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Selected Research
Eve V. Clark's work was focused heavily on first language acquisition, the acquisition of meaning, word-formation across children and language, and the varying issues in lexicon and language use. Some of her most remarkable studies come from the interaction of children with adults, where she demonstrates how vital these interactions are for further development of language for young children.

 Young children's uptake of new words in conversation 

Clark aimed to understand how children register words they haven’t heard before by extracting the words and transcripts from five corpora (collection of written/spoken texts) (2007). She hypothesized that, because the repetition of a new word is how children place that word into their language, there will be a difference in repeat-rates for new information and given information. To test the prediction, she compared children's repetition's of the new words to the repetition in the new-to given conversation shifts. The study consisted of 701 new words that were used and exposed to the five children. An example of the way the words were said to the children are as followed:

“Deictic term (this/that/here) + new word

(This) is an + owl

(Here) is a + whisk”

(Clark & Wong, 2002)

The five corpora, or collection of written/spoken speech, were analyzed by three researchers who each observed specific children: Stanley Kuczaj (child: Abe), Jacqueline Sachs (child: Naomi) and Roger Brown (children: Adam, Eve and Sarah). Each child was recorded at different intervals, ranging from twice a week to every other week. To analyze if the children are registering the new words, it was coded every time a child repeated the new word, acknowledged or moved on. Although the children all differed on who initiate the conversation first, her results found that 54% of the time, children repeated the word in their next turn, 38% of the time the child had utterances (move-ons) which were relevant to the new word and topic, and 9% of the time the children said ‘yeah’ (acknowledgement).

Even though the children's acknowledgments were very small in terms of measurement, it displays that the children are capable of understanding and acceptance of the new words, a step forward in grounding the new terms that the adults offered. Children who moved on from the new word continued the conversation in the same semantic field, meaning that although the grasping of the new word may not be verbally recognized, the meaning behind the continued conversation displays a possible grasp on integrating the context into their understanding.

From this study, Clark's results displayed that children repeated the new words about twice as much as they repeated utterance information from ordinary conversations. Her hypothesis was supported in that there is a difference in the function of repetition differs between new words and new information. Children are aware of new words, and rely on the introduction of them using the deictic frame. Clark wanted to continue this phenomenon of children and how they integrate these new words into their vocabulary, so she began to use words that young children surround themselves with everyday, but do not quite get exposed to in language, and that is color.

Color, reference, and expertise in language acquisition (2006)

In the article, Eve Clark furthers her research on a child's understanding of new words, while specifically focusing on colors. One major part to this is joint attention. Clark discovered that children find difficulty in learning and understanding the meaning of colors. She found that joint attention plays a major role because the child is able to learn about the color and discuss it with someone else. When the child and the adult share the attention together, the child is able to learn colors, and furthermore, the complex shades and hues of that color. Eve Clark emphasized joint attention to such magnitude because it is the key to labeling and identifying specific colors.

Clark, E. V. (2006). Color, reference, and expertise in language acquisition. J​ ournal of Experimental Child Psychology,​ ​94​(4), 339-343. doi:doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2006.03.002

Clark's accomplishments and reputation in linguistics is shown in her ability relate language acquisition to cognition. Clark's concepts on cognition in relation to language acquisition reinforce that cognition and language interact in a cyclical fashion as children learn more. When discovering language, Clark says that children learn most from their adult figures in their life and how infants pick up on the most frequent nouns, verbs, and adjectives first before extending their range.This suggests that we as children, and as people in general, use representations based not only on representations linked to specific languages, but also on their cognitive development, for categorization, identification, sorting and remembering.

Clark, E. V. (2004). How language acquisition builds on cognitive development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences,8(10), 472-478. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.08.012

 Conventionality and contrast in language acquisition 

Eve Clark looks at how conventionality and contrast both add to language. Convention is defined as a norm, a standard everyone must follow to ensure proper communication. This rule is followed in terms of language as well as general knowledge. Everyone uses the same word to relay the same meaning, and mostly in the same way. When hearing a language for the first time, a child must figure out the meaning of the word in relation to the words around it. The contrasting words give hints to what the unknown word represents. With more context and exposure, children are able to make the connection and learn their first language. If a child and parent are at a zoo learning animals, learning the difference between two striped animals is where conventionality and contrast come in (tiger vs. zebra). While this rule can differentiate between nouns, this also applies when children figure out which tense of a verb to use (telled vs. told).

Clark, E. V. (2007). Conventionality and contrast in language and language acquisition. New Directions for Child & Adolescent Development, 2007(115), 11–23.

doi: 10.1002/cd.179