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Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth

Across languages, lexical items specific to infant‐directed speech (i.e., ‘baby‐talk words’) are characterized by a preponderance of onomatopoeia (or highly iconic words), diminutives, and reduplication. These lexical characteristics may help infants discover the referential nature of words, identif...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ota, Mitsuhiko, Davies‐Jenkins, Nicola, Skarabela, Barbora
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6120503/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29998604
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12628
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author Ota, Mitsuhiko
Davies‐Jenkins, Nicola
Skarabela, Barbora
author_facet Ota, Mitsuhiko
Davies‐Jenkins, Nicola
Skarabela, Barbora
author_sort Ota, Mitsuhiko
collection PubMed
description Across languages, lexical items specific to infant‐directed speech (i.e., ‘baby‐talk words’) are characterized by a preponderance of onomatopoeia (or highly iconic words), diminutives, and reduplication. These lexical characteristics may help infants discover the referential nature of words, identify word referents, and segment fluent speech into words. If so, the amount of lexical input containing these properties should predict infants’ rate of vocabulary growth. To test this prediction, we tracked the vocabulary size in 47 English‐learning infants from 9 to 21 months and examined whether the patterns of growth can be related to measures of iconicity, diminutives, and reduplication in the lexical input at 9 months. Our analyses showed that both diminutives and reduplication in the input were associated with vocabulary growth, although measures of iconicity were not. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that phonological properties typical of lexical input in infant‐directed speech play a role in early vocabulary growth.
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spelling pubmed-61205032018-09-05 Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth Ota, Mitsuhiko Davies‐Jenkins, Nicola Skarabela, Barbora Cogn Sci Regular Articles Across languages, lexical items specific to infant‐directed speech (i.e., ‘baby‐talk words’) are characterized by a preponderance of onomatopoeia (or highly iconic words), diminutives, and reduplication. These lexical characteristics may help infants discover the referential nature of words, identify word referents, and segment fluent speech into words. If so, the amount of lexical input containing these properties should predict infants’ rate of vocabulary growth. To test this prediction, we tracked the vocabulary size in 47 English‐learning infants from 9 to 21 months and examined whether the patterns of growth can be related to measures of iconicity, diminutives, and reduplication in the lexical input at 9 months. Our analyses showed that both diminutives and reduplication in the input were associated with vocabulary growth, although measures of iconicity were not. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that phonological properties typical of lexical input in infant‐directed speech play a role in early vocabulary growth. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-07-11 2018-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6120503/ /pubmed/29998604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12628 Text en © 2018 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Regular Articles
Ota, Mitsuhiko
Davies‐Jenkins, Nicola
Skarabela, Barbora
Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth
title Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth
title_full Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth
title_fullStr Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth
title_full_unstemmed Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth
title_short Why Choo‐Choo Is Better Than Train: The Role of Register‐Specific Words in Early Vocabulary Growth
title_sort why choo‐choo is better than train: the role of register‐specific words in early vocabulary growth
topic Regular Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6120503/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29998604
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12628
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