Cognitive, linguistic, and social aspects of adults' noun definitions

Low-income, rural adults and middle-income. urban adults provided oral defi nitions for eight common nouns. Two general issues were addressed: (1) whet her the rural adults' definitions would conform to the well-documented Aris totelian form typically found among middle-class. well educated adults: and (2) whether different definitional types would emerge for two different no un classes, social vs, object nouns. Participants' definitions were examine d for conceptual content and linguistic form. Among rural participants, the mean proportion of definitions conforming to the Aristotelian model was .1 3, contrasted with .69 for the urban participants. Also, rural adults were significantly less likely to cast definitions in the conventional linguisti c form than were urban adults. On other measures of definitional skill as w ell, rural participants demonstrated less mastery. There were no significan t differences in definitional form between social and object nouns. Various explanations for the findings are considered.