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The development of concrete noun definitions
University of Hong Kong
Tong, Pui-yin, Flora; 湯佩賢
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1995
http://hdl.handle.net/10722/56429
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.; The
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the right to use in future works.
The development of concrete
noun definitions
Tong Pui Yin, Flora
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of
Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences),The University of Hong Kong, April 28,1995.
1
Abstract
The study investigated differences between noun definitions given by children and
adults. Eighty participants (20 each at the ages 5, 8, 13, and 21 years) were asked to
define eight common concrete nouns. Each definition was coded to identify the types of
definitions present in it Results show that 5 years old children defined nouns differently
from subjects in other age-groups.
With increasing age, there was a shift from
characteristic and relation to characteristic and class definitions; negation definitions were
infrequent for all age groups. In addition, classifier definitions were morefrequentwith
increasing age. Definitions changes with definers' age are discussed.
2
Introduction
Children's ability to define words by means of other words has been used to
investigate semantic and conceptual development in children (Litowitz, 1977; Nelson,
1978; Watson, 1985) and also as an indicator to reflect their language ability (e.g., Reynell
Developmental Language Scales (Hong Kong Version), 1987) and intelligence level (e.g.,
Hong Kong Wechler Intelligence Scale for children (Normed), 1980). According to
Benelli (1988), children learn to define objects by means of their sensory physical
properties and their higher-order categorical membership, for example, "A cat is cm
animal that has four legs". Tasks like this are said to require the use of metalinguistic
skill (Bidlack, 1991; Watson, 1985; Wehren, De Lisi and Arnold, 1981), that is, the
"ability to think and talk about language as an objecf (Taylor and Taylor, 1991, p.268).
Research on the development of definitions mainly focused on two different aspects,
CONTENT and FORM. Content refers to the information given in a definition and form
refers to the linguistic form in which a definition is presented.
Content of definition
Many studies had been done to investigate the development of definition in children
and consistent findings were obtained (e.g., Benelli, Arcuri and Marchesini, 1988;
Bidlack, 1991; Litowitz, 1977; Nelson, 1978; Watson, 1985; Wehren et at, 1981). The
results of research on word definitions with a particular interest in content indicated that
the way in which children define words change qualitatively over time, that is, the types of
definition responses that children give change with age (Bidlack, 1991).
When young children (roughly preschool children) define a noun, they tend to
provide a FUNCTIONAL response, e.g. "Apples are to eat." (e.g., Benelli et <zl, 1988;
3
Bidlack, 1991; Litowitz, 1977; Nelson, 1978; Wehren et aL9 1981). DESCRIPTEVE
responses, e.g. "An apple is round!9 and EXTENSION responses, e.g. "Felix is a cat"
also occur at this stage. When children get older, lhey begin to use generic tenns like ca
thing that', or 'something*, to substitute for a word's superordinate class name, e.g.
"Apples are something edible." (e.g., Bidlack, 1991; Litowitz, 1977; Watson, 1985).
Later then, SUPERORDINATE CLASS name begin to emerge in children's definition, e.g.
"An apple is a kind of fruit." and at the same time, their use of descriptive and extensive
responses decreases (e.g., Benelli et al.9 1988; Bidlack, 1991; Watson, 1985; Wehren et
al.9 1981). Mature adults still define a noun by providing functional, descriptive and
superordinate class responses, but, the use of extensive response is rare (e.g., Benelli et
aL91988; Bidlack, 1991;Nelson, 1978; Watson, 1982; Wehren et al.,1981).
Forms of definition
Besides looking into the content, some studies on the development of definition also
investigated the form of a definition. Litowitz's (1977) concluded that definitions reflect a
progression from personal experience to more general social information, and towards
syntactically more complex sentence frames. Based on the complexity of the taxonomic
and modification relations expressed, he classified definition responses into five levels of
definition forms. Level one is a nonverbal statement or a verbal statement which is
semantically empty, that is, the use of gesture or language accompanying gesture, e.g. knife
— "like this (^gesture)". Level two is the use of word associated with the original
stimulus word, e.g. knife — "Fork*\ Level three is the use of a concrete example of an
actual experience associated as a predicate with the stimulus word, e.g. knife — "When you
are cutting apples". Level four reflects some awareness of a definition form (a set
4
predicate) and a beginning abstraction from the individual experience towards more
general social information, e.g. knife - "A knife is when you cut with it". Level five
represents pure Aristotelian form, that is, An
X
is a
Y
. Preschool children tend
to give definitions at levels one to three (Litowitz, 1977; Watson 1985; Wehren et al.
