An Introduction to The National Language Research Institute: A Sketch of its Achievements
Third Edition(1988)/ HTML Version(1997)

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II.4.17 The Lexical Ability of Pre-School Children

(Report 66, 1980. 514 pages)
We predicted that acceleration in the development of linguistic ability of pre-school children would occur with the spread of television, picture books, etc. This book reports on a survey conducted on the lexical ability of pre-school children and contains the results of the following four surveys. 1. Adjective Test- We surveyed the semantic comprehension of a total of 26 adjectives divided into 13 pairs (adjectives which express properties and states, 'big'/'small,' 'numerous'/ 'few,' 'fat'/'thin,' etc.) 2. Time and Space Words Test- We surveyed the semantic comprehension of a total of 46 words divided into 11 groups of nouns which express time and space, 'above'/'below,' 'outside'/'inside,' 'morning'/'night,' 'spring'/'summer'/'fall'/'winter,' etc. 3. Verb Test- We surveyed the semantic comprehension of 220 basic verbs, for example, 'raise,' 'get up,' 'fall down,' 'rejoice,' etc. 4. Questionnaire on Linguistic Life- This questionnaire was developed to investigate the relation between children's lexical ability and their home environment and linguistic customs. The semantic comprehension tests for vocabulary in 1, 2, and 3 were all conducted by controlling conditions with picture cards. We conducted the survey evaluating the children's semantic comprehension of vocabulary on three levels. MURAISI Syo~zo~ and AMANO Kiyosi directed this research, and MURAISI Syo~zo~ wrote this report.

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