Abstract
Some researchers have tried to explain early word learning by invoking linguistically specific “constraints” that help children to narrow down the referential possibilities. The social pragmatic approach to word learning argues that children do not need specifically linguistic constraints to learn words, but rather what they need are flexible and powerful social-cognitive skills that allow them to understand the communicative intentions of others in a wide range of interactive situations. A series of seven word learning studies demonstrate something of the range of communicative situations in which children can learn new words. These situations include many non-ostensive contexts in which no one is intentionally teaching the child a new word and the intended referent is not perceptually present at the time of the new word's introduction. And all of the experimental situations were constructed so that none of the best known word learning constraints could help children to identify the speaker's intended referent. These studies do not demonstrate that specifically linguistic constraints are not necessary for word learning, but they do demonstrate that such constraints are not sufficient.
