child language development

Question 1

Nelson (1973)

Answer 1

• placed early a child’s early words into three categories
  1) Naming
  2) Action
  3) Social
  4) Modifying (description)

findings:
- the largest category were nouns (specifically naming words)
- 60% had 50 nouns

Question 2

Bloom 2004

Answer 2

Argued ‘noun bias’ in children’s early vocabulary reflects the frequency of nouns in language (nouns outnumber verbs 5:1).

Hypothesised environment played a large part in deciding which words were used by children