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An Analysis of the Characteristics of Infants’ Words and Expressions

  • Korean Semantics
  • 2004, 14(), pp.255-273
  • Publisher : The Society Of Korean Semantics
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

Chang, Kyung hee 1 Joonhee Lee 2 권우진 3

1한양대학교
2경기대학교
3한국교육문제연구소

Candidate

ABSTRACT

Chang, Kyung-Hee, Lee, Joon-Hee & Kwon, Woo-Jin. 2004. An Analysis of the Characteristics of Infants’ Words and Expressions. Korean Semantics, 14. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways 12 to 23-month-year-old infants used their vocabulary in their language development stages. One of the characteristics of infants’ lexicon is the small number of their words and semantic feature that they perceive and apply. In addition to the small pool of vocabulary, the fact that they use the semantic feature of it in designating or describing every object or situation in their everyday lives makes the extension of each word expand, accordingly. This characteristic was discussed as ‘undifferentiation’ from the perspective of meaning. Considering the number of linguistic forms that infants have and the semantic feature they use, the scope of their extension seems wide. This explains why they say ‘Grandma’ to call ‘Aunt’ and ‘Milk’ instead of ‘Juice,’ forcefully applying their words to the given objects. That is not just a mistake made without their knowing, but rather a unique phenomenon taking place in the process of their language acquisition. The characteristics of infants’ uses of words according to their meanings can be summarized with the ‘undifferentiation’ due to the fundamental lack of semantic features. As a result, they show many distinctive events in expression such as ‘multifunctionality, confusion with the perception of parts of speech, overuse of the words mimicking sound and shape, and categorization.’

Citation status

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.