NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION

learning among Chinese fifth graders but not American children in either grade showing
the effects of the “internal context” as well as that they can vary across languages.

What can be concluded, overall, from the previous studies, is that a theory of learning
word meanings from “internal context” is an important part of a full theory of verbal
comprehension, and that such a theory can pave the way both for a fuller understanding
of the nature of verbal comprehension and for a means by which to train individuals to
improve their comprehension.

In sum, this chapter focused on a theory of word learning from context. This is a very
important theory for the acquisition of word meanings, since words usually appear in
different contexts and not in isolation. The identification of the “internal” and “external”
contexts is also important for the formation of a theory on how children learn new words
from context.

However, other factors need to be taken into account such as the cognitive abilities of the
child (phonological memory, vocabulary knowledge etc.). Furthermore, the experimental
evidence supporting the theory of word learning from context are drawn from the area
of reading. It would also be important to test the same theory through other means of
presentation, for example, when children are not yet able to read, but they listen to stories,
and see what other mechanisms are involved.

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