1981). Kindergartner's definitions are almost evenly divided between levels two, three
and four. School age children give definitions at level four and adults' definitions are
presented in pure Aristotelian form (level four and five).
Although the results obtained from the research on the development of definitions
are consistent, there are some methodological problems or limitations. Firstly, in some
studies the categories used to classify definition responses were not mutually exclusive
(e.g., Benelli et al.7 1988; Wehren et al.y 1981). This resulted in a loss of valuable
• is
information concerning the subjects' definitions. Secondly, subjects were not given the
opportunity to generate more than one definition responses (e.g., Litowitz, 1977; Watson,
1985) and this may have led to an underestimation of their ability. Lastly, not many studies
compared across preschool children's, school-age children's and adult's ability to define,
which do not give a clear picture on the developmental trend of making definition (e.g.,
Bidlack, 1991; Watson, 1985).
To summarize the literature review, research on the development of definitions can
be on two different perspectives, that is, content and form. Content and form constitute two
separate aspects of noun development Although each aspect changed with age, each of
them follow a different path (Wehren, et al., 1981).
Aims of study
Being inspired by Bidlack's (1991) and Wehren et al. 's (1981) studies, the present
investigation focused on the changes in content of the definitions made by preschool
children, school-age children and adults.
The present study on the development of noun definitions was based upon
definitions given for concrete nouns. A noun can be said to be concrete as it denotes
tangible objects (Flavell, 1970; Klausmeier, C&aiala and Frayer, 1974; cited in Bidlack,
1991).
The present study aimed at the followings:
1. Investigating the type(s) of definition responses produced by 5-, 8-, 13- and 21year-old subjects in defining concrete nouns; and
2. Determining if there was a difference in the patterns of responding (the combination
of different types of definition response) with different age groins.
Hypothesis
It is hypothesized that the cognitive development and the metalinguistic ability of
children should be similar cross culturally. The development of concrete noun definitiofis
should also be similar with the Westerns findings. With reference to the results of
research on development of noun definitions done by Benelli et al. (1988); Bidlack (1991);
Watson (1985) and Wehren et al. (1981) the predicted results might be:
1. The content of verbal definition vary with age. Specifically, preschool children
tend to provide characteristic and extension responses. School-age children tend to
provide characteristic and class responses while adults are expected to provide
more cjass responses and less extension responses; and
6
2. The pattern of responding will be more complex with increasing age, that is, preschool children tend to provide only one type of definition response alone when
defining a word because of their limited cognitive and metalinguistic ability. With
development, school-age children and adults are expected to combine different
types of definition response when making a definition.
Method
Subjects
Subjects were 80 native Cantonese-speaking children and adults. They were
divided into four age groups: twenty kindergartners (ten boys, ten girls; mean age: 5;05);
twenty second graders (ten boys, ten girls; mean age: 7;10); twenty form one students (ten
boys, ten girls; mean age: 12;09); twenty adults (ten men, ten women; mean age: 21;02).
These groups will henceforth be termed the 5-year-old, 8-year-old, 13-year-old and 21year-old.
These ages were selected with reference to Piagefs stages of mental
development (Peterson, 1989). Subjects were selected from two kindergartens, two
primary schools, two secondary schools and two universities.
Stimuli
All stimuli were names of concrete objects:c # -
'[car],' & ' [ b e d s i t >
[clock],« a ' [book], « ffi9 [dog], « # 0 * [flower],' 'u i$-
'[<*>m and' ?&. * *
[apple]. To ensure the youngest subjects to be familiar with the taiget stimuli, the taigets
were chosenfromEdwards and Gibbon (1973)>s word list for children at five. Moreover,
ten 5-year-olds subjects participated in the pilot study and were asked to name photos of
the target objects. All subjects demonstrated understanding of all the eight stimuli.
7
Procedure
Each subject was interviewed individually and asked to define eight concrete nouns
in random order without the presence of objects. Each subject was given the following
instruction before the task:
[I am going to ask you some questions. You can give me the answer when you are ready.]
