Linking Early Linguistic and Conceptual Development

连接早期语言和概念发展

• 批准号: 6726442
• 负责人: SANDRA R WAXMAN
• 金额: $ 32.89万
• 依托单位: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-09-01 至 2009-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6726442
• 关键词: association learning; behavioral /social science research tag; child psychology; clinical research; concept; data collection methodology /evaluation; early experience; expectancy; human subject; infant human (0-1 year); language development; multilingualism; nonEnglish language; preschool child (1-5); semantics; socioenvironment; statistics /biometry; verbal learning; videotape /videodisc

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal addresses fundamental issues of early conceptual development, language development, and the relation between them. Infants live in an enormously rich environment. Each day, they encounter new objects and witness new events. This richness would be overwhelming if each object or event was treated as unique. Therefore, an essential developmental task is to form concepts to capture commonalities among their experiences and to learn words to express these. Recent research reveals powerful and implicit links between conceptual and linguistic organization, across development and across languages. Infants begin the task of word-learning with a broad initial expectation linking novel words to a broad range of commonalities. More specific expectations, linking particular kinds of words (e.g., noun, adjective, verb) to particular kinds of relations (e.g., category-, property-, and motion-based commonalities) emerge several months later, and are shaped by the structure of the native language. The current proposal deepens the insights gained in the previous period and brings us closer to understanding the origin, evolution, and universality of these links between conceptual and linguistic organization. The studies in Section I trace the origin and evolution of infants' expectations at several strategic developmental points. The section includes new methods to identify the mechanisms underlying infants' ability to distinguish among different kinds of words (nouns, adjectives, verbs) and map them appropriately to their associated meaning. The studies in Section II sharpen the evidence for these links in infants and children acquiring languages other than English (French; Mandarin). By combining developmental and cross-linguistic approaches, the proposed project 1) broadens the empirical and theoretical foundations of existing research, 2) provides a window through which to view more clearly the origins and evolution of links between conceptual and linguistic development, and 3) underscores the vital interaction between the expectations inherent in the child and the shaping role of the environment. The results should have implications for theories of acquisition and may serve as a springboard for research on bilingualism and specific language impairments in young children.

描述(由申请人提供)：本提案涉及早期概念发展、语言发展以及它们之间的关系等基本问题。婴儿生活在一个极其丰富的环境中。每天，他们都会遇到新的物体，见证新的事件。如果每个物体或事件都被视为独一无二的，这种丰富性将是压倒性的。因此，一项重要的发展任务是形成概念，以捕捉他们经验中的共性，并学习用词来表达这些共性。最近的研究揭示了概念组织和语言组织之间、跨发展和跨语言之间强大而隐含的联系。婴幼儿开始单词学习的任务是抱着广泛的初始期望，将新词与广泛的共性联系起来。更具体的期望，将特定类型的词(例如，名词、形容词、动词)与特定类型的关系(例如，基于类别、属性和运动的共性)联系在一起，几个月后出现，并由母语的结构塑造。目前的建议深化了前一阶段获得的见解，并使我们更接近于理解概念组织和语言组织之间这些联系的起源、演变和普遍性。第一节中的研究追溯了婴儿在几个战略发展点上的期望的起源和演变。这一部分包括新的方法，以确定婴儿区分不同类型单词(名词、形容词、动词)的潜在机制，并将它们适当地映射到它们的相关含义。第二节中的研究为婴儿和儿童学习英语以外的语言(法语和普通话)提供了这些联系的证据。通过将发展方法和跨语言方法结合起来，拟议的项目1)扩大了现有研究的经验和理论基础，2)提供了一个窗口，通过它可以更清楚地看到概念发展和语言发展之间联系的起源和演变，以及3)强调了儿童固有的期望和环境塑造作用之间的重要互动。这一结果应该对习得理论有所启示，并可能成为研究幼儿双语和特定语言障碍的跳板。