Word Learning of Bilingual Children: Whole Object Constraint

Lee, Heeran

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2012;17(1): 36-46.

Heeran Lee^`

이희란(Heeran Lee)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
The role of whole object constraint in Korean word learning was investigated. The purpose of the present study was to identify the characteristics of word learning of bilingual children aged 3 years to 4 years 11 months.
Methods
Fourteen Korean-English bilingual children and 14 language age-matched Korean monolingual children participated in the current study. The children were tested for comprehension of novel non-words using two tasks, whole-object constraint and mutual exclusivity constraint.
Results
The results were as follows: (1) The two groups assumed words without errors in the mutual exclusivity constraint task; (2) there was no significant difference in whole-object constraint task between the two groups. Both Korean monolingual children and Korean-English bilingual children showed good orientation toward whole word ambiguity in the test.
Discussion & Conclusion
The results indicated Korean-English bilingual children as well as Korean monolingual children have whole-object constraint in word learning.