Subjects were instructed and given the opportunity to provide as much definition for a
word as they knew. Subjects were then asked the following question:c XJ p f i ^ 4 k< X V
[What is an X ?] for each concrete noun. If the subject did not respond, another question
was asked:' K&r ^ "fa W ^
J L ° f c ^ * £ 3 ° [Tell me more about JCJ. Subjects
were free to give as many responses as possible with no time limits. If the subjects failed
to give any definition for a stimulus, it would be regarded that the subjects did not know the
definition of that target stimulus. He/she would be told to state that he/she did not know the
definition. The subjects would be given a second trial for those items that he/she failed to
define at the end of the task. All responses were tape-recorded.
Classification of responses
Based on the classification systems by Bidlack (1991) and Wehren et al. (1981),
six main types of definition responses were identified. This included: characteristic;
class; extension; negation, relational and miscellaneous responses. A pilot study was done
to validate the above types of definition response that Cantonese preschool children,
school-age children and adult gave. Three subjects from each of the age groups 5, 8, 13
and 21 (a total of 12) were asked to define eight concrete nouns. From a total of 286
definition responses, it was found that some definition responses could not fully fit in the
8
classification system. Subjects gave classifier as a definition response. According to
Loke and Harrison (1984) and Mak (1991), Cantonese classifiers carry semantic
information of the proceeding noua la view of the linguistic difference in Cantonese and
English, an additional category, classifier response was introduced
The description of each type of definition response and their respective examples
were given below:
1. Characteristic: definition referring to the properties or attributes of the
definiendum. It is subdivided into seven subcategories:
(a) Function — 'Apples are to eat,7;
(b) Feature — 'Apples art juicy.7;
(d) Origin — "Apples grow on trees.7;
(e)Action — 'A dog barks.7;
(f) Ideation — 'Flowers are beautiful.7;
(g) Composition — *A bed is made out of wood7; and
(h) Time/Space - 'When you are in school^ you sit on a chairs/.
2. Class: definition referring to the superordinate class to which the definiendum
belongs. It is divided into two subcategories:
(a) Implicit class - 'An apple is something for eating.'; and
(b) Explicit class — 'An apple is apiece of fruit.7.
3. Extension: definition referring to the subordinates (that is, examples, kinds and
instances) of the definiendum. For example,'A stool is a kind of chair/.
4. Negation: definition expressing what the definiendum is not rather that what it is. It
is subdivided into two subcategories:
9
(a) Trae negation - € A chair is not a bench.'; and
(b) Antonym - 'The opposite o/aflower is a weed.\
5. Relation: definition referring to the use of an analogy. For example, 'A knife is like
&fork\
6. Classifier definition: definition referring to the use of any Cantonese classifier. For
example,'
7. Miscellaneous: subject fails to give any information concerning about the meaning
of the definiendum or fails to respond 1 is subdivided into four subcategories:
(a) Structural statements — 'Apples are to eat That's what apple is.9;
(b) Simple repetition — 'Apples are apples.*',
(c) Unpredictable comments — 7 would say, ah, well...'; and
(d) Task comments — 'Apple is a hard word to define.*.
Scoring
Each definition was coded according to the type(s) of responses present in it The
following example illustrate the coding:
Experimenter : "What is an apple?"
Subject
: "An apple is /something/ that is /round/ and
(/Class: implicit/;
/Characteristic: feature/;
/had a stem/. Apples are /to eat/."
/Characteristic: feature/;
/Characteristic: function/)
Every time a subject gave one of the sub-category responses (among the six broad
types of definition responses) in a definition it was counted as 1. The above example
illustrated one- class definition response and three characteristic definition responses (2
10
feature + 1 function). In the above definition, characteristic and class responses were
given, so the pattern of responding was characteristic combined with class.
A checklist (shown in Appendix 1) was used to record and classify the subjects'
definition responses according to the categories mentioned above. All miscellaneous
definition responses were excludedfromall calculations as they only represented a noise
factor.
Two independent raters classified the definition responses into categories in order
to ensure the reliability of the study. A third rater was introduced to resolve the
disagreement between the two raters' classification.
Data Analysis
The data obtained was analysed in three ways:
1. For each age group, the percentage of each type of definition response used (that is,
the total number of definition responses for a particular type was divided by the
total number of all definition responses) was calculated;
2. For every subject, the percentage of each type of the definition response for all the
ei$it concrete nouns out of the total number of that particular definition response
was calculated The percentages of each of the six types of definition response by
each subject for the eight concrete nouns were the dependent variables; and
3. For each age group, the percentage of each type or any combination of the six types
of definition response out of the total number of definition responses was
calculated by age.
