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）：该提案解决了早期概念发展，语言发展及其之间关系的基本问题。婴儿生活在一个非常丰富的环境中。每天，他们都会遇到新物体并见证新事件。如果每个对象或事件都被视为独特，那么这种丰富性将是压倒性的。因此，一项基本的发展任务是形成概念以捕捉其经验之间的共同点，并学习表达这些单词。最近的研究揭示了概念组织和语言组织，跨越跨语言之间的强大而隐性的联系。婴儿开始执行学习的任务，并以广泛的初步期望将新颖的单词与广泛的共同点联系起来。更具体的期望，将特定种类的单词（例如名词，形容词，动词）连接到几个月后出现的特定类型的关系（例如类别，属性，基于运动和基于运动的共同点），并由本地语言的结构塑造。当前的提议加深了上一个时期获得的见解，使我们更加了解概念组织和语言组织之间这些联系的起源，进化和普遍性。第我节的研究追踪了婴儿期望在几个战略发展点上的起源和演变。本节包括新方法，以确定婴儿在不同种类的单词（名词，形容词，动词）之间区分能力的机制，并适当地将其映射到其相关含义。第二部分中的研究促进了这些联系的证据，这些联系在婴儿和儿童中获取英语以外的其他语言（法语；普通话）。通过结合发育和跨语言方法，提出的项目1）扩大现有研究的经验和理论基础，2）提供了一个窗口，可以更清楚地查看概念和语言发展之间联系的起源和链接的演变，以及3）强加于儿童和塑造环境中固有的期望之间的重要相互作用。结果应该对获取理论有影响，并且可以作为研究双语和幼儿特定语言障碍的跳板。