A Developmental Study of Word Definitions

Wolman, Richard N.; Barker, Edwin N.

doi:10.1080/00221325.1965.10532773

Cited by 35 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Although definitions have been used to investigate semantic and conceptual development (Anglin 1977, Inhelder & Piaget 1964, Litowitz 1977, Nelson 1978, Norlin 1980, Vygotsky 1962, Wolman & Barker 1969, vocabulary development and intellectual functioning (Binet & Simon 1916, Feifel & Lorge 1950, Wechsler 1974 they have sometimes had an ambiguous status as data on semantic development and language development in general. The ambiguity derives in part from the uncertain relation between what someone says a word means and what it actually means to them, as inferred from their use of the word or their judgements about the use of the word.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of definition

Watson

1985

J. Child Lang.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A brief theoretical statement on definition is advanced, followed by a study of the development of definition in children aged 5;o-10 ;o. The empirical findings suggest that the emergence of superordinate terms in definition cannot be adequately accounted for simply by appeal to changes in underlying knowledge, or to selectional restrictions on the structure of the definiens. Rather, the development of definition can best be characterized as the gradual articulation of a conventional definitional form out of the more general forms of ordinary oral discourse. It is suggested that definitions are expressions of word meaning that reflect the unique requirements of a literate register, and that the increasing dominance of superordinate terms in definitions reflects in part the adoption of this conventional form of expression.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of definition

Watson

1985

J. Child Lang.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Early studies on word definitions focused on the cognitive aspect of worddefinition performance (Al-Issa, 1969;Feifel, 1949;Feilfel & Lorge, 1950;Reichard, Schneider, & Rapaport, 1944;Storck & Looft, 1973;Swartz & Hall, 1972;Terman, 1916;Wolman & Barker, 1965) and have concluded that the development of children's ability to give word definitions is a gradual process from the infantile (functional) type, characteristic of younger children or schizophrenic adults (Feifel, 1949) towards the more mature (superordinate) type that is attributed to children about or older than age 10 and normal adults.…”

Section: Previous Studies That Used Word-definition Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, a number of coding systems have been employed to help researchers analyze the word-definition data. Some of these coding systems used semantic analyses of the data (Al-Issa, 1969;Feifel, 1949;Reichard, Storck & Looft, 1973;Wolman & Barker, 1965), while others applied both semantic and syntactic criteria (Litowitz, 1977;Watson, 1985). The analysis most relevant to the nature of this study is the one suggested by Watson. According to Watson (1985), the most common types of definitions children give can be categorized semantically and syntactically into four groups: a) Functional (NP1 VERB) -e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early foreign language education and metalinguistic development

Charkova

2003

ARLA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies with bilingual and multilingual subjects suggest that bilingualism and multilingualism foster the development of certain aspects of children's metalinguistic skills. The purpose of the present study was to find out if learning foreign languages facilitates children's metalinguistic ability to define words. It compared Bulgarian monolingual, bilingual and trilingual subjects on their word-definition performance in the L1. The relationship between L1 definition performance, L2/L3 proficiency, and L2/L3 definition performance within the bilingual and trilingual groups was also investigated.The study found that early foreign language education has a positive effect on the quality of children's definitions in their L1. The bilingual and trilingual children performed significantly better than the monolingual children. The results specific to the bilingual and trilingual groups showed that second/third language proficiency was a significant and powerful predictor of the performance of the bilingual and trilingual subjects on the word-definition tasks in their second/third language. L1 word-definition ability was a weaker predictor of the subjects' performance on the word-definition task in their second or third language. However, in the case of genetically closely related languages (Bulgarian and Russian) the transfer was easier as compared to genetically more distanced languages (Bulgarian and English).

show abstract

“…Because the literature recognizes developmental shifts both in cognition (Piaget & Inhelder 1969, White 1965 and in verbal definitions (Wolman & Barker 1965, Al-Issa 1969, subjects were divided into two age groups: younger (3 to 7 years) and older (8 to 12 years). The first concerns the nature of children's semantic knowledge: specifically, whether the part-whole semantic relation is available to children, as judged by their willingness to express it.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expression of the part–whole semantic relation by 3- to 12-year-old children

Litowitz

Novy²

1984

J. Child Lang.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/ abstract_S030500090000564XHow to cite this article: Bonnie E. Litowitz and Forrest A. Novy (1984). Expression of the part-whole semantic relation by 3-to 12-year-old children. ABSTRACTThe present study investigated the expression of the part-whole semantic relation by children 3 to 12 years of age. Controlling both task format (structured vs. open-ended) and dimensions associated with experimental stimuli (part-word vs. part-object; known whole vs. unknown whole), the verbal responses of two age groups of children were analysed. While results revealed the part-whole semantic relation expressible by even the youngest children, age-group comparisons indicated that the older children preferred its use significantly more often. The part-whole semantic relation was also observed to take several linguistic forms (partitive, spatial, possessive), the selection of which varied as a function of age, task format, and type of experimental stimuli. Findings are discussed relative to issues concerning research methodology, the elicitation and assessment of children's semantic knowledge, and cognitive developmental theory.

show abstract

A Developmental Study of Word Definitions

Cited by 35 publications

References 2 publications

Towards a theory of definition

Towards a theory of definition

Early foreign language education and metalinguistic development

Expression of the part–whole semantic relation by 3- to 12-year-old children

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About