11
Results
There were a total of 2616 responses provided by 80 subjects for all the eight
concrete nouns. Excluding all 97 miscellaneous responses, subjectfromthe ages 5, 8, 13
and 21 provided 477, 577, 534 and 931 definition responses respectively. The overall
agreement between the two independent raters was 94%.
Content of definitions
Table 1 shows the percentage of each type of the definition responses obtained in
the four age groups.
Table 1, Percentage of different types of definition response by age
Definition
responses
5-year-old
II Characteristic
II
Class
II Extension
II Relation
| Classifier
|| Negation
||
Total
71.4%
3.1%
11.1%
13.6%
0.4%
0.4%
100%
.
8-year:old
13-year-old
21-year-old
Total 11
88.0%
5.7%
3.6%
1.9%
0.8%
0%
100%
88.4%
6.9%
2.1%
1.3%
1.1%
0.2%
100%
90.1%
7.6%
0.6%
0.3%
1.4%
0%
100%
85.7% 1
6.2%
3.6%
3.4%
1.0%
0.1%
100% 1
Data showed that concrete nouns were defined mainly by characteristic responses
which comprised 85.7% of the total number of all definition responses. Following were
class responses, extension responses and relation responses with 6.2%m 3.6% and 3.4%
respectively. Classifier and negation responses were given lessfrequentlywith only 1.0%
and 0.1% respectively.
Giaracteristic and class responses were the predominant
responses for all age groups except for the 5-year-old children.
Nonparametric statistics of Kruskal-WallisANOVA by rank revealed significant
main effects of age for each type of the definition response (characteristic: H (3, N = 80) =
12
38.16680, p = .0000; class: H (3, N = 80) = 20.09643, g = .0002; extension: H (3, N = 80)
= 11.32210, £ = 0101; relation: H (3, N = 80) = 14.99582, p = .0018) except for negation
response (H (3, N = 80) = 3.761904, p = .2884). Negation response was seldom given by
all age groups and there was no increasing or decreasing trend of use with age. There
were no significant main effects of gender or gender interaction as tested by using KruskalWallis ANOVA by rank (p>0.05).
100 n
H 5-year-olds
• 8-year-olds
Q 13-year-olds
Q 21-year-olds
Characteristic
Class
Extension
Relation
Classifier
Negation
Types of definition responses
Figure 1. Percentage of different definition responses by age
The experimentalfindingsalso indicated that concrete noun definition develop both
qualitatively and quantitativelyfrom5-year-old to 21-year-old as reflected by the changes
13
in the rank order and the percentage of each type of definition responsesfromthe age of 5
to 21 (shown in Figure 1).
There was a tendency to provide more characteristic and classifier responses and
less relation and extension responses with increasing age. The most frequently used
definition responses at age 5 was characteristic. Following were relation and extension
responses.
For the 8-year-old and 13-year-old, characteristic responses were still
predominant They provide much less relation responses. Instead, they used more class
and extension responses. At age 21, characteristic remained the mostfrequentlygiven
response, while class was the second and classifier was the third Extension responses
moved to fourth place and they seldom gave relation responses.
Further analysis
As characteristic responses formed the core of the concrete noun definitions in all
age groups, further analysis was carried out to investigate if there was any developmental
trend or differences on the sub-categories of characteristic definition responses used
across age. The percentage of each sub-category was then calculated by age and illustrated
in table 2.
Table 2. Percentage of different sub-categories of characteristic response across age
|| Sub-category
II
||
||
1
||
||
||
Function
Feature
Action
Ideation
Composition
Origin
Time/Space
Total
L
5-year-old
8-year-old
13-year-old
21-year-old
54.5%
22.6%
8.8%
4.7%
4.1%
3.8%
1.5%
100%
43.5%
30.8%
9.5%
5.3%
4.8%
4.2%
1.9%
100%
38.8%
34.3%
10.4%
5.9%
5.1%
3.8%
1.7%
100%
32.2%
42.9%
10.1%
5.3%
4.7%
3.3%
1.5%
100%
L
Total
||
39.9% 1
34.9%
9.8%
6.3%
' 3.8%
3.7%
1.6%
100% ||
14
It was found that function and feature responses were prominent among all
subcategories for all age groups and comprised 39.9% and 34.89% of the total number of
characteristic definition responses respectively.
