The Main Goal of Naigles and Hoff-Ginsberg - Case Study Example

Introduction: A number of studies have examined the order in which children learn some words faster than others. For example, Brown (1958) studied why some nouns are learned before other nouns. Previous theoretical and empirical work on children’s learning of words suggests that words are acquired in an order that is influenced by the meaning of the word and how the word appears in input. Words which appear more frequent in input or appear in the salient positions are learnt faster. The frame in which the word appears in also affects the children’s ability to know the meaning of these words and thus the faster they acquire it. The goal of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) study was to investigate the influence of how the verbs appear in input on the order by which children learn new verbs. The three properties of input that were tested were: frequency, frequency in the salient position, and the syntactic frames they were used in. The study aimed to determine relevance of these factors in deciding the order of acquisition of verbs. The study of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) measured the order of verb acquisition using speech produced by those children 10 weeks after the conversations that provided the basis for assessing input. A correlation between the verbs used during the second session is made with those used during the first session. Before the study they predicted that verbs more frequent in the input, in different syntactic frames, and appear more often in the salient utterance position would be used more frequently ten weeks later by children. Strong Features of the Article: Validation of the Methods to Measure Order of Verb Acquisition: The order of verb acquisition was inferred from the prevalence of a verb in the words of children. Methods to measure childrens verb knowledge include diaries, checklists and elicited production. During the study of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) three methods were used to measure the prevalence of a verb in the words of children which were checklists, elicited production and spontaneous speech samples. It was found that the three methods were inter-correlated. These methods did not correlate with the order of verbs first use in diary. More research is needed on order of verb acquisition using the diary method. The correlation between all prevalence measures suggests that prevalence of verb use in speech is a valid measure of the order of acquiring these verbs by children. The other measure of verb use in speech is syntactic frame diversity. This measure correlated only with the measure of frequency. This suggests that children’s flexibility of verb use as measured by syntactic diversity is related to frequency but had different predictors in input. The correlation and validation of the measures used during the study is a strong point. This ensures the validity of further conclusions and interpretation of the results of the study. Weak Features of the Article: The study of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) also found that positional salience of a verb in the input was not a predictor of the child future verb frequency use and was a negative predictor of future child verb flexibility of use. The more the verb appeared in input utterance-final position, the fewer it appeared in the child speech 10 weeks later. This is because verb uses in utterance-final position provide the null frame. The null frame does not contain syntactic information for the child to use to construct his/her own frames for the verb. This finding suggests that if a verb was heard in the null frame, it would be used with more frequently but with little syntactic elaboration and if it was heard in utterance-final position, it would be hard for the child to distinguish these verbs. The frequency of utterance-final position in the input did not predict future verb frequency of use. These findings are different from findings of Tardif, Shatz, & Naigles (1997). There needs to be more investigation of the reason why the study findings were different from previous study findings. Hypothesis: Previous empirical results provided evidence that children learning new verbs are sensitive to the syntactic frames of input and the input that children receive affects has a significant role for syntax in verb acquisition. There existed a need for experimental work to discover how verbs that appear in speech affect their verb acquisition. The syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis predicts that the more frames a verb is heard within, the easier a child learn it. This is because additional syntactic frames provide additional semantic information. This hypothesis suggests that the more verbs are heard in diverse frames, the earlier these verbs are acquired. This study compares the order of verb acquisition from the speech of children ten weeks after the conversations that provided the basis for assessing input. The childrens verb use during the second speech is correlated with the measure of language of the first session. The study expects the more frequent verbs in input and more often in salient utterance-final position, and in diverse syntactic frames will be acquired by children more frequently ten weeks later. However the hypothesis of the study of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) is not clearly stated. The theoretical assumptions of the study were not clearly defined. Methodology: The methodology of the study was clearly stated. The subjects and the collection of the sample were clearly stated. The procedure that was followed to conduct and collect data from the experiment was clearly stated. The different methods used to measure the order of acquisition of verbs are well described and explained. The study could be replicated following the provided methodology employed. Since the hypothesis being studied was not clearly stated, it was not clear how the methodology followed the hypothesis being tested. Interpretation of Results: The findings of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) stated that the frequency the verbs in input predicted both the early use of verb and future frequency of the verb. It was found that the more often a verb appeared in the input, the more often and more flexibly it was used in the child speech ten weeks later. These findings concur with the original findings of Browns (1958) about the role of input frequency in noun acquisition. It was previously shown that input frequency is important within open class of words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. DeVilliers (1985) and others claimed that frequency did not account for order of acquisition of the closed class of words such as grammatical morphemes. The findings of Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) suggested that frequency of input verbs predicted future verb use of children for meaningful opposed to grammatical and lexical verbs. The interpretation of these findings is appropriate. These findings relate to previous theory and analytical studies and logically append to them. Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) also found that the syntactic diversity of verbs in input significantly predicted subsequent verb frequency and syntactic diversity in children. The more frames in which a verb is heard, the more distinctive it will be and the earlier it will be acquired. This supports multiple frames tenet of syntactic bootstrapping and support previous findings of Villiers (1985) in the domain of morphological development, that the verbs mothers used with grammatical morphemes such as -ing, -ed predicted the frequency of the morphemes children used. Overall findings of the study increase the effects of different factors in linguistic input on childrens acquisition of verbs. The effects of different aspects of input such as input frequency, utterance-final position and syntactic frame diversity on children acquisition of verbs were tested. Children after hearing verbs repeated frequently learn about the use of these verbs and start to use them more frequently. Frequent hearings in syntactically diverse utterances, led the children to a more flexible understanding of these verbs. The interpretation of these findings is appropriate and in accordance with previous studies. However, there were no considerations of other interpretations of the effects of syntactic diversity of verbs in input. Different factors that would affect the order by which children acquire verbs were not considered during the study such as the role of social backgrounds or conceptual development. These factors may alter the influence of input on different children. References Brown, R. (1958). How shall a thing be called? Psychological Review, 65: 1973. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DeVilliers, J. (1985). Learning how to use verbs: lexical coding and the influence of the input. Journal of Child Language 12, 587-95. Naigles, L. & Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1998). Why are some verbs learned before other verbs? Effect of input frequency and structure on children’s early verb use. JCL 25, 95 – 120. Tardif, T., Shatz, M. & Naigles, L. (1997). Caregiver speech and childrens use of nouns versus verbs: a comparison of English, Italian and Mandarin. Journal of Child Language 24. Read More