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Pragmatic directions about language use: Offers of words and relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2002

EVE V. CLARK & ANDREW D.-W. WONG
EVE V. CLARK & ANDREW D.-W. WONG
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Margaret Jacks Hall, Bldg 460, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, [email protected]
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Abstract

Adult speakers constantly offer young children new terms, conventional words for the events and objects being talked about. They make direct offers of unfamiliar words, using deictics or other forms that signal that the upcoming term is new, and they make indirect offers on the assumption that the relevant meaning is computable on that occasion. Adults also present young children with information about how words are related to each other through such connections as is a part of, is a kind of, belongs to, or is used for. These pragmatic directions provide children with essential information about language and language use as they make inferences about possible meanings for unfamiliar words. They also offer support for an alternative to constraints-based accounts of lexical acquisition by providing a conversation-based approach more consistent with the findings from spontaneous speech and from experimental results.

Keywords

Language acquisitionword meaningschild-directed speech
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 2002 , pp. 181 - 212
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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