Following were action, ideation,
composition and origin responses with 9.8%, 6.3%, 3.8% and 3.7% respectively.
Time/space response was given lessfrequentlywith only 1.6%.
Nonparametric statistics of Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA by rank revealed significant
main effects of age for function (H (3, N = 80) = 15.96602, p = .0012) and feature (H (3, N
= 80) = 37.76887, p = .0000) definition responses. There were no significant main effects
of age for the rest of the subcategories of characteristic definition response (action: H (3,N
= 80) = 6.356106, p = .0955; ideation: H (3, N = 80) = 3.767034, p = .2878; composition:
H (3, N = 80) = 7.162085, p = .0669; origin: H (3, N = 80) = 5.366984, p = .1468;
time/space: H (3,N = 80) = 5.174051, p = .1595).
The percentage of function responses for the 5-year-old, 8-year-old, 13-year-old
and 21-year-old were 54.5%, 43.5%, 38.8% and 32.2% respectively and that of feature
responses were 22.6%, 30.8%, 34.3% and 42.9% respectively. Thefindingsreflected feat
5-year-old and 8-year-old children gave more functional information, 13-year-old children
gave similar amount of functional and feature information and 21-year-old adults gave
more feature information than functional information. There was a trend of using more
feature information and less functional information with age. For the action, ideation,
composition, origin and time/space responses, there was no increasing or decreasing trend
of using with age.
15
Pattern of responding
The percentage of definitions made up of single type of definition response or a
combination of different types of definition responses was calculated by age. Table 3
illustrated the percentage of single or combined definition responses given by different age
groups.
Table 3. Percentage of single and combined definition responses across age
Single
response
II Combination
| ofresponses
5-year-old
8-year-old
13-year-old
21-year-old
Total
75.4%
73.1%
70.4%
46.3%
66.3%
24.6%
26.9%
29.6%
53.7%
33.7% ||
||
For all age groups, concrete nouns were defined by giving single type of response
with 66.3% and a combination of different types ofresponses with 33.7%. .Data indicated
that 5-year-old, 8-year-old and 13-year-old children tended to provide more single type of
definition response alone when defining a concrete noun and 21-year-old adults provided
more combined definition responses than single definition responses alone. There was a
trend of decreasing the use of only one type of response from 75.4% to 46.3% and
increasing the use of a combination of different types of definition responses from 24.6% to
53.7% from 5-year-old to 21-year-old
Since some of the definitions were given by a combination of different response
types for all age groups, the percentage of definitions containing each response pattern was
then calculated by age. Table 4 illustrated the four most common type of single or
combined definition responses given by different age groups.
16
Table 4. Patterns of responding for concrete nouns by age
1
II
II
||
1
5-year-old
Characteristic
56.4%
Characteristic +
Relation
9.6%
Extension
9%
Class + Extension
8.6%
Others 16.4
8-year-old
_j
Characteristic
72.5%
Characteristic +
Class
13.8%
Class + Extension
5.6%
Class + Classifier
3.1%
Others 5%
13-year-old
21-year-old
Characteristic
Characteristic
70.4%
46.3%
Characteristic +
Characteristic +
Class
Class
22%
34.4%
Class + Classifier
Class + Classifier
2.5%
!
5.4%
Class + Extension
Class + Extension
1.9%
3.8%
Others 3.2%
Others 10.1%
11
||
1
1]
||
||
According to the criteria set by Bidlack (1991) (p.427), a pattern of responding
was defined as "any type of definition response which appears by itself or with one or
more other types in 5% or more for concrete nouns for any age group".
Data indicated that the pattern of responding was different for all the age groups.
Four response patterns were obtained from the 5-year-old children while three response
patterns were obtainedfromthe 8-year-old children and the 21-year-old adults. Only two
response patterns were obtained from the 13-year-old children. Although the patterns of
responding were different for each age group, characteristic definition response alone was
used mostfrequentlyby all age groups.
Among all the response patterns, those produced by the 5-year-old children were
significantly different from those of the other age groups. Characteristic combined with
relation definition responses as well as extension definition response alone did hot occur
in other age groups. For the 8-year-old, 13-year-old and 21-year old, they gave combined
characteristic and class definition response which did not appear in the definitions of the
17
5-year-old children. The response patterns for the 8-, 13- and 21-year-old were more
alike.
