Language Acquisition - Meaning

Meaning

Children learn, on average, 10 to 15 new word meanings each day, but only one of these words can be accounted for by direct instruction. The other nine to 14 word meanings need to be picked up in some other way. It has been proposed that children acquire these meanings with the use of processes modeled by latent semantic analysis; that is, when they meet an unfamiliar word, children can use information in its context to correctly guess its rough area of meaning.

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Famous quotes containing the word meaning:

    These pictures of time;
    They fade in the light of
    Their meaning sublime.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Of the three forms of pride, that is to say pride proper, vanity, and conceit, vanity is by far the most harmless, and conceit by far the most dangerous. The meaning of vanity is to think too much of our bodily advantages, whether real or unreal, over others; while the meaning of conceit is to believe we are cleverer, wiser, grander, and more important than we really are.
    John Cowper Powys (1872–1963)

    Even in my own writings I cannot always recover the meaning of my former ideas; I know not what I meant to say, and often get into a regular heat, correcting and putting a new sense into it, having lost the first and better one. I do nothing but come and go. My judgement does not always forge straight ahead; it strays and wanders.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)