ABSTRACT
The extension of the bootstrapping construct forms the basis for describing the set of mechanisms required to explain the child’s progress over time in achieving a conventional communicative system. Examining the influence of maternal gestures on child language, is highly compatible with the view that early gesture serves to focus joint attention beyond the dyad on objects and events that can be talked about. Three types of bootstrapping operations proposed here, elicitation, entry, and expansion operations, allow the child maximally to utilize the social environment for the learning of her culture’s communicative system. Devices that allow learners to use what they already have to gain more information from the environment are called elicitation operations. Entry operations get the information into the language learning system in a format that promotes further analysis and learning by the child. Expansion operations allow understanding to grow as capacity becomes available to analyze in more depth and detail what has been stored in preliminary fashion.