Experimentalfindingsalso showed that characteristic definition response alone and
characteristic combined with class definition response constituted the core of the response
patterns. The rank order of these two patterns were stable for subjects from 8-year-old to
21-year-old.
Characteristic combined with extension definition response, and
characteristic combined with classifier definition responses were included in the 8-yearold children and 21-year-old adults9 response pattern, respectively.
Discussion
Content of definition
The finding of the present study parallels that of the previous studies on the
development of noun definitions in that characteristic definition responses were given most
frequently by all age-groups and there was a trend of increasing use of classificatoiy
responses with age (Benelli et al. 1988; Bidlack, 1991; Wehren et al. 1981).
Characteristic responses formed the core of concrete noun definitions for all age
groups and comprised 85.7% of the total number of all definition responses. A concrete
noun can usually be defined by only one class name and one classifier but as many
characteristic responses as one could think o£ for example, the definition of a bus ( g , ± )
could be:
[A bus is a kind of/transportation/,
(
/Class: explicit/;
.
/Classifier/;
/Double deck/,
]
/Characteristic: feature/
)
18
[A bus is/very big/,
has /four wheels/,
/one door/
and
]
( /characteristic: feature/; /characteristic: feature/; /characteristic: feature/)
[/many windows/.
(/characteristic: feature/;
A bus can /carry many peoplefromone place to another/.
/characteristic: function/
]
)
As illustrated in the above example, the definition of a bus could be made up of six
characteristic, one class and one classifier definition responses. Since each concrete noun
can be defined by an unlimited amount of characteristic but a limited number of class name
and classifier, the percentage of characteristic definition responses given when defining
concrete nouns was therefore much more higher than the other categories of definition
responses.
Among all the subcategories of characteristic definition responses, function and
feature were the mostfrequentlyused responses for all age groups and there was a trend of
increasing use of feature information with age. The increase use of feature information
across age can be explained by the acquisition of word meaning put forward by Nelson,
Rescorla, Gruendel and Benedict (1974; 1978). Nelson et at.9* (1974;1978) work
indicated that early word meaning is a matter of concept formation and is based on
functional as opposed to perceptual information. Therefore, functional information forms
the core of the concept of word definition at the early stage of word meaning development
(WehrettetaL 1981). Throughout the acquisition process, perceptual information is added
to functional information. Thus, functional information is modified and supplemented by
the use of perceptual information but not supplanted or substituted This explains an age-
19
related shift from using more functional information to more feature information in making
definition while functional information never disappear in adults* definition responses.
For the six types of definition response, class was the second most frequently
produced response and there was an increasing trend of using class responses with age.
Class response was subdivided into explicit and implicit class. Explicit class referred to
the use of superordinate terms and implicit class referred to the use of generic terms. In
order to define an object with categorical membership (Le. superordinate terms), a child
must have acquired ihe concept of classification and superordination. According to Piaget
(1945; cited in Benelli, 1988; Wadsworth, 1984), the development of classification takes
place during the concrete operational stage in which the ability of reversibility emerges.
Viewing an object at different levels of abstraction at the same time, that is, considering the
object as subclass (e.g. 'dog') and as more general class (e.g. 'animal* and 'mammal')
requires the logical principle of reversibility. As a result, if a child understands that there
are more birds than chickens, so that every chicken is a bird but not every bird is a chicken,
he or she will be able to cope with the class inclusion rule which, in turn, allows him/her
to produce linguistically and semantically appropriate definitions of objects with
categorical terms (Benelli et al, 1988). Owing to the lack of this logical thought, 5-yearold children used less superordinate class names when defining concrete nouns as
compared with other age groups and they used more generic terms instead
The rank order of different types of definition response (except for the
characteristic definition response) for the 5-year-old children was differentfromthat of the
other age groups. The second and third mostfrequenttype of definition responses were
relation and extension responses for 5-year-old children, while those for the 8-year-old
20
and 13-year-old children were class and extension responses. For the 21-year-old adults,
class and classifier responses were the second and third Since the 5-year-old children
did give information concerning the object to be defined, the difference in rank order was
not related to their lack of knowledge of what the word or the corresponding object is but
concerned with a lack of metalinguistic knowledge (Wehren et al. 1981).
