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SOME IMPLICATIONS OF SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT FOR VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION

Gisela E. Speidel

Vocabulary refers to "the words of a language."1 "Words play a central part not only in the development of thought, but in the historical growth of consciousness as a whole. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness . . . . A thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.''2

Vocabulary instruction is the teaching of word meanings and verbal concepts. It is a central part of a child's cognitive growth and plays a much more important part in education than it is usually accorded. Word meanings are learned throughout the school day: not only during language arts, but during social science, physics, biology, arithmetic, and so on.

The study of the nature and structure of word meanings and their development should logically be the foundation for vocabulary instruction. In this article, I will briefly describe some of the current views in semantics and semantic development and discuss their implications for vocabulary instruction.

The Nature of Word Meanings

A study of word meaning is a study of concepts and concept formation. This is because word meanings (except for proper nouns) do not refer to any particular referent but to generalizations. The meaning of horse is not determined by any particular horse, but by the abstraction of commonalities among all the horses seen.

There are different dimensions to word meanings. First, concepts might have different structures. Traditionally, word concepts were thought to consist of semantic features or components that served as criteria for including instances into a concept. For example, a square has the following defining features: It is a plane figure, it has four straight lines of equal length, and it has four right angles. Anything that has these features is included in the concept square; anything that does not have these features is excluded. More recently, the prototype view of concepts has emerged. This view is based on Rosch's theory3 that the structure of a concept is not made up of criteria! features, but of a prototype. Some instances are typical and greatly resemble the prototype concept, while

others are peripheral or atypical. For example, orange is a prototypical member of the concept fntit, while tomato is a peripheral member, presumably because orange is more like other things called fruit. In other words, the boundaries of a concept are "fuzzy" and members are included or excluded on a probabilistic basis.

In reality, many word meanings may be too fluid for a definitive description of their structure. In the next section, we will see that word meanings evolve gradually. Even in adults, word meanings continue to change.4 Vygotsky already wrote, "word meanings are dynamic rather than static formations ... they change ... with the various ways in which thought functions."5

Another difference between word concepts is their level of generality or complexity. For instance, Gennan Shepherd is most specific, dog is more general, while animal includes the greatest diversity among exemplars and requires the most abstraction in its formation.

A third dimension is the image evoking ability of a word: for instance, words such as horse or jump are high, while freedom is low in image evoking value. Compare here also the English term vacuum cleaner to the German equivalent dustsucker.

Furthermore, word meanings are a function of their linguistic environment. Consider the following two meanings for the word tyrant. "She was a charming little tyrant" evokes the image of a little girl making everyone around her do her will; while "He was a brutal tyrant" evokes the picture of a medieval autocratic ruler.

Word meanings are a function of their systematic relation to other word meanings or their semantic network. For instance, the meaning of big is a function, in part, of its antonym little, or its synonym large, or its hyponym size.

In short, there are many different kinds of relationships between a word and its meanings. Later I will show how these different characteristics of word meanings may bear on their learning and on their instruction.

How Are Word Meanings Acquired?

Researchers on word-meaning development are always struck by the difference between children's word meanings and adult meanings. Often there is only partial overlap between the adult and the child's meanings for the same word. For example, Donaldson and McGarrigle6 observed that on a comprehension test of "more," some children correctly identified the row of cars that had more cars. However, when garages were placed above the cars so that the row with fewer cars had all its cars in a garage, but the row with the greater number of cars had some empty garages, they selected the row with fewer cars as having "more" cars. Somehow for these children the meaning of "more" had features in common with full. "More" was somehow incompatible with empty.

Such studies as this on the concept "more" show the difficulty in isolating what meaning a child actually has for a word; the meaning seems to change as a function of how it is tested. This has made researchers7 advocate the use of multiple measures when studying word meaning development. This fact is of importance in its own right. It points out the dynamic structure of word meanings as well as their multifaceted nature.

Another phenomenon of children's word meanings is that they evolve gradually. Kuczaj and Maratsos,8 studying the development of the meaning of f rant and back, found that children tended to first understand these terms with reference to their own bodies. During a later stage they were able to touch the fronts and backs of objects that had a clearly determined front, such as a stove, and only later could they place objects in front or behind other objects.

