Factors Influencing Early Lexical Acquisition: Lexical Orientation and Phonological Composition Author(s): Laurence B. Leonard, Richard G.

Schwartz, Barbara Morris, Kathy Chapman Reviewed work(s): Source: Child Development, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Sep., 1981), pp. 882-887 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1129090 . Accessed: 31/10/2011 10:35
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Factors Influencing Early Lexical Acquisition: Lexical Orientation and Phonological Composition
Laurence B. Leonard
Purdue University

Richard G. Schwartz
Universityof Pittsburgh

Barbara Morris and Kathy Chapman

Purdue University
LEONARD, LAURENCE

Factors Influencing Early Lexical Acquisition: Lexical Orientationand Phonological Composition. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 882-887. Young children classified as referential and nonreferentialin lexical orientationparticipatedin experimentalsessions in which new object and action words, containingconsonantseither observedin or absent from the children'sspeech, were exposed. Referentialchildren acquired a greater number of object names than nonreferential children, while the 2 groups did not differ in their acquisition of action names. Words containing consonants consistent with the children's phonologies were acquired more readily than those that were not. The results are interpreted as support for the view that children's tendency to acquire new words is influenced by the topographicalfeatures of the words and the degree to which the referents of these words are consistent with the children'sindividual lexical preferences. Several recent studies of children's lexical The differences in lexical orientation first have uncovered factors that may noted by Nelson (1973) have been found to be development influence the young child's tendency to acquire related to other differences between children. words rather than others. The purFor example, referential children have been particular found to show greater temporal decontextualipose of the present study was to examine two of these factors more closely, the lexical orienzation in one-word speech (Snyder, Bates, & tation of the child, and the phonological comBretherton, Note 1) and larger vocabularies at 24 months (Nelson 1973) than nonreferential position of the words to be acquired. children. However, a limitation of each of In an examination of the first 50 words these studies is that the notion of differences used by young children, Nelson (1973) obin lexical orientation has evolved from naturalserved some clear differences in the distribuistic studies involving the use of diary word tion of words across lexical categories. The lists and language samples. Such studies do not most striking differences between the children permit a determination of whether children's was in the number of general nominals used, lexical orientations are a function of, say, their such as names of objects and animals. Over own lexical preferences or whether they reflect half of the lexical items used by some of the the types of objects and activities that are children took the form of general nominals. available in their particular environments to These children were termed "referential speaktalk about. In the present study, the general ers" by Nelson since they seemed to display nominal variable was examined in an experian object-oriented language. The other children mental paradigm where the determining factors made less use of general nominals and seemed to exhibit a social orientation in their language. could be more carefully assessed. This researchwas supportedin part by NINCDS grant NS 16154-01. Requestsfor reprints should be addressed to Laurence B. Leonard, Audiology and Speech Sciences, Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907. [Child Development, 1981, 52, 882-887. @ 1981 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
0009-3920/8 1/5203-0030$01.00]

B.;

SCHWARTZ,

RICHARD

G.; MomRIs, BARBARA; and

CHAPMAN,

KATHY.

Leonard et al.
The second factor of interest deals with the phonological composition of lexical items. Several investigators have observed a tendency in young children to select for usage only certain forms of adult words. The particular adult forms selected for usage seem to vary from child to child, depending upon the characteristics of his/her production system. For example, some young children have selected primarily words with word-initial velars (Menn 1971), others have selected only words with labial or apical consonants (Leopold 1947), and other children have primarily attempted words with word-initial fricatives (Ferguson & Farwell 1975). Unfortunately, most of the investigations of children's selection tendencies have not controlled the nature of the linguistic input available to the children. Thus it could not be determined whether the predominance of particular types of words in the children's speech was due to their active selection of such words or to the fact that such words were the most frequent to occur in their linguistic environment. Only the Schwartz and Leonard (Note 2) study dealing with children possessing five or fewer words has examined this variable. In the present study, selection tendencies were investigated in a design permitting greater experimental control of the frequency of exposure variable.

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Method
Subjects.-From an initial pool of 20 children, 16 children, ranging in age from 1-4 to 1-10 were selected as subjects. Eight of the children were male, eight were female. The children's expressive vocabularies ranged in size from 20 to 50 words according to an examination of their speech supplemented by a parental interview. Each of the children's speech was limited to single-word utterances. All of the children came from middle-income families. One-half of the children (three males, five females) qualified as referential in their lexical orientation, and the remaining qualified as nonreferential ("expressive") according to the criteria used by Nelson (1973). The referential and nonreferential children were matched for the proportion of action word usage in their speech. The lexical usage of the four children not selected as subjects fell too close to the cutoff point (see below) used to divide the children according to lexical orientation.

