A matter of meaning: reflections on forty years of JCL

The entry into language via first words and, the acquisition of word meanings is considered from the perspective of publications in the Journal of Child Language over the past forty years. Problems in achieving word meanings include the disparate and sparse concepts available to the child from past prelanguage experience. Variability in beginning word learning and in its progress along a number of dimensions suggests the problems that children may encounter, as well as the strategies and styles they adopt to make progress. Social context and adult practices are vitally involved in the success of this process. Whereas much headway has been made over the past decades, much remains to be revealed through dynamic systems theory and developmental semiotic analyses, as well as laboratory research aimed at social context conditions.