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Children's learning of new word meanings is a function of their experiences, and of the word concepts they already have. In a study of word meaning learning,9

young children were presented with two identical objects of different color; one was olive green and the other was another color whose name the child already understood. The teacher gave a training trial by asking the child, for example, to "get the chromium tray, not the red tray, but the chromium." Later, the children were tested in various ways for the meaning of the word clrromirun. Carey10

found that many different meanings had been learned: The particular meaning learned was function of a child's color vocabulary and a function of the name the child gave to the olive color before the learning trial with chromium was given.

The implications of all these observations on children's word learning is that a teacher cannot directly pass on many word meanings to her students. Word meanings evolve through many different exposures and only gradually acquire the same networks as those of the speech community.

Theories of Word Meaning Acquisition in Children

There are currently two major theories of how children learn word concepts. They differ from each other in whether the child's development of word meanings is seen as proceeding analytically or holistically.11 The analytical conception has been associated with the semantic feature view of the structure of concepts described above. Clark has summarized this analytic acquisition process as follows: "The acquisition of semantic knowledge, then will consist of adding more features of meaning to the lexical entry of the word until the child's combination of features in the entry for that word corresponds to the adult's."12

An important corollary of this position is that the more defining features a concept has, the more difficult the concept will be to learn. For instance, the terms "big/little" will be easier to learn than "tall/shorr• because the former has only size as a defining feature, while the latter has the features length and size.

The teaching implications of this analytic position are as follows: (1) We can order word meanings by the complexity of their features. Thus, in teaching we can proceed in an orderly fashion, teaching the most simple concepts first, the most complex last. (2) Furthermore, in teaching these concepts one would stress the defining features such as size, shape, and function : In teaching the concept frnit, one would emphasize that a fruit is edible, that it comes from a plant, and that it is sweet.

This analytic view of verbal concept learning has recently been criticized on various points. 13 It has been

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argued that in order to differentiate all instances from all non-instances of a concept, a virtually endless list of features is required. Secondly, the features which are thought to structure and classify the concepts, for example, size, weight, beauty, are themselves the outcome of long learning histories and, therefore, are not available to the learner.

In the holistic view of concept development, acquisition is not component by component, but, from the beginning, the information is represented holistically. Thus, moon is included into the concept ball because, on the whole, it looks like things that have been called ball. The exact nature of how the prototype concept develops and how more analytical processing emerges are currently the focus of much debate and research in children's word learning.14

Since in this view a word-concept is a function of its early examplars and their relationship to each other, the teaching implication is that the selection of exemplars becomes critical. If exemplars with very different characteristics are used, the concept would probably be difficult to attain and there would be many errors and overextensions; on the other hand, if only exemplars are used that are very similar to each other, then the concept would be very narrow, but would probably be learned quickly.

Variables in Word Meaning Development

Research is only beginning to uncover the complexities of learning word meanings. Yet, there are a number of findings about variables that influence word-meaning development. These findings have ramifications for vocabulary instruction.

1. Conceptual complexity. Even though it is very difficult to define "conceptual complexity," there appears to be agreement that conceptually more complex concepts are learned more easily than less complex concepts. ts For instance, intuitively, it seems that big and litl/e are conceptually less complex terms than thick and thin: the order of acquisition of these terms is in accord with this complexity judgement.

2. Frequency. Frequency of word usage in speech to children is another important variable in the learning of word meanings.16 Other things being equal, the meaning of words heard frequently will be learned more quickly than words heard infrequently. Frequency may actually override the effects of conceptual complexity.17

3. Characteristics of the modelled information/choice of exemplars. Children learn many aspects of word meaning by observation, by listening to what people are saying and trying to figure out what those words mean in relationship to the situation.18 Therefore, the kind of

linguistic modelling or input will obviously affect the learning of word meanings. Important here is what information is modelled and how it is modelled.

First, the presence of the referent will make word learning easier. Even an interval of a few seconds between saying the word and the appearance of the object seems to make a difference.19 In other words, pairing the word with the corresponding non-verbal information will help the learning of word concepts.

