Tomasello M, Strosberg R, Akhtar N
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
J Child Lang. 1996 Feb;23(1):157-76. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900010138.
Previous studies have demonstrated that children aged 2;0 can learn new words in a variety of non-ostensive contexts. The current two studies were aimed at seeing if this was also true of children just beginning to learn words at 1;6. In the first study an adult interacted with 48 children. She used a nonce word to announce her intention to find an object ('Let's find the gazzer'), picked up and rejected an object with obvious disappointment, and then gleefully found the target object (using no language). Children learned the new word as well in this condition as in a condition in which the adult found the object immediately. In the second study the adult first played several rounds of a finding game with each of 60 children, in which it was first established that one of several novel objects was always in a very distinctive hiding place (a toy barn). The adult then used a nonce word to announce her intention to find an object ('Let's find the toma') and then proceeded to the barn. In the key condition the barn was mysteriously 'locked'; the child thus never saw the target object after the nonce word was introduced. Children learned the new word as well in this condition as in a condition in which the adult found the object immediately. The results of these two studies suggest that from very early in language acquisition children learn words not through passive, associative processes, but rather through active attempts to understand adult behaviour in a variety of action and discourse contexts.
先前的研究表明，2岁的儿童能够在各种非明示性的情境中学习新单词。目前的两项研究旨在探究对于刚开始在1岁6个月学习单词的儿童而言，情况是否也是如此。在第一项研究中，一名成年人与48名儿童进行互动。她使用一个临时编造的词来表明她要寻找一个物体的意图（“我们来找找‘gazzer’”），拿起一个物体并明显失望地将其扔掉，然后高兴地找到了目标物体（全程未使用语言）。在这种情况下，儿童学习新单词的效果与成年人立即找到物体的情况一样好。在第二项研究中，成年人首先与60名儿童中的每一位玩了几轮寻找游戏，在游戏中首先确定几个新奇物体中的一个总是藏在一个非常特别的地方（一个玩具谷仓）。然后成年人使用一个临时编造的词来表明她要寻找一个物体的意图（“我们来找找‘toma’”），然后前往谷仓。在关键条件下，谷仓被神秘地“锁上了”；因此，在引入临时编造的词后，孩子再也没有看到目标物体。在这种情况下，儿童学习新单词的效果与成年人立即找到物体的情况一样好。这两项研究的结果表明，在语言习得的早期阶段，儿童学习单词并非通过被动的联想过程，而是通过积极尝试在各种行动和话语情境中理解成年人的行为。
