1.
Word Learning Through
Listening
Andreas Rohde
Universität zu Köln

2.
Bird
What’s in a word?

3.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Bird
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

4.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Bird
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

5.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Common collocations
Killing two birds with one stone.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Bird
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

6.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Morphological knowledge
Bird birds birdy
Common collocations
Killing two birds with one stone.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Bird
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

7.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Morphological knowledge
Bird birds birdy
Syntactic knowledge
I see a bird. ✔
The shape of this painting looks bird.
✖
Common collocations
Killing two birds with one stone.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Bird
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

8.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Morphological knowledge
Bird birds birdy
Syntactic knowledge
I see a bird. ✔
The shape of this painting looks bird.
✖
Common collocations
Killing two birds with one stone.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Personal experience
I still remember once being
attacked by a dove near the
cathedral. Therefore I am afraid of
birds.
Bird
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

9.
Encyclopaedic knowledge
A bird is an animal. It has two wings
and can fly. Most birds can sing.
They lay eggs…
Morphological knowledge
Bird birds birdy
Syntactic knowledge
I see a bird. ✔
The shape of this painting looks bird.
✖
Common collocations
Killing two birds with one stone.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Bird
Personal experience
I still remember once being
attacked by a dove near the
cathedral. Therefore I am afraid of
birds.
. . .
What’s in a word? What does it mean to
know the word “bird”?

10.
• A person may know some meanings of a
word but not all of them.
• The colour “blue”
What’s in a word?
What does it mean to know a word?

11.
Consider the word “fracking”
a) energy extraction
b) controversial
What’s in a word?
What does it mean to know a word?

12.
• How foreign language learners learn vocabulary
• How young children learn words quickly
• How children learn most of them just by listening
and observing
What do researchers try to explain?

13.
• Some immigrant adults learn words by listening
and observing since they may have
– little or no literacy
– few or none of the metalinguistic word learning
strategies
How do we learn words?
The special case of immigrant adult learners

14.
A child or an adult learns words explicitly when…
• they are directly instructed
• they are told to remember both the word form and its
meaning
How do we learn words?
Explicit vs. Implicit learning

15.
Implicit word learning refers to a process in which
the learner acquires a word and its meaning
• indirectly
• without being instructed
• possibly without even noticing that a word and
its meaning have been stored
How do we learn words?
Explicit vs. Implicit learning

16.
Fast mapping
• Implicit learning of new words
• The ability to quickly link a word to a meaning or part of a
meaning
• Learners need to remember new words
How do we learn words implicitly?
The process of “Fast Mapping”

17.
Fast mapping
denotes the learner’s ability to connect a word with
meaning after little exposure
How do we learn words implicitly?
The process of “Fast Mapping”

18.
1. The speed of the mapping process
2. The incomplete nature of the process
3. The implicit nature of naming
How do we learn words implicitly?
The process of “Fast Mapping”

19.
The experiment
• a child is asked to pick up and bring “the flane”
• thus, an object that the child doesn’t know the
word for, labelled by a nonce word (e.g. “flane”)
• The child infers the name of the intended object by
matching the new label with the new object
How do we learn words implicitly?
An example of “Fast Mapping”

20.
“Bring me the flane”
I know this is
a whisk

21.
“Bring me the flane”
I know this is
a whisk
I know this is
a ladle

22.
I know this is
a whisk
I know this is
a ladle
I know this is
a spatula
“Bring me the flane”

23.
I know this is
a whisk
I know this is
a ladle
I don‘t know this
object, so it must
be the flane
I know this is
a spatula
“Bring me the flane”

24.
Even very clever dogs can „disambiguate“, i.e.
select an unknown object upon hearing an
unknown word:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6479QAJuz8

25.
• Nouns are more easily fast mapped than verbs or
adjectives
• Nouns often refer to real-life objects, which are
visually clearly delineated.
e.g. “apple”
How do we learn words implicitly?
“Fast Mapping” of nouns

26.
• The action or situation labelled by a verb has to
be abstracted from what is perceived
• Temporal component: some actions only last for
a very short time
e.g. “to run”
How do we learn words implicitly?
“Fast Mapping” of verbs

27.
• An adjective refers to just one characteristic of
its referent
• The characteristic in question must be salient
• The learner may have to invest more effort than
in object naming
How do we learn words implicitly?
“Fast Mapping” of adjectives
e.g. “red” e.g. “round”

28.
• A word must be heard 5-16 times to be retained by
adolescent learners in a classroom.
How often do we have to hear a word before
it can be memorized?

29.
a. Previous knowledge:
• The more words from a particular word field the learner
has already acquired, the more reliably he/she can
“hook” a new word onto these stored words
apple
What are the prerequisites
to learn new words?
treered
worm to eat

30.
b. The environment in which words are learned,
• the learner has to feel comfortable
• not too much information at once
What are the prerequisites
to learn new words?

31.
• Introducing new words implicitly may be more
challenging (“Look, this is an apple”)
• Implicit naming requires joint attention,
including shared eye gaze
How can we teach new words?

32.
Perceptual
Salience
LESLLA Learner
What are the multiple cues
for successful naming and fast mapping?

33.
Multiple Cues
Perceptual
Salience
LESLLA Learner
Grammar

34.
Multiple Cues
Perceptual
Salience
LESLLA Learner
Grammar
Morphology

35.
Multiple Cues
Perceptual
Salience
LESLLA Learner
Grammar
Morphology
Social Contact

36.
Multiple Cues
Perceptual
Salience
LESLLA Learner
Grammar
Morphology
Eye Gaze
Social Contact

37.
Multiple Cues
Perceptual
Salience
LESLLA Learner
Grammar
Morphology
Temporal
Contiguity
Eye Gaze
Social Contact
Word is used in
context

38.
• Do LESLLA learners have all of these cues?
• What cues do they have, and how do they use
them?
Multiple Cues

39.
• Carey, S. & Bartlett, E., 1978, Acquiring a single new word. Papers and
Reports on Child Language Development 15, 17-29.
• Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R., Hennon, B. & Maguire, M., n.y., Breaking the
word learning barrier: How children learn their first words.
http://www.temple.edu/infantlab/download/HirshPasek_BreakingTheWordL
earningBarrier.ppt
• Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R.M. & Hollich, G., 2000, An emergentist coalition
model for word learning. Mapping words to objects is a product of the
interaction of multiple cues. In: R.M. Golinkoff, K. Hirsh-Pasek, L. Bloom, L.B.
Smith, A.L. Akhtar, M. Tomasello & G. Hollich (eds.), Becoming a Word
Learner. A Debate on Lexical Acquisition. Oxford, OUP, 146-164.
• Rohde, A., 2005, Lexikalische Prinzipien im Erst- und Zweitsprachenerwerb.
Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
• Tiefenthal, C., 2009, Fast Mapping im natürlichen L2-Erwerb. Trier:
Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
References