NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION

All the studies discussed in this section have explored the role of verbal input for learning
new words through listening to stories. However, many studies have shown that other
factors are involved in the acquisition of new vocabulary, such as phonological memory
and pre-existing vocabulary (Gathercole and Baddeley, 1989; Gathercole and Baddeley,
1990; Michas and Henry, 1994; Robbins and Ehri, 1984; Elley, 1989).The effects of these
factors in the word learning process are discussed in the next sections.

3.3 The role of phonological memory in word learning

Learning one’s native language clearly involves acquiring the phonological as well as the
semantic properties of new words. There has recently been considerable interest in the
cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in constructing a representation of the
sound structure of a previously unfamiliar word in lexical memory. One consistent finding
is that during early and middle childhood, at least, there is a close link between children’s
abilities to retain new phonological information (such as the single non-words woogalamic
or loddernaypish)fox very short period of times and their vocabulary knowledge. Thus,
children with good skills at repeating non-words typically have greater knowledge of
words in their native vocabulary than those with poor non-word repetition skills
(Gathercole & Adams,1993,1994; Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989; Gathercole & Baddeley,
1990; Gathercole et. al. 1991; Gathercole et. al. 1992; Michas & Henry, 1994).

One account is that this relationship between non-word repetition and vocabulary
acquisition reflects the contribution to both skills of the phonological loop component of
working memory, a system specialized for the temporary maintenance of incoming verbal
information. It has been suggested that non-word repetition provides a particularly useful
measure of child’s short-term memory abilities (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989). According
to Gathercole et. al. (1997) as there are no stored phonological representations of non-
words in the mental lexicon, immediate repetition of their unfamiliar sound patterns can
be mediated only by the phonological loop. In contrast, for immediate memory tasks
involving familiar words, lexical knowledge appears to be used to supplement temporary
representations in the phonological loop (Hulme et. al. 1991; Roodneys et. al. 1993).
According to this analysis, non-word repetition therefore provides a more sensitive
assessment of phonological capacity than does the more conventional measure of verbal
short-term memory function of digit span which use familiar words as memory stimuli.

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