NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION

suggesting that when pictures are labelled, children’s preferences or biases switch from
thematic to taxonomic choices or that children employ different strategies under the two
task conditions, they claim that labels constrain their choices.

The connotation is quite different: Constraints imply restriction; whereas preference
implies free, but biased choice. Gathercole (1987, 1989) suggests that children possess
more of a bias than an absolute constraint, which once again is said to undermine the
notion that the constraints are genetically hard wired and exist prior to word learning.

Not only does the theory need to be developed, but the methods need further refinement.
Experimental studies can be criticised for providing an artificial situation for word
learning. However, there are also problems with data which are based on diary recordings
of children’s speech because of the uncertainties about the meaning of children’s first
utterances.

At best, the proposed constraints might be biases or strategies that children use when
trying to sort out the plethora of information available to them, along the lines of the
strategies initially suggested (Kuczaj, 1982, Dockrell & Campbell, 1986). If children do
exhibit biases in their acquisition of word meaning, the biases are not absolute, but instead
reflect information processing strategies that children might use (rather than must use),
such as depending on individual differences and context (Kuczaj, 1982).

2.3.2.3 Alternative explanations to the constraints proposal - Towards an
interactive functional model

Invoking constraints does not go beyond a description of data. A logical move to get
beyond the demonstration of biases is to investigate their origin, that is to determine
whether they operate from the beginning of word learning or are the product of that
process.

Nelson (1990) proposes that the process of lexical acquisition generally involves:
(a) a child interacting -with the world of people and things and attempting to make sense
of it, forming representations of events and concepts of objects',

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