幼児の語意味限定に及ぼす語命名時と語意味限定時の事物の周辺状況の一致,不一致の効果

抄録

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the surrounding situation of an object on the word meaning qualification of young children. Fifty children (Experiment 1) and Forty eight children (Experiment 2) were tested, all aged five years old. In both experiments, the experimenter labeled the target examples with surrounding situation (for example, "An elephant in a cage [Experiment 1]", "An elephant in a cage and a man riding a horse [Experiment 2]") with a novel word and showed these to the subjects. Then the participants were shown choice examples with surrounding situation the same as the target example, and choice examples with surrounding situation different to the target example, and were asked to give meaning qualification for the novel word. The result was that the subjects who were shown the choice examples with surrounding situation the same as the target example tended to give word meaning qualification including the surrounding situation. On the other hand, the subjects who were shown the choice examples with surrounding situation different to the target example tended to give word meaning qualification on a conceptual level (for example, "Elephant" [Experiment 1], "Animal" [Experiment 2]). These findings suggested that the agreement or disagreement of surrounding situation of an object has an effect on word meaning qualification of young children when given a labeling word and when asked to give word meaning qualifications.