Content area
Full Text
Applied Psycholinguistics 27 (2006), 513543
Printed in the United States of AmericaDOI: 10.1017.S0142716406060383
SUSAN E. GATHERCOLE University of York, UK
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Susan E. Gathercole, Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This article presents a theoretical framework designed to accommodate core evidence that the abilities to repeat nonwords and to learn the phonological forms of new words are closely linked. Basic ndings relating nonword repetition and word learning both in typical samples of children and adults and in individuals with disorders of language learning are described. The theoretical analysis of this evidence is organized around the following claims: rst, that nonword repetition and word learning both rely on phonological storage; second, that they are both multiply determined, constrained also by auditory, phonological, and speechmotor output processes; third, that a phonological storage decit alone may not be sufcient to impair language learning to a substantial degree. It is concluded that word learning mediated by temporary phonological storage is a primitive learning mechanism that is particularly important in the early stages of acquiring a language, but remains available to support word learning across the life span.
The capacity to repeat a novel phonological form such as woogalamic is one of the most basic and important language abilities. Every word we now know was once unfamiliar to us, and on many occasions will have started its journey into our mental lexicon via such a repetition attempt. The repetition of nonwords starts very early in life: children spontaneously mimic the words of others from the rst year of infancy onwards, and by 2 years of age are usually willing to attempt repetition of a spoken nonword on request. The apparent simplicity of the act of repeating a nonword is, however, deceptive. The ability to repeat multisyllabic nonwords in particular is subject to a high degree of individual variation during childhood, and probably represents the most effective predictor of language learning ability that is currently known. In this article I speculate on why nonword repetition is so closely linked with language learning.
The main claims, some of which are widely shared and others of which are more contentious, are as follows. First, one of the most important constraints on
2006...