Semantic variability and word comprehension

• Four different age groups (9, 12, 15 and 18 years) judged words which varied in three dimensions: syn­tactic category, objective frequency and polysemy (multiple meaning). The subjects judged ease of com­prehension of 24 words in a factorial arrangement, and the method was Thurstone's paired comparisons.A predicted complex relationship between the three independent variables e.g. a triple interaction could, however, not be supported. Subjects in older ages did not seem to have a finer discrimination ability for words with different degrees of polysemy It was concluded that the phenomenon of polysemy has to be incorporated in research on word comprehension This approach avoids the current normative approach and leads to a more relevant starting-point where semantic invariance must be substituted for semantic variability.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

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