Defining with the response of characteristic and class involve a process of analysis
as suggested by Bidlack (1991). In order to define a word analytically, one have to place
the word (1) in a hierarchy; (2) determine its attributes; and (3) examine its limits. In other
words, analysing a word requires one to determine the nature of the whole; to separate the
whole into parts; and to examine the parts methodically. When making a definition
analytically, one must be able to reflect language as an object of thought rather than a
method of communicating thought (Smith and Flusbex^g, 1982). The capacity to judge,
reflect, and analyse language emerges at around the age of six or seven (Foss and Hakes,
1978). During this time, children become capable of detaching meaningfromthe context in
which it is embedded (Sinclair, 1986). This new ability allows children to make better
definitions. Therefore, the 5-year-old children, due to the lack of metalinguistic ability,
give less characteristic and class responses as compared with other age-groups. As a
result, the rank order of class definition for the 5-year-old children was lower than relation
and extension responses as compared with the other age groups.
Instead of giving class responses, 5-year-old children tend to define concrete nouns
by giving extension and relation responses which did not involve any process of analysis.
The use of relational tenns or examples to define an object indicates that 5-year-old
children focused on the "thing" named rather than the information required in giving the
21
meaning of that object Semantic infonnation about a word is organized in a semantic
network, in which concepts are represented by nodes, and the relations among concepts by
links connecting the nodes (Taylor and Taylor, 1991). According to the spreading
activation theory proposed by Collins and Lofius (1975; cited in Taylor and Taylor, 1991),
when a node is activated by a stimuli, it sends part of its activation in a spreading manner
to all nodes linked to it The closer the link is between the nodes, the stronger the
spreading activation is. Concepts sharing more properties in common are more closely
related (for example, doctor and nurse are more closely related as compared with doctor
and flower), the spreading activation is therefore stronger between concepts with common
features. Semantic information is organized in semantic memory in this form and this form
exists in young children, however, it is not as strong as that in the older children and adults
(Taylor and Taylor, 1991). Therefore, owing to a weaker semantic network, 5-year-old
children when hearing, for example, the term "apple" in a definitiontask,tended to retrieve
for similar terms or concepts and thereby gave relation responses like orange, pear,
banana, etc. than the 8- and 13-year-old children and the 21-year-old adults.
The experimentalfindingsof the present study indicated that classifier was used in
a supplementary fashion by adults in defining concrete nouns since classifier responses
was in a third place among all definition responses provided by adults. Sortal classifier
semantically qualify the noun head (Loke and Harrison, 1984) because it contains semantic
information, so it can be used to describe an object in Cantonese. Adults used more
classifier responses than children because the use of a classifier involve the process of
analysis. It was suspected that the adults believed use of a classifier could make a
definition morfe semantically informative in Cantonese.
22
Pattern of responding
Characteristic definition response alone was the most frequent response pattern,
followed by characteristic combined with class definition response for the 8-, 13- and 21year-old in the present study. This result contradicted that obtained by Bidlack's (1991)
study in which characteristic combined with class response was the major response
pattern, followed by characteristic response alone for the 10-, 14- and 18-year-old. One
possible explanation for the reversed order might be the syntactic differences in English
and Cantonese. For example, in English the sentence ''Things for eating." is semantically
the same as "
(edible things) in Cantonese and they are both composed
of characteristic combined with class responses. However, in Cantonese, the pronoun "
o|y> "(things) in the associative noun phrase "
(edible things)
could be omitted (Li and Thompson, 1989) without causing any change of meaning. This
elliptic form of the noun phrase "
associative noun phrase "
(edible) having the same meaning as the
^
" (edible things) are acceptable and
commonly used in Cantonese. However, in terms of response pattern," B^
(edible) was classified as characteristic response only. This explains the difference in the
pattern of responding with Bidlack's (1991) study.
Results obtainedfromBenelli et <z/.*s (1988) study indicated that the use of single
definitions for the 5-year-old and 7-year-old children decreased from 77% to 49% and in
the present study, the percentage of single definitions used by the 5-year-old and 8-year-old
children were close, with 75.4% and 73.1% respectively. As some of the characteristic
combined with class responses, due to the ellipsis of an associative noun phrase in
Cantonese, were classified as characteristic responses alone in the present study, the
23
percentage of single definitions was therefore higher for all age groups as compared with
Benelli et <z//s (1988) study. In the present study, adults provided more combined
definition responses when making a definition as compared with children. This might be
explained by the feet that adults tried to give more specific information by combining
different response types when defining or describing an object in such a way as to exclude
all other objects so as to make an object distinguishablefromother objects.
