Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, First Language, 36 (5), 2016, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2016 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the First Language page: http://fla.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/
Accepted author manuscript, 758 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 15/11/2016 |
---|---|
<mark>Journal</mark> | First Language |
Issue number | 5 |
Volume | 36 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Pages (from-to) | 451-464 |
Publication Status | Published |
Early online date | 22/05/16 |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
Mutual exclusivity (ME) refers to the assumption that there are one-to-one relations between linguistic forms and their meanings. It is used as a word-learning strategy whereby children tend to map novel labels to unfamiliar rather than familiar referents. Previous research has indicated a relation between ME and vocabulary development, which could either be due to children's developing knowledge of the labels for familiar objects, or to enhanced general word-learning skills. In this study, ME was related to receptive vocabulary for 17- to 19-month-old children in a novel paradigm where children's familiarity with the objects and labels was controlled. It was found that infants with larger receptive vocabularies employed ME to a greater extent than infants with a smaller vocabulary size. The results indicate that ME use is more reliable in infants with larger receptive vocabulary size, and, critically, that ME gradually consolidates as an abstract word-learning strategy as infants' linguistic experience increases.