| Abstract: | Examined the possibility that there are similarities between the historical and individual processes of language development. Based on an extrapolation of A. Paivio's (1971) theory of language acquisition, it was predicted that the earlier a word enters the language, the higher its imagery value should be. 877 nouns with precise dates of entry listed in the Oxford English Dictionary were scored according to word length (long or short) and noun type (simple or derived). An analysis of these nouns yielded results that were generally consistent with the hypothesis, since word length, frequency, and imagery were all significantly related to date of entry. However, a significant interaction between word length and imagery existed only for short words. Long words tended to be low in imagery regardless of their date of entry, while short words were higher in imagery the older they were. (French abstract) (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