Characteristic combined with class definition responses were found in all age
groups except for the 5-year-old children. As suggested by Wehren et al. (1981), the use of
superordinate term and a combination of the various sensory information, that is, functional
and feature information are essential in making a complete and semantic informative
definition. Since only preschool children did not give characteristic combined with class
responses in their response pattern, the knowledge of what makes a good definition seems to
develop after the age of 5. Besides, among all pattern of responding, 5-year-old children
gave patterns differently from that of the 8-, 13- and 21-year-old
For example,
characteristic combined with relation definition responses and extension definition response
alone only occurred in 5-year-old children's response patterns. One of the possible reasons
might be that the pattern of responding referred to the combination of any types of definition
responses used in a definition, since 5-year-old children gave definition responses different
from the other age groups (that is more relation and extension responses and less
characteristic and class responses), the pattern of responding was therefore different
Clinical Implications
Ihe findings of the present study show the developmental trend of concrete noun
definitions, this knowledge is useful for speech therapists and teachers because it
24
indicates what should be expected from children at different ages when assessing their
expressive language ability through asking them to define an object For example, fimction,
feature and relational information are expected from children under five rather than
superordinate class names and classifiers. Moreover, in the course of intervention of
assisting language impaired children to learn new vocabularies, speech therapists can
enhance this process by helping them to associate the concrete nouns with the appropriate
information (for example, feature, function, class, etc.) with reference to their age and
cognitive ability.
Further Research
The current study is a preliminary investigation on the development of concrete
noun definition on Cantonese speaking population- Further study may direct to the
investigation of the development of concrete and abstract noun definitions. Since abstract
nouns are generally acquired and learned after concrete nouns, it is valuable to compare
the development of abstract noun definitions to see whether the content and pattern of
responding would be different or not Furthermore, investigation can be put forward to the
development of concrete noun definitions in Cantonese with respect to form.
The
difference in syntactic structure between Cantonese and English affects the content of
definition as shown in the present study, it is worthy tofindout the change in form with age
and to figure out the relationship between content and form during development in
Cantonese speakers. Lastly, investigation can also be directed to study the development of
noun definitions in bilingual children. As mentioned by Taylor and Taylor (1991),
bilingual children have more advanced metalinguistic awareness and better cognitive
functioning, since making definition involves certain metalinguistic skills, it is interesting
25
to see whether or not bilingual children define in a way different from monolingual
children of the same age.
Conclusion
From thefindingsof the present study, it was concluded that:
L There is an age-related change in the content of the concrete noun definition in
Cantonese as reflected by the difference in the definition responses being given by
different age groups. Pre-school children tend to give more characteristic, relation
and extension definition responses, while school age children give characteristic
and class responses and mature adults gave characteristic, class and classifier
definition responses. The development of concrete noun definition for Cantonese in
terms of content follows a similar trend to that of English except for the use of
classifier; and
2. The response pattern of the school-age children and adults was more alike and
stable than that of the pre-school childrea in Cantonese, the major pattern of
responding was characteristic response alone, followed by characteristic combined
with class definition responses. The order was reversed in English. The reversed
rank order was attributed to the process of ellipsis in the associative noun phrase in
Cantonese. Adults provided more combined types of definition responses than
children.
Acknowledgement
The author gratefully acknowledges the principals, teachers and children from the
following kindergartens and schools: S X E Good Shepherd Church Kindergarten, Cho
Yiu Chuen Methodist Day Nursery, S.K.EL Good Shepherd Church Primary School, Wong
26
Tai Sin Catholic Primary School, Kowloon Sam Yuk Secondary School and St. Rose of
Lima's School and all adult subjects for their assistance and cooperation during data
collection.
The author would like to express sincere thanks to Dr. Ciocca, Dr. Stokes, Dr.
Harrison, Mr. S. Leung, Mrs. So and all the academic stafffromthe Department of Speech
and Hearing Sciences, HKU for their advice and suggestion for the present study. Lastly,
the author would like to thanks all the peers for their psychological and technical support
during these four years.
27
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2 2ffA!2i8
**
Appendix 1
Checklist for the record and classification of different types of definition response for the
eight stimuli
Characteristic
Bus
Dog
Clock
\\n% !
Book j
II Bed
S
Doll
II Flower
11 %
Class
Extension
Relation
Classifier ] Negation j Miscellaneous ||