NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION



Qualitative analysis

Types of justifications

Children Providedjustifications for their associations which were based on different criteria.

The main types Ofjustifications identified are presented in Table 7.14.

Table 7.14 Types of justifications provided in the association task

Justifications_____________

__________________Example____________________

NoZirrelevant justification
Perceptual justification
Semantic justification
Thematic justification

If no or an Irrelevantjustification was given
EgTbecause they are brown”

E.g. “because they are animals ”

________EgTbecause the stool goes next to a table”________

The distribution of children’s justifications for their associations over time was investigated.

Figure 7.18 presents the distribution of children’s responses.

Figure 7.18 Types of justifications provided in the association task across testing

і I NoZirrelevant     Perceptual

Semantic     H Thematic

As the above figure shows, children’s justifications were mainly “perceptual”. The second
most frequent type of justification was
“semantic”. “Thematic” justifications were also
provided in a few instances. The statistical analysis revealed that children provided
significantly more
“perceptual” than “semantic” (Wilcoxon, Pl: Z= 5.4, p<.0000; P2:
Z=4.07, p<.0000; P3: Z=3.7, p<.0005) and
“thematic” justifications (Pl: Z=5.8, p<.0000; P2:
Z=6.2, p<.0000; P3: Z=5.9, p<.0000). All the children also provided more
“semantic” than
“thematic” justifications during post test 2 (Wilcoxon: Z= 4.1, p<.0000) and post test 3
(Wilcoxon: Z=2.4, p<.05).

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