Second, the linguistic inforrnation modelled for the child - the naming practices of the adults in the child's environment - will affect the word meaning learned. For instance, Kuczaj and Lederberg20 found that young children typically understood old to mean big. This is probably because big is often used when old is actually intended: "You'll be able to do this when you' re big." Even more interesting, White found that children who were presented with such information as "A goose is a bird," would include gooselike birds {such as ducks) more readily in the "bird" category than children who did not get this kind of information. 21 In short, the exemplars with which a word is paired affects the meaning of the word.

Even the syntactic contexts of a word may affect word meanings learned. Children were shown pictures with actions perforrned on things in containers.22 The children would point to the action if they were told, "Show me sibbing;" to the container if told, "Show me a sib," or to the stuff in the container if told, "Show me some sib.''

4. The learner's existing knowledge. Certain word meanings can only be learned if the learner possesses already other, prerequisite knowledge. Support for this come from such studies as those by Kuczaj and Maratsos23 on the development of the meaning front and back and the chromium study by Carey.24 Carey points out the contrast in the ease of learning a new color terrn in her study and in a study by Rice.25 ln Carey's study, the children, already aware of color words (they knew at least one color term), learned the new color terms with ease. In Rice's study, a few children who were of the same age as in Carey's study but who did not yet have color concept as an organizing principle, required over 1,300 trials on the average to learn the terrns red and green.

5. The value of the referent. Obviously, the value the referent holds for the learner will affect word learning. Other things being equal, a child will learn more quickly those words whose referents are important to him than those that are not.26

Implications for Vocabulary Instruction

Models for vocabulary instruction must take into account both the nature of word meanings and how word

meanings develop. Some of the considerations for vocabulary instruction that grow out of our knowledge about the nature of word meanings and their development will be discussed in the following sections.

Complexity and Nature of the Word Meaning.

We have seen that there are many different kinds of word meanings. The nature of the word meaning to be learned will affect the ease of acquisition and will affect what instruction and what exemplars are appropriate. Terms with clear concrete references, for instance, will be learned readily, particularly in the presence of the referent, or, in the case of words describing actions, by modelling the action, or by pictures depicting the referent. Thus, boating terms are best learned with the objects present and the actions modelled or at least with depictions thereof. On the other hand, for the teaching of very complex and abstract terms, brief expositions to exemplars and to definitions will not suffice, but will require extensive coursework. For instance, to teach the scientific understanding of atom requires an understanding of a network of related terms, such as element, molecule, electron. To fully grasp this meaning, extended coursework in chemistry and physics will be necessary.

Earlier I had mentioned that concepts might have dearly defining features, or may have fuzzy bo undaries with membership a function of degree of similarity to prototype. In teaching concepts that have clearly defining characteristics, such as triangle, or square, one would emphasize the defining features. The exemplars that dearly exhibit these features would be best in combination with non-exemplars that are identical to the exemplars except in the defining features. On the other hand, to develop a prototypical concept, such as democracy, one would initially choose prototypical members as exemplars and subsequently some non-prototypical members to broaden the concept. Some concepts may only be teachable through presentation of prototypical examples.

The Learner's Existing Knowledge

The brief review on semantic development shows that the learning of new word meanings is a function of the learner's (1) general conceptual development, (2) his specific knowledge, and (3) his existing word meanings.

General conceptual development, highly related to age and experience, sets limits on what meanings can be acquired by the learner a t a particular point in time. Thus, helping a five-year-old understand the word tyrant is very different from helping a 15-year-old to understand that te rm, simply because the older learner

EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES I 31

has had background experiences that are requisites for understanding the full meaning of tyrant, which the five-year-old has not had. The level of word meaning that can be developed in the five-year-old is therefore different from that of the 15-year-old. No instruction whatever would bring the five-year-old to an understanding of the full political meaning of the word tyrant.

A learner's specific knowledge will also determine what instructional strategy will be effective. The basic consideration is whether the learner already has the underlying concept to which the word makes reference, or whether the concept still needs to be developed. Fot instance, a 15-year-old who has listened lo, and participated in, political discussions with his politician father might understand the political meaning of tyrant from the definition "A tyrant is an oppressive absolute ruler.'' In contrast, a learner of similar age but little knowledge about governmental systems would need much more information and instruction to bring him to the same level of understanding.

