Becoming a Word Learner A Debate on Lexical Acquisition

by Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathryn; Bloom, Lois; Smith, Linda B.; Woodward, Amanda L.; Akhtar, Nameera; Tomasello, Michael; Hollich, George

• ISBN13: 9780195130324
• ISBN10: 0195130324
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Language acquisition is a contentious field of research occupied by cognitive and developmental psychologists, linguists, philosophers, and biologists. Perhaps the key component to understanding how language is mastered is explaining word acquisition. At twelve months, an infant learns new words slowly and laboriously but at twenty months he or she acquires an average of ten new words per day. How can we explain this phenomenal change? A theory of word acquisition will not only deepen our understanding of the nature of language but will provide real insight into the workings of the developing mind. In the latest entry in Oxford's Counterpoints series, Roberta Golinkoff and Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek will present competing word acquisition theories that have emerged in the past decade. Each theory will be presented by the pioneering researcher. Contributors will include Lois Bloom of Columbia University, Linda Smith of Indiana University, Amanda Woodward of the University if Chicago, Nameera Akhtar of the University of California, Santa Cruz and Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute. The editors will provide introductory and summary chapters to help assess each theoretical model. Roberta Golinkoff has been the director of The Infant Language Project at the University of Delaware since 1974. For the past decade she has collaborated with Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek of Temple University to solve the question of language acquisition in children.

Table of Contents

Contributors	vii
Word Learning: Icon, Index, or Symbol?	3	(16)
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
The Intentionality Model of Word Learning: How to Learn a Word, Any Word	19	(32)
Lois Bloom
Learning How to Learn Words: An Associative Crane	51	(30)
Linda B. Smith
Constraining the Problem Space in Early Word Learning	81	(34)
Amanda L. Woodward
The Social Nature of Words and Word Learning	115	(21)
Nameera Akhtar
Michael Tomasello
An Emergentist Coalition Model for Word Learning: Mapping Words to Objects Is a Product of the Interaction of Multiple Cues	136	(29)
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
George Hollich
Counterpoint Commentary	165	(34)
``What Can We Take for Granted in Word Learning?''
Lois Bloom
``Avoiding Associations When It's Behaviorism You Really Hate''
Linda B. Smith
``There Is No Silver Bullet for Word Learning: Why Monolithic Accounts Miss the Mark''
Amanda L. Woodward
``Five Questions for Any Theory of Word Learning''
Michael Tomasello
Nameera Akhtar
``The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts, or Why the Emergentist Coalition Model Works''
Kathy Hirsch-Pasek
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Index	199