Developmental changes and variability in the early lexicon: a study of French children's naturalistic productions

Abstract

This paper investigates developmental changes, as well as inter-linguistic and inter-individual variations, in the expansion and composition of French children's early lexicons. Two studies were conducted using children's naturalistic productions: a longitudinal study of one child between 1;2 and 2;6, and a cross-sectional study of two groups (12 children each) aged 1;8 and 2;6. Analyses indicate that lexical productivity (measured in types, tokens, and new words) strongly increased with age, whereas lexical diversity showed almost no developmental progression. Nouns and para-lexical elements (including interjections, fillers or formulas) were predominant until 1;8 and decreased over time, while predicates and grammatical words increased. As compared to English, French development was characterized by less frequent nouns, initially more frequent predicates, and a remarkable expansion of grammatical words. Inter-individual variability in lexical productivity, in lexical diversity, and in the proportions of different categories was more marked at 1;8 than at 2;6. Lexical profiles found at 1;8 suggest the existence of more diversified organizational patterns than those captured in the referential-expressive distinction.

Nouns and verbs in Chintang: children's usage and surrounding adult speech

“…Evidence from naturalistic recordings A longitudinal study of one French child and a cross-sectional study of two age groups of French children (1 ; 8 and 2;6, 12 children each) showed a higher proportion of nouns than verbs (Bassano, Maillochon & Eme, 1998 ;Bassano, 2000). However, the first French verbs in the corpus occurred as early as the first nouns.…”

Perda auditiva sensorioneural unilateral e distúrbios da comunicação

“…ABFW´s Vocabulary Test was used to assess the lexical competence of the subject, as from five years of age children´s vocabulary quantitatively similar to that of an ordinary adult 9 . The assessments were categorized as normal or altered.…”

Poids du contexte sur la répartition noms/verbes dans le langage adressé à l’enfant en français et en turc

“…Ce constat est basée sur des données naturelles spontanées (Bassano, 2000 ;Bassano et al, 1998 ;Parisse et Lenormand, 2000) et des compte-rendus parentaux (Kern, 2007 ;Kern & Gayraud, 2010). Parisse et Lenormand (2000) ont enregistré les jeux symboliques de 27 enfants francophones de 2 ans.…”

“…Ils rapportent un nombre plus important de types de noms que de types de verbes : 29% de noms différents sont produits dans les énoncés à un seul mot et 44% dans les énoncés de plus d'un mot contre 18% et 22% seulement de verbes. Dans une étude longitudinale portant sur une enfant francophone entre 14 et 30 mois ainsi que dans une étude transversale de 12 enfants observés à 12 et à 30 mois, Bassano et al (1998) Les sujets ont été filmés au domicile des parents en interaction avec leur mère lors de deux situations différentes : la lecture partagée d'un album d'images sans texte et un jeu avec une maison de poupées. Chaque situation dure 10 minutes.…”