A more subtle consideration when tailoring instruction to the learner's knowledge is the word meanings which he brings with him. Particularly important here is the extent to which the learner's existing word meanings are consistent with those of the teacher. A child's learning history with certain words may be different from that of the teacher or of the mainstream culture. Children who come from nonstandard English speaking backgrounds may have different meanings for words: different words may refer to the same concept, or the same word may refer to different concepts. For instance, in Hawaiian-English ligl1ts are closed rather than turned off, paper bags are packages, soon is translated as already, and brother has a number of other meanings from that of defining blood relationship. Teachers of nonstandard English speaking children must therefore be particularly sensitive to possible differences in the word meanings of their students.

Choice of Exemplars

I have already described above how exemplars must be tailored to the word meaning to be developed and to the experiences of the student. Choosing the appropriate exemplars, both linguistic and non-linguistic, for developing word meanings must be done with thoughtfulness.

In this section, I want to emphasize the use of non-verbal informatio n - the use of non-verbal exemplars, or their depiction. Much of word meaning learning consists of mapping words to non-verbal events. Such non-linguistic informatio n - the use of objects,

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•

pictures and diagrams, the performing of actions, the comparison of situations, the focus on attributes, and so on - constitutes an important part of the meanings of words. This non-linguistic information is particularly important for (1) young children, (2) learners learning new or difficult concepts, and (3) learners who are accustomed to processing information more through non-linguistic than linguistic channels (as may be the case in children from poverty or second language learners).

Frequency of Word Usage and Value of the Word Referent

We saw earlier that word frequency and the value a referent held for the learner were variables in word learning. It seems trite to mention that a new word

should be used frequently by the teacher. Yet, it is something that is often overlooked and, therefore, needs constant reminding. The value of a referent will vary from one learner to the next. Nevertheless, a teacher can make certain words and concepts more valuable to students by using exemplars with which they are somewhat familiar, which arouse excitement, and which are useful to them. For instance, in teaching words related to scientific experimentation, referents would have these three characteristics if the words are learned while performing an experiment and while subsequently discussing and retelling steps performed during the experiment.

In sum, these sections show that in vocabulary instruction (1) one needs to match the word meaning to be learned to the knowledge of the learner and (2) one

, .. ·.~·. -.. ..... - t .,.-- .... ~

must select exemplars, instructional content and instructional methods appropriate for the word meaning to be learned and for the background knowledge of the learner. For some word meanings and for learners who already have the underlying concepts, a quick definition or a presentation of instances to which the word refers will be sufficient, while for other word meanings and other learners a whole semester of instruction will not suffice.

Semantic Development and Existing Approaches to Vocabulary Instruction

The last section showed how findings about semantic development in children could be applied to vocabulary instruction. Since approaches to vocabulary development in the classroom have evolved independently of research

EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES I 33

in semantic development, they have not incorporated systematically many of these suggestions. The various approaches to word learning in this issue, therefore, do not emphasize the need to tailor exemplars and extensiveness of instruction to the type of complexity of word meaning to be learned. Similarly, they do not emphasize adjusting the nature of instruction and exemplars to the general or specific knowledge of the learner.

Most surprising is that the approaches do not incorporate the use of non-linguistic information, given the importance of the presence of the referent or exemplar when introducing and using the new word. All of the approaches - from presenting word definitions to learning vocabulary through reading - would benefit, would become more effective, if they would

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systematically attend to these variables.

Linguistic lnfonnation in Different Approaches to Vocabulary Instruction

The diverse strategies for vocabulary development described in this issue can be meaningfully compared in terms of the type of linguistic information with which the new word is paired, or in which the new word is imbedded. Possible strategies range from simply pairing the new word with words expressing its equivalent, to pairing the word with words from various semantic fields, to imbedding the word in a sentence, a paragraph, or even a story.

