8.6 Implications for lexical acquisition
The present study has theoretical, educational and methodological implications.
Theoretically, the study indicates that a new account for a model of lexical acquisition should
be developed. The new model should draw on different theoretical accounts which
complement each other in order to shed some light on the lexical acquisition process. Thus,
the Nelson’s Interactive functional theory and Sternberg’s and Powell’s theory of word
learning from context in relation to Karmiloff-SmitlTs proposals about the implicit and
explicit representations as well as child’s cognitive factors should be taken into account in
order to better understand word learning from context.
Regarding the educational implications, the obtained findings may be pertinent for
intervention programmes designed to foster language development from listening to story-
books which present novel words in explicit linguistic contexts. Specifically, parents and
preschool teachers should realize that young children need more than one exposure to a
storybook in order to learn novel words. Moreover, asking simple questions such as those
used as lexical tasks in the present study, may foster word learning, by showing the adult
what the child already knows and what s/he needs to learn more. This is very well related to
the Vygotskian view about development in general. The educator knowing where the child
is (e.g. in the triangle) can provide the appropriate scaffolding to help him/her move up.
Methodologically, a series of lexical tasks which assess word learning in different ways was
carefully designed and developed. Moreover, the present study suggested that those different
measures could be employed by researchers when they measure word learning in order to
unfold the multifaceted nature of word learning.
8.7 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research
The obtained results may be limited in five ways. First, the lexical acquisition process was
investigated only through the acquisition of nouns and particularly names for objects. The
results may be extended to abstract words or to other grammatical categories such as verbs,
adjectives or different attribute terms, properties and relations. Secondly, the acquisition of
words for known concepts was investigated in the present study. It would be very interesting
to look at the lexical acquisition process for words where the concept is unknown to the
children. Is it still the same pattern ? Thirdly, certain types of contexts were explored and