Infants acquire words before concepts: A case study
Svetlana Anatolyevna Osokina · Global Journal of Foreign Language Teaching · 2016
The purpose of the paper is to prove that for a child the system of abstract concepts grows from the “material work” with thelanguage. Using the case study method to a particular child we prove that little children can use rather complicated abstractwords without knowing the concepts of these words. Children may use such words in proper grammar forms and correctcollocations but they can’t explain the meaning of the words or give wrong explanation. It makes us think that in languageacquisition process the language knowledge system is being developed earlier than the conceptual system of words meaningbut we must understand what language knowledge consists of in this case and what it actually is. Implications for futureresearch include further study of language knowledge system as having its own value independently from concept system ofknowledge. Keywords: language acquisition, infant speech, language knowledge system, case study.