Speech sample.-A spontaneous speech sample of at least 100 utterances was obtained from each child in his home. For most children, the 100 utterances were obtained in a single session. For the remaining children, a second session was held within 2 days of the first. A standard set of toys and familiar objects was used with each child. In addition, individually selected objects and activities were sometimes used if, when initially contacted, the parents reported less common words to be part of the child's lexicon. The experimenter phonetically transcribed each child's utterances and made notes about relevant aspects of the context. In cases where a transcription was missed, the experimenter reviewed the audiorecording of the sampling session. Immediately following the sample, the mother was asked about other words in the child's vocabulary that were not noted during the sample. A standard list of words taken from examples in the child language literature served as the basis of the questions asked (e.g., Does he/she say any names of foods? Is there a word he/ she typically uses when requesting something?). The samples were used to determine (1) the degree of general nominal usage by each child and (2) the phonological characteristics of each child's speech. Following Nelson (1973), general nominals were defined as names of objects (e.g., "car"), animals (e.g., "doggie"), people (e.g., "boy"), and substances (e.g., "milk"). In keeping with Nelson's (1973) classification system, the children were classified as referential speakers if general nominals represented over 50% of the lexical items they used. Children whose use of general nominals was less than 50%were classified as nonreferential speakers. The distribution of the words reportedly used by the children that did not appear in the speech samples was consistent with the classification based on the speech samples. The percentage of words representing general nominals used by the children classified as referential ranged from 55% to 67% (M = 60). For children classified as nonreferential, these percentages ranged from 25%to 45% (M = 39). According to Nelson's (1973) findings, action words constitute approximately 15% of the first 50 words used by children, regardless of their lexical orientation. Therefore, as a means of providing controls for general wordlearning ability (independent of the specific lexical orientation effects under investigation), the referential and nonreferential children in

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form" (e.g., raising the doll's arms, rolling the doll on the floor). Experimental procedure.-All testing and experimental sessions were held in the children's homes, with the mother present. The sessions were tape-recorded. The experimenter conducting these sessions had no knowledge of the child's lexical orientation classification nor information concerning which experimental words had been regarded as "in phonology" and "out of phonology" words for the child. Prior to the experimental sessions, each subject was presented with a 16-item test for the use of the 16 experimental words employed. For those test items involving experimental words referring to objects, the experimenter pointed to the object and asked, "What's this?" For those test items involving experimental words referring to actions, the experimenter maneuvered a doll to perform the action and asked, "What's the baby doing?" This pretest was administered to insure that the children had not acquired any of the experimental words. Following pretesting, nine of the 16 children (one male and three females with a referential orientation, three males and two females with a nonreferential orientation) were assigned initially to a control condition, and the remaining seven children were assigned immediately to an experimental condition. Children were randomly assigned to conditions until seven children had been assigned to the experimental condition. This strategy, necessitated by the need for extra control subjects (see below), resulted in the final three children's being assigned to the control condition on a nonrandom basis. Each child in the experimental condition participated in 10 experimental sessions. Two sessions were conducted per week. Each session lasted approximately 45 min. During the course of each session, the experimenter produced each experimental word five times. For experimental words referring to objects, these exposures occupied sentence-final position in sentences (e.g., "Here's the badge"), which accompanied some act that the experimenter directed toward the referent object (e.g., placing it in a toy truck). For experimental words

this study were matched for percentage of action word usage.' Following Nelson, action words were defined as words that describe or demand action (e.g., "go") or that express or demand attention (e.g., "look"). Experimental words.-For each child, 16 experimental words were selected. Based on the speech sample and parental report, the child showed no evidence of comprehending or producing any of the experimental words. According to parental report, the child was also unfamiliar with the referents of these words.

