, but few have addressed the other types of syllables emerging during this pre-linguistic stage. However, studying the evolution of the distribution of syllabic structures during babbling would make it possible to test both the influence of motor constraints and the influence of the perceptually based patterns from the infant’s language environmental input on the production of early syllables. A monthly follow-up of 22 French infants from 8 to 14 months showed that the distribution CV>V> CCV>CVC>VC was shared by the majority of infants in the sample and remained the same throughout the observation period. The comparison of the frequencies of the structures observed with those attested in adult-French and in 4 other languages (Dutch, Korean, Moroccan Arabic and Tunisian Arabic) revealed significant differences between all adult samples and infant productions. The results have implications for understanding the nature of factors impacting syllable production at the babbling stage. We discuss the possibility that the target language does not affect the production of babbled syllables.","PeriodicalId":46642,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning and Development","volume":"43 1","pages":"420 - 436"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76721645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}