Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:38:39.149Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bilingual and monolingual children's use of two lexical acquisition heuristics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

William E. Merriman  and
Vesna Kutlesic
William E. Merriman*
Affiliation:
Kent State University
Vesna Kutlesic*
Affiliation:
Kent State University
*
William E. Merriman, Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242
William E. Merriman, Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Children's heuristics for word learning have been the focus of much research, but little is known about bilinguals' and monolinguals' comparative use of them. In this study, 36 Serbian/ English bilinguals and 42 English monolinguals, who were between 5 and 8 years old and lived in the same neighborhoods in the United States, received a successive name training assessment of two heuristics: criterial use of highlighted features and preservation of mutual exclusivity. Older children employed both heuristics more often than younger ones. Monolinguals were more likely than bilinguals to interpret a highlighted feature as a necessary condition for applying a new English object name, but the groups did not differ in their tendency to maintain mutual exclusivity between the extensions of two novel English labels.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 229 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anisfeld, M. E. (1964). A comparison of the cognitive functioning of monolinguals and bilinguals. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, McGill University, Montreal.Google Scholar
Au, T. K., & Glusman, M. (1990). The principle of mutual exclusivity in word learning: To honor or not to honor? Child Development, 61, 1474–1491.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baldwin, D. A. (1989). Priorities in children's expectations about object label reference: Form over color. Child Development, 60, 1291–1306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Balkan, L. (1970). Les effets du bilinguisme francais-anglais sur les aptitudes intellectuelles. Bruxelles, Belgium: Aimav.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1975). The effect of Spanish-English bilmgualism in children from less privileged neighborhoods on cognitive development and cognitive strategy. Unpublished research report to National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1977a). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive strategy and cognitive development. Child Development, 48, 1009–1018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1977b). Mechanisms by which childhood bilingualism affects understanding of language and cognitive structures. In Hornby, P. A. (Ed.), Bilingualism: Psychological, social, and educational implications (pp. 29–55). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1988). Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness. Developmental Psychology, 24, 560–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burling, R. (1959). Language development of a Garo and English speaking child. Word, 15, 45–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, S., & Bartlett, E. J. (1978). Acquiring a single new word. Papers and Reports on Child Language, 15, 17–29.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1978). Bilingualism and the development of metalinguistic awareness. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 9, 131–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz, R. M. (1985). Thought and two languages: The impact of bilingualism on cognitive development. Review of Research in Education, 10, 23–54.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Flavell, J. H., Green, F. L., & Flavell, E. R. (1986). Development of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 51 (1, Serial No. 212).Google ScholarPubMed
Genesee, F., Tucker, G. R., & Lambert, W. E. (1975). Communication skills of bilingual children. Child Development, 46, 1010–1014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, J. A. (1988). Loglinear analysis of cross-classified ordinal data: Applications in developmental research. Child Development, 59, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hakuta, K. (1987). Degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability in mainland Puerto Rican children. Child Development, 58, 1372–1388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heibeck, T. H., & Markman, E. M. (1987). Word learning in children: An examination of fast mapping. Child Development, 58, 1021–1034.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horton, M. S., & Markman, E. M. (1980). Developmental differences in the acquisition of basic and superordinate categories. Child Development, 51, 708–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, S. S., Smith, L. B., & Landau, B. (1991). Object properties and knowledge in early lexical learning. Child Development, 62, 499–516.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keil, F. C. (1989). Concepts, kinds, and cognitive development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kutlesic, V. (1988). The effect of bilingualism and language change on children's noun integration. Unpublished honors thesis, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.Google Scholar
Landau, B., Smith, L. B., & Jones, S. S. (1988). The importance of shape in early lexical learning. Cognitive Development, 3, 299–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markman, E. M., & Wachtel, G. F. (1988). Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words. Cognitive Psychology, 20, 121–157.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second language acquisition in childhood: Vol. 1. Preschool children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Merriman, W. E. (1986). Some reasons for the occurrence and eventual correction of children's naming errors. Child Development, 57, 942–952.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merriman, W. E. (1991). The mutual exclusivity bias in children's word learning: A reply to Woodward and Markman. Development Review, 11, 164–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merriman, W. E., & Bowman, L. L. (1989). The mutual exclusivity bias in children's word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 54 (3–4, Serial No. 220).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Merriman, W. E., Schuster, J. M., & Hager, L. (1991). Are names ever mapped onto preexisting categories? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 120, 288–300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mervis, C. B. (1987). Child-basic object categories and early lexical development. In Neisser, U. (Ed.), Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization (pp. 201–233). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mervis, C. B., & Rosch, E. (1981). Categorization of natural objects. In Rosenzweig, M. R. & Porter, L. W. (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 32, pp. 89–115). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, T., & Pinker, S. A. (1983). Word magic revisited: Monolingual and bilingual children's understanding of the word-object relationship. Child Development, 54, 773–780.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, L. B. (1989). A model of perceptual classification in children and adults. Psychological Review, 96, 125–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, A. L., & Markman, E. M. (1991). Constraints on learning as default assumptions: Comments on Merriman and Bowman's “The mutual exclusivity bias in children's word learning”. Developmental Review, 11,137–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar