From Reference to Meaning

Abstract

ANGLIN, JEREMY M. From Reference to Meaning. CHmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 969-976. A useful distinction for those concerned with the acquisition of word meaning is between the extension or the referential scope of a word and the intension or the meaning of that word. Developmental psycholinguists have often inferred the intension or meaning of the child's words solely from their extension or referential scope. It is argued here that this approach may be problematic, and 2 studies of the intension or meaning of the child's words which involve a different approach are described. In the first study preschool children were engaged in conversations about a set of 12 common nouns and encouraged to describe their knowledge of each word in as much detail as possible. In the second study a different group of preschool children was asked (1) to define a set of common nouns, and (2) to classify pictures of objects as referents or nonreferents of the words which they had just defined. Both studies revealed some rudimentary conceptual knowledge in the preschool children of the functions as well as the appearance of referents of a number of words and a tendency in the children to think in terms of particulars when discussing word meanings. The second study also showed that preschool children are most often inconsistent in their classification of pictures of objects into verbal concepts, with their definitions of those verbal concepts suggesting that children's terms of reference are characterized by a lack of coordination between extension and intension.