Becoming a Word Learner: A Debate on Lexical Acquisition
Roberta Micknick Golinkoff and Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek
Abstract
Language acquisition is a contentious field of research occupied by cognitive and developmental psychologists, linguists, philosophers, and biologists. Perhaps the key component to understanding how language is mastered is explaining word acquisition. At twelve months, an infant learns new words slowly and laboriously; but at twenty months, he or she acquires an average of ten new words per day. How can we explain this phenomenal change? A theory of word acquisition deepens our understanding of the nature of language but also provides real insight into the workings of the developing mind. This ... More
Language acquisition is a contentious field of research occupied by cognitive and developmental psychologists, linguists, philosophers, and biologists. Perhaps the key component to understanding how language is mastered is explaining word acquisition. At twelve months, an infant learns new words slowly and laboriously; but at twenty months, he or she acquires an average of ten new words per day. How can we explain this phenomenal change? A theory of word acquisition deepens our understanding of the nature of language but also provides real insight into the workings of the developing mind. This book presents competing word acquisition theories that have emerged in the past decade. Each theory is presented by the researcher. The book provides introductory and summary chapters to help assess each theoretical model.
Keywords:
word acquisition,
word acquisition theories,
cognitive psychology,
developmental psychology
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2000 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195130324 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130324.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Roberta Micknick Golinkoff, editor
University of Delaware
Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, editor
Temple of University
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