Vocabulary Definition

Let us begin with the word-definition approach. In word definitions, the word to be learned is paired with other equivalent words which supposedly elicit in the learner the appropriate meaning or concept. The utility and effectiveness of a particular definition depends upon whether the defining words actually elicit in the learner the appropriate concept. For example, if a student is told "altercation" means "a quarrel," and he knows already what a quarrel is, the definition will give him an understanding of altercation and will be successful. Definitions will be unsuccessful if the defining words do not allow the learner to construct the appropriate concept. This will happen (1) if the learner does not have the concept, or (2) if the words used to define the new word do not elicit the intended meaning. For example, if the student in the above example did not know what a quarrel was, then the definition would not help in understanding "altercation." In such instances, the definition will result in isolated learning, relating the word only to its defining words, which will be of little functional use to the learner. Beck and McKeown's data (this issue) support this conclusion.

There are other potential problems with such vocabulary definition instruction. There is a great difference between giving a learner a definition of a few words in the context of a lesson and having an entire lesson centered around the presentation of a series of word definitions. The latter approach has two drawbacks. With so many new words and definitions, the words may, in the learner's memory, get paired with the wrong definition. Furthermore, the motivation and attention in learning a series of definitions may be very much lower than in learning the definition of a single word that is important to the learner in the context of his current activities.

Fertile Vocabulary Instruction

In Beck's fertile vocabulary instruction, words are instructed in semantic categories of eight to to words. For example, the words jovial, indignant, and enthusiastic are taught together as a series of mood words. In addition to defining the words, instruction includes creating contexts for the words (what might a tyrant have nightmares about) or comparing and contrasting words in a semantic group. In short, the activities "provided for a great deal of discussion and interaction around the words" (see Beck and McKeown, this issue).

In this approach, the new words are paired not only with their defining words, but also with other words belonging together in some kind of semantic group. The important point is that there are many different semantic categories or schemas that could be selected for instruction of a word. Beck has chosen some very broad or loose, abstract categories, such as moods and people. However, one could also instruct words that belong together because they are part of an experiential schema, such as the adventure schema suggested by Graves and Duin (in this issue), or words belonging together in a scientific theory, or social science topic. For instance, the word tyrant could be taught by pairing it with other people words such as virtuoso, or philantliropist, as Beck has done, or it could be taught in the context of a story about a tyrant, or in the context of a social science class on governmental systems. Each of these different contexts will pair the word with different information and will, therefore, affect the meaning learned.

The specific learning context and learning task will also affect the learner's subsequent use of the word. For instance, being asked to group together words that belong in the same category of meaning, or doing synonym or antonym judgments will develop the meaning relationships among the selected words, but will not insure appropriate use in speaking or writing. Suppose one learns about "placid" only in connection with other adjectives of tranquility, then one might say something that sounds a bit awkward, like "I feel placid now.''

Finally, some organizing schemas or semantic networks may make word-learning easier than others. Learning new words through a schema that has an experiential basis, such as Graves' mystery schema (see Graves and Duin in this issue), is probably easier than learning the same words through more abstract schemas, such as moods, because the former schema may be more meaningful than the latter.

We need to explore how different schemas, or semantic networks, for teaching word meanings will affect (1) the word meaning learned, (2) the ease of learning, and (3) the subsequent appropriate word usage.

Incidental Vocabulary Leaming: Leaming Word Meanings From Reading

Nagy and Herman's incidental vocabulary learning through reading, earlier in this issue, can be distinguished from the definitional approach and Beck's rich or fertile vocabulary approach once again in terms of the information with which the target word is paired. Jn learning word meanings from reading, the learner is presented with the words not only in a meaningful sentence, but in a paragraph or even a whole story. Furthermore, the words are used in a linguistically appropriate manner (if the writer of the text has a good sense of word usage). That children learn word meanings from sentence context27 is congruent with findings on semantic development in children. 28

The differences between Beck's vocabulary instruction and Nagy's incidental word learning can be reduced to three dimensions: (1) the type of schema or semantic network used for instruction - abstract semantic categories or narratives and expository discourse, (2) the explicitness of word meanings and their relationships to other words, and (3) the learning situation - primarily oral discussion or reading.

