Joint book reading as a multiple vocabulary acquisition device.

Anat NinioHebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, IsraelThis study investigated serial effects in recurrent ostensive definitions of wordsin the context of joint picture-book reading by 20 mother-infant dyads. Contentanalysis revealed a number of labeling formats, among them simple labeling bythe mother or by the infant, elicitation of labeling by what-questions, elicitationof pointing by where-questions, and elicited and spontaneous imitation by theinfant. The dyads applied a mixture of labeling formats to the same referent onits successive occurrences. Imitation was more likely following previous error inlabeling than were correct labeling and pointing by the infant. No difference wasfound in the correct labeling rate following production, comprehension, and im-itation. Mothers tended to follow errors and no responses with simple labelingof the same referent on its next appearance, whereas they followed correct re-sponses with attempts to elicit labeling or pointing from the infant. The resultsimply that imitation, comprehension, and productive responses to words by vo-cabulary-learning infants do not represent different levels of word knowledge, andalso that the respective vocabularies are overlapping at a given point in time.Joint attention of mother-infant dyads torepresentational materials such as picturebooks constitutes a context that is especiallyappropriate for the acquisition of the first lex-icon (e.g., Werner & Kaplan, 1963). The coreprocess through which vocabulary teachingand practice occurs seems to be the so-calledostensive definition, in which a name ismatched to a representation of its referent(e.g., a picture), the latter in joint attentionof the participants.The realization of this core process in ac-tual mother-infant interaction might takevarious forms. One of the participants mightsimply label the picture after bringing it tothe attention of the other. The second par-ticipant might subsequently imitate that la-bel, either spontaneously or in response toa demand to do so. Participants might de-mand labeling by asking a question of thetype, What is this? or demand the provi-sion of the matching picture by a question