Semantic Knowledge

What is Semantic Knowledge?

Semantic Knowledge is the aspect of language knowledge that involves word meanings and vocabulary. Semantic knowledge involves the meaning found in the actual text, symbols and signs themselves. Characteristics of normal development relating to the aspect include, different kinds of cries, fast mapping (rapid word learning), acquisition of categories, over and under-extensions, and direct naming. 

Semantic Knowledge in Infants/Toddlers:

Early interactions between parents and infants are often in response to the infant's cries. Young infants' crying and fussing occurs as an expression of their physiological and emotional status. There are three different cries: 1.) a basic cry 2.) an anger cry, and 3.) a pain cry. These types of cries are distinguished by pitch, rhythm, and intensity. Semantic development begins here with the topic of infants' cries because their cries elicit a parental or caregiver response that nearly always involves language and the assumption that the cries "mean" something. This assumption of meaning leads to the inclusion of children in interactive dyads, which promotes communication. Two types of experiences facilitate concept and semantic development: direct and vicarious. Direct experiences occur from birth on, as infants experience objects and events in their world as a direct participation (touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, and hearing). Vicarious experiences occur when children interact with concepts through visual representations (such as pictures or print). In infancy, many of children's experiences are essentially all firsthand or direct. While direct experiences have a greater impact on concept development, both direct and vicarious experiences make valuable contributions to concept development. At about the age of 1 year, children may, with some degree of consistency, begin to use distinct vocal units to refer to specific objects or actions. It is important to keep in mind that some children will begin several months later and will eventually acquire language competency the same as the early talkers. The development of semantic knowledge related to emergent literacy occurs as infants and adults participate in picture book interactions. During this activity, adults typically use gesture and finger pointing to establish a shared reference before labeling the character or object pictured. Children who have been included in storybook sharing events since early infancy, beginning at about 4 to 5 months, often show that they are predicting the meaning of upcoming text by their verbal and nonverbal behavior. 

Between 1 and 2 years of age, a child has 20 to 170 words in his productive vocabulary but understands many more. There is considerable variation among individual children because their vocabulary will reflect their individual family contexts and experiences. While idiomorphs will still be part of a young toddler's expressive vocabulary, there is gradual transition to conventional words. As objects and events in children's environments are repeatedly labeled, both the receptive and expressive vocabularies increase; however, the listening vocabulary is still larger than the productive vocabulary. The productive vocabulary of older toddlers may range from 200 to 300 words, with a much more extensive listening vocabulary. A toddler usually maintains only one word pre referent in his or her productive vocabulary. A child may experiment with a specific word and switch to another if the first word is not successful in referring to the desired object, action or event. One aspect of semantic development involves children's acquisition of categories, which organize phenomena into groups of shared characteristics. These generalizations may be evident in toddlers' semantic over-extensions and under-extensions as they develop schemata with general and specific concepts. Semantic knowledge related to emergent literacy continues to expand during the toddler years, as children develop an awareness of environmental print and meanings, such as stop signs, McDonalds logos, and labels on food packaging. Throughout infancy and toddlerhood, children are active learners in building their concept knowledge and vocabulary. Daily interactions with people, objects, and actions in their environment provide direct and vicarious experiences that enhance children's development of semantic knowledge. When children have opportunities to observe parents and teachers interacting with written language and to participate in those interactions, semantic knowledge related to written language is also enhanced.

Semantic Knowledge in Pre-Schoolers:

Children's vocabulary expands and becomes more refined or precise during the preschool years as children begin to develop more complex concepts. When children encounter new experiences, they have opportunities to expand their language as they refer to and respond to these new experiences. Receptive and expressive vocabulary grows rapidly. A preschool child's expressive vocabulary has been estimated to range from 800 to 1,000 words. Semantic knowledge develops through the process of assimilation and accommodation. Semantic knowledge also develops as children communicate with adults and other children who expose them to new words within contextually rich settings. The context in which new words are introduced influences children's acquisition of vocabulary. Upon hearing a new word, some children will ask what it means or relate it to a word they already know. As young preschoolers are acquiring semantic knowledge, over-extensions and under-extensions in using vocabulary may occur. Over-extensions occur when children use the same word to apply to referents that may resemble the actual, appropriate referent in some way. Under-extension, in contrast, occurs when a label or word is inappropriately restricted (ex: the word cat is used only to refer to the neighbor's cat and not to other cats the child sees in the neighborhood). Throughout the preschool years, children's verbal interactions with adults and other children gradually refine the use of words, reducing instances of over-extension and under-extension.

