Acquiring word meanings via linguistic contrast

Abstract

Words are generally related in meaning and can often be organized into semantic domains. One way children may learn that two words belong to the same semantic domain is to hear the words used contrastively. This work examines the circumstances in which hearing a new word contrasted with familiar words from the same semantic domain may help young children induce the new word meaning. Some 3- and 4-year-olds were introduced to a novel color name or material name and heard it contrasted with familiar words; some heard the novel word used for referring to an object but received no explicit contrastive information; and some did not hear the novel word used at all prior to testing. All children were then given a variety of tests to determine what they had learned about the novel word. The results were that explicit linguistic contrast helped only in some situations. Children seemed to prefer material to color in hypothesizing about a new word meaning. Linguistic contrast helped children when it was consistent with this preference, but not when it was inconsistent. Thus, it helped children map a material name, but not a color name, onto the appropriate semantic domain. © 1987 Ablex Publishing Corporation.