representation of a word’s meaning over a period of time, by providing them with additional
information about the word’s meaning every time and by including baseline data.
Exploring the word learning process under more naturalistic situations
In Experiment 1 children were exposed to a single linguistic context in order to explore the
possible effects of the linguistic context for word learning. However, that was quite artificial,
since children in real life, are exposed to new words in various contexts rather than to a single
one. Additionally, the research literature shows that more effective learning is associated
with multiple exposures to a word (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986). Moreover, Senechal (1996)
found that children made more gains in vocabulary after three readings of a book than after
a single reading. Further experimental evidence coming from the area of reading supports
the theory of learning from repeated exposure to various contexts (Stemberg and Powell,
1983; Jenkins, Stein and Wysoski, 1984; Dickinson, 1984; Nagy and Herman, 1985).
Nevertheless, most of the evidence comes from samples comprising older children and even
students who are able to read. It is important to extend the previous findings to younger
subjects and to different linguistic contexts.
Furthermore, non-words were used as target words in Experiment 1. Non-words were chosen
so that any learning could be attributed only to the exposure of the children to the
experimental situations. However, non-words make the experiment artificial because they
do not conform to typical phonological patterns of English. Thus, word learning should also
be investigated using real words. The use of a Control group of children could reveal any
word learning that could be attributed to other factors except for the experimental situation.
6.3 The Rationale for the Experiment 2
The general aim of Experiment 2 was to overcome the previous limitations as well as to
introduce new variables. In that way, the lexical acquisition process was explored in more
depth and as it occurs in naturalistic situations. Thus, we will gain a better picture of the
lexical acquisition process from listening to stories. Table 6.1 gives an overview of the design
of Experiment 1 and an overview of how this will be extended with Experiment 2 by
overcoming the previous limitations and taking into account new variables.