Conceptual development and vocabulary are also increased through book sharing with fiction and nonfiction texts. The written language of storybooks exposes children to more precise and varied vocabulary than they may experience in daily conversations. For many children, the appeal of storybooks and nonfiction books is in the variety of ways language is used to communicate a story or real-world information. Pre-school children begin to understand figurative language. Examples of figurative language, such as similes and metaphors, may occur in daily conversations and may also be found in children's storybooks. They also may also encounter idiomatic expressions and be puzzled when they try to comprehend the literal meaning of the expression. Stories created by children provide evidence of their development of semantic knowledge. Children may incorporate specific phrases or vocabulary in their own stories that most likely come from their experiences with storybooks, such as "beautiful, handsome prince, going to the parlor for dinner, buried treasure." In these instances, the impact of storybook experiences on children's developing semantic knowledge is evident. The development of semantic knowledge is closely related to the development of syntactic knowledge. Children's understanding of how words convey meaning is closely to their knowledge of how to interpret or comprehend speech directed to them and how to arrange words in creating the messages they want to communicate.

Semantic Knowledge in Kindergarteners:

Kindergarten children typically have a speaking vocabulary of 1,500 or more words and understand more more words. It is estimated that a child's listening vocabulary is four times larger than his speaking vocabulary. In most classrooms, teachers will note there are wide variations between children in the size of their listening and speaking vocabularies. Vocabulary development is a major goal of language arts curricula in kindergarten as well as in the primary grades because vocabulary strength is associated with later reading comprehension and success in school. Expansion of children's semantic knowledge during the kindergarten year must involve not only adding new words and concepts but also further developing networks of vocabulary or schemata. For kindergarteners, vocabulary is acquired through direct and indirect experiences. Some vocabulary is learned through direct naming, or ostensive naming. Vocabulary is also learned through conversational context as well as through literacy events where books are shared with children. Both conversational contexts and book sharing contexts provide supportive mediation, which is critical to vocabulary acquisition.

Children's understanding and use of figurative language, such as similes and metaphors, also provide evidence of semantic knowledge. When storybooks containing figurative language are shared and discussed, children are able to develop an understanding of the similes and metaphors. Their sense of humor is also an indication of their semantic knowledge development. The riddles and jokes they create are often based in semantic comparisons or words that have multiple meanings. Knock-knock jokes are often popular among kindergarten children, though some children do not fully appreciate such jokes until they are in the primary grades. This reflects their awareness of language patterns as well as their ability to manipulate words to create a humorous idea. Because the increases in children's semantic knowledge during the kindergarten year are represented in words from many syntactic categories, the increase in semantic knowledge occurs concurrently with an increase in syntactic knowledge.

Semantic Knowledge in Primary Age Children:

During primary school years, elaboration and differentiation of concepts occur, along with the acquisition of labels attached to concepts. Semantic development continues to occur informally as children interact in conversations with family and friends and through exposure to various media as well as new experiences, such as family trips and vacations. Semantic development also occurs more formally in literacy-related instruction where children are introduced to specific words and encouraged to participate in discussing what those words mean. Such discussions of words and word meaning are metalinguistic in the sense that children are asked to focus consciously on meaning as an aspect of words. Comprehending and using figurative language requires a special understanding of semantic knowledge because the meaning of a word is used to create a comparison between two objects or settings. Similes are more explicit in their comparison than are metaphors, which create an implied comparison. In creating a metaphor, a child must be able to see the ways two objects or settings are similar on a more abstract or symbolic level.

Semantic development is evident in primary-age children's appreciation of puns and riddles. The appreciation comes from children's ability to realize that words may have double meanings or may have a similar phonological knowledge sequence to other words. The riddles created by first and second graders tend to be completely nonsensical or too realistic and thus are not really riddles but "pre-riddles." During third grade, most children are able to grasp the double meanings of riddles simultaneously. Throughout the primary years, children become more aware of possible double meanings and incorporate puns and riddles into their linguistic play. Hobbies and special interests of primary children may provide opportunity to develop specialized vocabulary. For example, an 8-year-old who is an avid baseball fan would develop vocabulary related to this interest. This vocabulary might include such phrases as "hit a triple, pitch, stuck out, pop-up, tagged up, grounder, line-drive out, inning, foul ball, or home run." This vocabulary knowledge probably would not develop in a classroom simply because it is so specialized. Yet it is important to recognize that children's hobbies and special interests outside the classroom can have an impact on concept and vocabulary development. Teachers can recognize and acknowledge children's specialized vocabulary by providing opportunities for children to talk about and write their home and community activities during language and literacy based activities in the classroom.

Tips for Parents: 

1. Label and elaborate on new words during shared reading. For instance, make comments and ask questions to draw your child's attention to new vocabulary words and new ideas during shared reading.

2. Label and elaborate on new words throughout the day. Make comments and ask questions about the things you see or people and situations you encounter during shared activities such as driving in the car, watching television, or looking at a billboard. 

3. Another great tip is to select themed books. Choose a book with a theme (for example, a day at the beach, or a visit to the zoo), which will help your child learn many words that fall into a particular category.