If we extend the fertile vocabulary instruction to include organizing schemas for word learning that are experiential or narrative based, and if Nagy's reading materials for incidental word learning include word definitions and more explicit connections between terms, then we see that there is actually a continuity between the fertile vocabulary instruction approach and incidental word learning through reading. Suppose the meaning of tyrant is taught in a discussion of a historical event, where the teacher gives definitions and makes explicit the connections between the terms. Such an extension of fertile vocabulary instruction would not appear to differ greatly from reading a passage about the same historical event written by an author who has insured comprehension by including definitions and by making explicit the connections between certain terms.

Motivational and Leaming-to-Learn Strategies in Vocabulary Instruction

The focus of this article is on the nature of word meanings, and how different types of word meanings can develop from different input. Another, separate, issue in vocabulary instruction is how to help the learner become an independent and more efficient learner of new words and their meanings. This is a large area of study in itself. It is only briefly mentioned here to place the previous discussion on variables in learning specific word meanings in its proper perspective in the overarching topic of strategies for enhancing word learning.

EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ( 35

There are several approaches to making an independent, better word learner. First. one can increase the learner's motivation and awareness of the importance of word meanings. Beck's " Word Wizard" and Graves' "Recognition of adept diction," "letting students in on the secret," "informally encouraging students' active use of words," will probably make learners aware of the importance of words and motivate them to attend to words and their meanings.

A second approach is to teach specific linguistic knowledge. For instance, teaching learners to use word~part dues (prefixes, suffixes, and roots) to understand the meaning of a new word29 will help them become more aware of the nature of word structures and thereby facilitate independent word learning. A third approach is to teach directly the skills thought to be required in learning word meanings.30

These are important methods to promote word learning in general. They are distinct from the variables which one needs to consider when developing a particular word meaning.

Conclusion

A review of the nature of word meanings and the processes by which word meanings develop indicates that there is no single best way of teaching word meanings. Instruction should be tailored to the kind of word meaning to be learned - simple or complex, concrete or abstract, specific or broad - and to the learner - his general concept development, his particular knowledge with respect to the word meanings to be learned, as well as his idiosyncratic meanings.

There is much we still need to learn about the structure and nature of different word meanings and about the processes by which these different word meanings are learned before we can map more succinctly the type of instruction to the type of word meaning. The careful research spearheaded by Beck and Nagy, even though at present they are at opposite poles, are laying the groundwork for this mapping.

What must be remembered by teachers and by researchers, eager to show the advantage of one method over the other, is that word meanings are multifaceted and elusive; that word meanings evolve gradually, continuing to grow with further experiences even in the adult.

Acknowledgement

I thank Thomas G. White for his helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this paper and for many stimulating discussions.

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footnotes

1 Websttr's New World D1Ctio11ary. 2Vygotsky, L 171ougltt and Languagt, Cambridge, Massachusetts

: MIT Press, 153, 1962 (origin;illy published in 1934). 3Rosch, E. "On the Internal Structure of Perceptual ;ind

Semantic Categories," in T.E. Moore, ed., Cog11itive Developme11t a11d tire Acq11isitio11 of Lang11ages, New York : Academic Press, 1973. ~reenberg. J. and S.A. Kuczaj. "Towards a Theory of

Substantive Word-Meaning Acquisition," in S.A. Kuczaj, ed., Lang11age Development: Vol. 1. Sy11tax artd Sema,,tics, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 291, 1982.

svygotsky. op. cit., 124, see Footnote 2. 6Donaldson, M. and J. McGarrigle. "Some Clues to the Nature

of Semantic Development." in journal of Cltild Language, 1, 185-194, 1974.

7Blewitt, P. "Word Meaning Acquisition in Young Children: A Review of Theory and Research," in H.W. Reese and L.P. Lipsitt, eds., Advances i'1 Cliild Development and Bclravior, New York : Academic Press, 17, 1982. Also, S. Carey, "Semantic Development: The State of the Art," in E. Wanner and L.R. Gleilman, eds., Language Acquisition: 111c Stale of lite Ari, Cambridge, Massachusetts · Cambridge University Press, 1982.

8Kuczaj, S.A. and M.P. Maratsos. "On the Acquisition of Front, Back and Side," in Clrild Development, 46, 202-210, 1975.