Eight of the experimental words were words for objects, and the remaining eight were words for actions. All of the words selected were relatively infrequent in their occurrence in general usage (e.g., "badge," "sheath," "bow," "kneel"). The experimental words were individually selected for each child, based on the phonological characteristics of his speech. Four of the eight experimental words for objects and four of the eight words for actions were composed of consonants deemed absent from the child's speech ("out of phonology" words). A consonant was considered absent from a child's speech if it (1) was not produced by the child during the speech sample, (2) was not characteristic of the adult words attempted by the child during the speech sample, and (3) was not characteristic of the adult words reported to be in the child's lexicon but not observed during the speech sample. The remaining four experimental words of each type contained consonants that the child was observed to produce accurately in over 50% of his attempts at adult words containing these consonants. All 16 experimental words were monosyllabic. The words used in the study were selected from a list of approximately 40 object words and 40 action words that had been found appropriate during earlier pilot work. The referents of the object words were relatively small and manipulable and could be incorporated into play themes appropriate for young children (e.g., could be placed in containers, wrapped around dolls). The referents of the action words involved physical movements that young children were capable of making dolls "per1 Nelson (1973) observed that young children also use words that can be placed in other lexical categories. Words of one of these categories, "personal-social," more abundant in are the speech of nonreferential speakersthan in referentialspeakers'speech. Unfortunately,words of this type are too few in number even in nonreferentialspeakers (constituting approximately 10%of nonreferentialspeakers'lexical items) to adopt this category as either an experimental or control variable in the present study.

Leonard et al.
referring to actions, the exposures occupied sentence-final position in sentences (e.g., "Watch the baby kneel") accompanying the experimenter's manipulation of a doll to perform the action. The child was never asked to produce or imitate the experimental words. However, any spontaneous or imitative use of the experimental words by the child was noted. The children in the control condition participated in 10 sessions that were identical to those of the children in the experimental condition with the exception that the names of the experimental objects and actions were never provided by the experimenter. Following the 10 sessions the children in the experimental condition were administered a posttest, identical to the pretest. At this point, this same test was administered to the children who had participated in the 10 control sessions. Seven of the nine control children then participated in 10 experimental sessions, following the procedures described above. The two remaining control children participated in an additional 10 control sessions. The nine children then received the 16-item test a third time. The criterion of Leonard, Schwartz, Folger, Newhoff, and Wilcox (1979) was used in scoring the children's use of the experimental words on the 16-item test. A child was credited with the use of an experimental word on the test if the production contained at least a recognizable consonant and vowel to permit identification that the production was the name of the object or action being tested. A second judge independently scored the posttest performance of five children selected at random. The agreement between the investigator and the independent judge was 100%.

885

dition (M = 4.86) and the children whose experimental treatment followed their participation as controls (M = 4.43). The two children who had participated in two consecutive control conditions showed no experimental word usage on any of the test administrations. These findings suggest that the additional tests received by the children first serving as controls and the additional experience these children received with the referents of the experimental words were not important factors in this study. The postexperimental treatment scores of the children who had participated as controls prior to experimental treatment were pooled with those of the children who had been assigned immediately to the experimental condition. The data were analyzed by means of a mixed model analysis of variance with lexical orientation of child (referential, nonreferential) serving as a between-subjects variable and type of word (object, action) and phonological composition of word (in phonology, out of phonology) serving as within-subject variables. A greater number of object words (M = 3.21) were used on the posttest than action words (M = 1.43), F(1,12) = 17.71, p < .005. In addition, a greater number of words containing sounds consistent with the children's phonologies (M = 2.86) were used on the posttest than words inconsistent with the phonologies of the children (M = 1.79), F(1,12) = 30.08, p < .001. Both the superiority of object words over action words and the superiority of inphonology words over out-of-phonology words held for males as well as females. A main effect was not observed for lexical orientation of child, F(1,12) = 1.09, p> .05. However, it appeared that the referential and nonreferential children did not perform equally on the two types of experimental words. A significant interaction was observed between the type of word on the posttest and the lexical orientation of the child, F(1,12) = 4.79, p < .05. A least significant difference test (.05 level) revealed that the referential children used a greater number of object words (M = 4.14) than the nonreferential children (M = 2.29), while the two groups were similar in their action word usage (M = 1.43 for each group). Further, only the referential children's object word usage on the posttest proved significantly greater than action word usage. An interaction was also observed between the type of word and the phonological composition of word, F(1,12) = 17.70, p < .005. A greater

Results
It appeared that the children's posttest use of the experimental words could be attributed to treatment effects and not to factors such as maturation and/or extraexperimental exposure of the words. The mean number of experimental words used on the posttest by the children who were assigned immediately to the experimental condition was 4.86. No child assigned immediately to the control condition showed any experimental word usage on the test following the control sessions. Similar postexperimental treatment scores were seen for the children who had been assigned immediately to the experimental con-

