Television and Vocabulary Development in a Child

Abstract

Television is assumed to help young children in developing their vocabulary in general, however, there is less research on the development of vocabulary through this media among young children for whom English is a second language. There[1]fore, in absence of a large-scaled empirical study, some writers have been content to accept both the positive and negative effects of television on a child’s vocab[1]ulary development. This research uses a case study to find out whether or not watching English television programmes help a child from a non-English ethnic background acquire English vocabulary. The case study used here is a four-year[1]old boy from Bhutan without any English language background. An unstructured interview and naturalistic observation methods were used to gather data. The find[1]ings indicated that the there was an enhanced development of vocabulary from watching television and movies. The key factors contributing to such development were viewer’s (a) age (b) immersion; and (c) imitation. The study concludes that while a general relation may exist between vocabulary development and viewing television, more research is needed to ascertain the exact nature of this correlation.