9Carey, op. cit., see Footnote 7. 101bid. 11Blewitt, op. cit., see Footnote 7. Also, Greenberg and Kuczaj,

op. cit., set? Footnote 4, and D.S. Palermo, "Theoretical Issues in Semantic Development," in S.A. Kuczaj, ed., Language Development: Vol. l, Synta::c artd Semantics, Hillsdale, New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1982.

'2Clark, E. "What's In a Word? On the Child's Acquisition of Semantics in His First Language," in T. Moore, ed., Cognitive Developm1ml and tire Acquisition of Language, New York : Academic Press, 72. 1973.

13Btewitt, op. cit., see Footnote 7. Also, Carey, op. cit., see Footnote 7, and Greenberg and Kuczaj, op. cit., see Footnote 4.

14Blewitt, op. cit., see Footnote 7. Also, Carey, op. cit., see Footnote 7; Greenberg and Kuczaj, op. cit .. see Footnote 4. and Palermo, op. cit., see Footnote 11.

1se1ewitt, op. cit., see Footnote 7, and Carey, op. cit., see Footnote 7.

16Carey, op. cit .. see Footnote 7. Also, Blewitt, op. cit., see Footnote 7, and G.J. Whitehurst, "Meaning and Semantics," in G.J. Whitehurst and 8.J. Zimmerman, eds., The Functions of La11guage and Cognition, New York: Academic Press, 1979.

l1B(ewitt, op. cit., see Footnote 7. l&Whitehurst, op. cit., see Footnote 16. 19Whitehurst, G.J., J. Kedesdy and T.G. White. wA Functional

Analysis of Meaning," in S.A. Kuczaj, ed., Lang11age Development: Vol. I, Syntax and Semantics, Hillsdale, New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1982.

2°Kuczaj, S.A. and A.R. Lederberg. "Height, Age and Function: Differing Influences on Children's Comprehension of 'Younger' and 'Older,"' in /ournal of Clrild Language, 4. 395-416, 1977.

21Whitehurst, 1979, op. cit., see Footnote 16. Also, T.G. White, "Naming Practices, Typicality, and Underextension in Child Language," in journal of E::cperimental Psyclrology, 33, 324-346, 1982.

22Brown, R. "Linguistic Determinism and the Pilrt of Speech," in Journal of Abnonnal and Social Psyclrology. 55, 1-5, 1957.

2.3Kuczaj and Maratsos, op. cit., see Footnote 8. 24Carey, op. cit., see Footnote 7. 25Rice, Mabel. Cognition lo Language: Categories, Word Meanings

artd Traini11g. Baltimore: University Park Press, 1980. 26Nelson, K. "Structure and Strategy in Learning to Talk," in

Mo11ograpl1s of tire Society for Researclr in Child Development, 38, No. 149, 1973. Also, Whitehurst, Kedesdy and White, op. cit., see Footnote 19.

27Nagy, W., P. Herman and J. Anderson. "Grade and Reading Ability Effects on Learning Words from Context," paper presented at the National Reading Conference, St. Petersburg. Florida, 1984.

28Brown, op. cit .. see footnote 22. 29White, T.G. and G.E. Speidel. "Children's Knowledge of

Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words," manuscript in preparation. 3<Jsternberg. R.J .. J.S. Powell and D.B. Kaye. "Teaching

Vocabulary-Building Skills: A Contextual Approach," in A.C. Wilkinson, ed., Classroom Computers and Cognitive Science, New York . Academic Press, 1983. Also, D. Carnine, E. Kameenui and G. Doyle, "Utilization of Contextual Information in Determining the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words," in Reading Researclr Quarterly, 19, 188-204, 1984.

Gisela E. Speidel received her BS and MS from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and lier PlrD in Clinical Psyclrology from tire University of Hawaii al Manoa. She !ras bee11 willr tire Kamclramclra Early Ed11catio11 Program, KEEP, since 1972. Sire is currently Language a11d Leaming Devdopmertt Cltairrnan at tire Center for Development of Early Education. Sire is also Affiliate Graduate Faculty in tire Department of Psychology. Umversity of Hawa11 al Ma11oa.