Putting Mutual Exclusivity in Context: Speaker Race Influences Monolingual and Bilingual Infants' Word-Learning Assumptions
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| Title: | Putting Mutual Exclusivity in Context: Speaker Race Influences Monolingual and Bilingual Infants' Word-Learning Assumptions |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Weatherhead, Drew (ORCID |
| Source: | Child Development. Sep-Oct 2021 92(5):1735-1751. |
| Availability: | Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 17 |
| Publication Date: | 2021 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Bilingualism, Infants, Vocabulary Development, Toddlers, Heuristics, Context Effect, Race, Familiarity, Color, Monolingualism, Language Acquisition, Social Environment |
| DOI: | 10.1111/cdev.13626 |
| ISSN: | 0009-3920 |
| Abstract: | Previous work indicates mutual exclusivity in word learning in monolingual, but not bilingual toddlers. We asked whether this difference indicates distinct conceptual biases, or instead reflects best-guess heuristic use in the absence of context. We altered word-learning contexts by manipulating whether a familiar- or unfamiliar-race speaker introduced a novel word for an object with a known category label painted in a new color. Both monolingual and bilingual infants showed mutual exclusivity for a familiar-race speaker, and relaxed mutual exclusivity and treated the novel word as a category label for an unfamiliar-race speaker. Thus, monolingual and bilingual infants have access to similar word-learning heuristics, and both use nonlinguistic social context to guide their use of the most appropriate heuristic. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2021 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1312896 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| Abstract: | Previous work indicates mutual exclusivity in word learning in monolingual, but not bilingual toddlers. We asked whether this difference indicates distinct conceptual biases, or instead reflects best-guess heuristic use in the absence of context. We altered word-learning contexts by manipulating whether a familiar- or unfamiliar-race speaker introduced a novel word for an object with a known category label painted in a new color. Both monolingual and bilingual infants showed mutual exclusivity for a familiar-race speaker, and relaxed mutual exclusivity and treated the novel word as a category label for an unfamiliar-race speaker. Thus, monolingual and bilingual infants have access to similar word-learning heuristics, and both use nonlinguistic social context to guide their use of the most appropriate heuristic. |
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| ISSN: | 0009-3920 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/cdev.13626 |