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Another major finding of this study was that children who were classified as referential in their lexical orientation showed a greater tendency to produce new object names than children classified as nonreferential. Given that the two groups of children showed an equal tendency to produce new action words, the referential children's object word performance does not seem attributable to a general superiority in word learning. In the present study, the types of experimental words exposed and their manner of presentation were the same for both groups of children. Therefore, the fact that the children showed a somewhat different pattern of experimental word usage suggests that the differences resided in the children themselves. However, it must be recognized that these differences may have reflected preferences the children had developed as a result of environmental factors operating well before their participation in the study. For example, Nelson (1973) observed a relationship between mothers' tendency to impose their own ideas on their children's activity and a tendency on the part of their children to produce relatively few general nominals. Rosenblatt (Note 3) noted that children used relatively few general nominals when child and adult engaged in a high degree of adult-oriented activity. It is quite possible that factors such as these had led to the development of the preferences seen in the children serving as subjects in the present study. In summary, two conclusions can be drawn from this study. First, it appears that children's selection of words may be influenced by the phonological structure of the words. Second, it appears that a child's lexical orientation may have predictive value. Children exhibiting a referential orientation seem more likely to acquire new object names than nonreferentially oriented children. It is hoped that future investigation will uncover the bases of these factors and determine the possible importance they hold for other aspects of the child's development.

number of object words that were consistent with the children's phonologies (M = 2.21) was used on the posttest than any other word type. No difference was observed between the posttest use of action words that were consistent (M = .64) and action words that were not consistent with the children's phonologies (M = .79). Together, these findings suggest that the phonological factor was more important for the object words. No other interactions were observed. Discussion A major finding of this study was that young children seem more likely to produce words whose phonological characteristics are consistent with their own phonologies than words composed of sounds that are not part of their phonological systems. This finding provides empirical support for earlier observations from naturalistic studies (e.g., Ferguson & Farwell 1975) and extends the findings of Schwartz and Leonard (Note 2) to a period when children's lexicons are from 20 to 50 words. It appears that phonological selectivity is actively maintained by the child during the period of the first 50 words. This evidence that phonological factors may influence the likelihood of a child attempting a word seems to necessitate a broadening of our views concerning the factors that may affect lexical usage. Along with noting the functions of words (e.g., Bloom 1973) and their referents' capacity to act or be acted upon (e.g., Nelson 1973), young children seem to take note of the topographical characteristics of these words. Although frequency of exposure can be ruled out as a factor in the children's word selection, the basis for this selection is still not clear. Words may have been selected because the children were best acquainted with how these particular words should be produced. Alternatively, the children may have produced these words because these were words whose phonetic details they had more fully perceived. Sorting out perceptual from production factors is a difficult process given the methodologies available for the developmental period studied here (see Eilers 1978). However, it would appear that the inclusion of a comprehension test with carefully selected foils might provide useful information. For example, if children showed equal comprehension of in-phonology and out-of-phonology words yet produced only the former, a production account of the children's word selection might be favored.

Reference Notes
1. Snyder, L.; Bates, E.; & Bretherton, I. The transition from first words into syntax. Paper presentedat the Boston UniversityConference on Language Development, Boston, September 1979. Schwartz,R., & Leonard,L. Do children pick and choose? an examination of phonological

2.

Leonard et al.
selection and avoidance in early lexical acquisition. Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, September 1979. Rosenblatt, D. Learning how to mean: the development of representation in play and language. Paper presented at the Conference on the Biology of Play, Farnham, England, June 1975.

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Ferguson, C., & Farwell, C. Words and sounds in early language acquisition: English initial consonants in the first 50 words. Language, 1975, 51, 419-439. Leonard, L.; Schwartz, R.; Folger, M.; Newhoff, M.; & Wilcox, M. Children's imitations of lexical items. Child Development, 1979, 50, 1927.

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Bloom, L. One word at a time. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. Eilers, R. Discussion summary: development of phonology. In F. Minifie & L. Lloyd (Eds.), behavioral assessment. Baltimore: University Park, 1978.

Leopold, W. Speech development of a bilingual child. Vol. 2. Sound-learningin the first two
years. Evanston, 1ll.: Northwestern University Press, 1947. Menn, L. Phonotactic rules in beginning speech. Lingua, 1971, 26, 225-251. Nelson, K. Structure and strategy in learning to

Communicativeand cognitive abilities: early

in Child Development, 1973, 38 (1-2, Serial No. 149).

talk. Monographsof the Society for Research