LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:9 September 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

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Semantic Feature Production in Tamil-Speaking Young Adults vs. Geriatrics - A Comparative Study

Shruti Ramprasadh, MASLP
Dr. Maria J, Ph.D. and
Prof. Ranjith Rajeswaran

Abstract

Semantics is the part of linguistics that is concerned with meaning. Semantic features are theoretical units of meaning-holding components which are used for representing word meaning. Children typically have productive vocabularies of 50 words or more by 18 months of age, and a significant increase in naming can be expected as new words are acquired at a rapid rate. During this time, children begin to seek out names for things and to draw attention to interesting objects and events by naming them. This period is known as the "naming explosion" or "vocabulary spurt" (Bates,1991). Many developmentalists believe it represents significant advancements in children's semantic and conceptual knowledge (Bloom,1973). Although the spurt is a period of rapid cognitive and linguistic development, it is also a period of increased error. This study aims to compare the Semantic Feature Production in Young and Older Tamil-Speaking Adults which in turn could reflect the Cognitive Linguistic Changes across age range.

Keywords:semantics, naming explosions, vocabulary spurt, conceptual knowledge, linguistic development

Introduction

Several studies have documented instances of children making spontaneous naming errors during their rapid word acquisition period (Anglin,1986). These errors appear to be caused by an overextension of a known word to a novel exemplar that shares some salient attribute, especially when the child has never heard the object named before (Huttenlocher & Smiley,1987). Children's naming errors are caused by a particular vulnerability of newly acquired words as they compete with more items in a rapidly expanding lexicon. That is, because of the absolute low levels of activation strength of lexical items that must occur as children learn their first words, errors may occur during the period of accelerated vocabulary growth. However, as children use those words repeatedly in production, they may become stronger and more resistant to interference. These naming errors, like those reported by Elbers (1985), did not appear to be simple overextensions, but occurred with a high frequency (nearly 30% of all naming in one study; Gershkoff-Stowe & Smith, 1997) at a time when children were learning many new words and beginning to produce those words with greater frequency and in closer temporal proximity. As a result, naming difficulties in children can be attributed to deviations observed at any stage of word development.

In most mature speech production models, accessing a word in the lexicon involves the activation and competition of multiple candidates; the stronger the activation of a word, the greater the probability of its selection. Additionally, strong words are more likely to withstand interference than weak words. These findings support the theory that the rise and fall of children's errors reflect changes in the activation strength of individual words as they are retrieved for production. However, there are not many models or hypotheses available to explain adult naming abilities and vocabulary growth. As a result, they are studied using Semantic Feature Activation tasks.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Shruti Ramprasadh, MASLP
Speech - Language Pathologist
Swabodhi school for special needs,
Chennai
&
Dr. Maria J, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Speech - Language Pathology
MERF ? Institute of Speech and Hearing(P)Ltd,
Chennai ? 600 014.
mj.aslpofficial@gmail.com
&
Prof. Ranjith Rajeswaran
Managing Director / Principal,
MERF ? Institute of Speech and Hearing(P)Ltd,
Chennai ? 600 014.

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