Korean Journal of Child Studies (아동학회지)

Korean Association of Child Studies (한국아동학회)
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Vocabulary in Korean-Speaking Toddlers : A Preliminary Analysis of Word Class, Composition, Gender, and Individual Variation

걸음마기 한국아동의 어휘발달 : 단어유목, 어휘구성, 성 차 및 개인차에 관한 기초분석

  • Bornstein, Marc H. (Child and Family Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) ;
  • Park, Sung-Yun (Department of Consumer Science & Human Development, Ewha Womans University) ;
  • Cote, Linda R. (Child and Family Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
  • ;
  • 박성연 (이화여자대학교 생활환경대학 소비자.인간발달학과) ;
  • Received : 2004.02.29
  • Accepted : 2004.03.22
  • Published : 2004.04.01
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Abstract

Mothers of 58 20-month-olds in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, completed vocabulary checklists for their children. When vocabulary level was taken into account, children's vocabularies contained relatively greater proportions of nouns than other word classes, and more verbs than adjectives or closed-class words. Correlations among word classes showed that each word class was consistently positively correlated with every other class. Girls' vocabularies showed evidence of being larger than boys. Large individual differences in the sizes of children's vocabularies were found. Factors that influence vocabulary size and can account for gender and individual differences are discussed. Noun prevalence in the vocabularies of children learning to speak Korean, and the merits of several theories that may account for this word-class prevalence pattern, are evaluated.

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