A STUDY OF SEMANTIC COMPLEXITY INFLUENCES ON PHONOLOGY DURING CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between semantics and phonology in the speech of young children. This was accomplished by introducing experimental action words and experimental object words into the productive vocabularies of ten language-normal children. The phonetic structure, frequency of input, affixes, and presentation form of the experimental words were controlled, in order to eliminate the confounding effects these factors may have had on any semantic-phonological interrelationship. The hypothesis tested was whether the increased semantic complexity of action words would result in a decrease in production capability within the phonological domain. The results indicated that action words were spontaneously produced with a lower percentage of consonants correct than were the object words. Action words produced as unsolicited imitations were also produced with a lower percentage of consonants correct. Experimental words produced as elicited imitations did not reflect this production accuracy difference. However, differences were evident within the elicited imitations in terms of production variability: action words were produced with a higher degree of variability within multiple imitations than were object words. These findings were interpreted as being indicative of a semantic-phonological interaction within the speech of young children. Additionally, the results were discussed in terms of an information processing model of language acquisition and their relevance to current theories of phonological acquisition.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Speech therapy
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