Lexical-semantic representation of body parts in Serbian child language

Abstract

Although words for human body parts appear early in children’s vocabulary, relatively little is known about the conceptual and semantic development related to the body part words in preschool and early school ages. In this paper, we examine how children at ages 5, 7 and 9 use words and expressions to refer to the human body and its parts, and how these correspond to the segmentation and lexicalization of the body part terms in adults. Participants were asked to name the body parts that were depicted in the drawings showing the whole body (front or back) and the face, with a red dot marking the specific part. The results of the comparison between children and adults indicate that for the most parts of arms, legs, and face there is a gradual conceptual segmentation of body with age, reflected in a decrease in the use of holonyms and an increase in the use of meronyms in naming parts. However, such hierarchical organization could not be confirmed for other parts (trunk, shoulders, neck, head, some parts of the face), revealing different pathways in the acquisition of words. Children of all ages, especially 7– and 9-year-olds, seek alternative solutions for naming the body parts for which labels are missing in their vocabulary. In such cases, they name adjacent body parts, internal organs, and parts of the skeleton, or use prepositional phrases to refer to the surrounding areas. The results are compared with the findings of the previous studies, while the lexical-semantic change in the body parts terms and the hierarchical organization of the body part lexicon in child language are discussed.The results were compared in light of previous findings of the developmental studies, on the lexical-semantic change, and the hierarchical organization of the body part lexicon in child language.

Iako se nazivi za delove ljudskog tela pojavljuju rano u dečijem rečniku, relativno malo se zna o pojmovnom i semantičkom razvoju u ovom domenu na predškolskom i ranom školskom uzrastu. Istraživali smo kako deca uzrasta 5, 7 i 9 godina koriste reči i izraze za označavanje delove ljudskog tela i koliko se oni po-klapaju sa segmentacijom tela i leksemama za delove tela kod odraslih. Ispitanici su zamoljeni da, na crtežu koji prikazuju celo telo (prednju ili zadnju stranu) ili lice, imenuju deo označen crvenom tačkom. Rezultati poređenja odgovora izme-đu dece i odraslih pokazuju da se sa uzrastom povećava upotreba meronima, a smanjuje upotreba holonima za imenovanje delova tela, što ukazuje na povećanje segmentacije tela na pojmovnom i leksičko-semantičkom planu sa uzrastom. Me-đutim, ovakva hijerarhijska organizacija nije mogla biti potvrđena za druge delove (trup, ramena, vrat, glava, pojedini delovi lica), otkrivajući različite razvojne puta-nje tokom usvajanja reči. Deca svih uzrasta, a posebno deca od 7 i 9 godina, traže alternativna rešenja za imenovanje delova tela za koje im nedostaju reči. U takvim slučajevima koriste nazive za susedne delove, unutrašnje organe i delove skeleta, ili upućuju na okolna područja koristeći predloške fraze. Rezultati su poređeni sa prethodnim nalazima razvojnih studija, a diskutovane su leksičko-semantičke promene reči za označavanje delova tela i pitanje njihove hijerarhijske organizacije u leksikonu dece.