HI-LING
LINGUISTICS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
UNIT 2: VIOLATION OF MAXIMS
Lesson 2: Language Acquisition from 1.5 to 6 Years Old
In this lesson, we continue from what you learned in the previous lesson and take a closer look at the three stages of acquiring language after 18 months old.
Key Concepts
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Two-Word stage
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Telegraphic stage
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Multi-Word stage
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Syntax (phrases and sentences)
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Morphology (structure of words)
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Over-regulation
Unit 1: Two-Word Stage and Telegraphic Stage
The Two-Word stage usually starts around having achieved the 50-word milestone. This stage generally occurs from 18 to 24 months and signifies the transition from single words to more complex linguistic structures. Children start to combine two words to create 'mini-sentences’ with simple semantic (relating to meaning in language) correlations.
Children follow the word order rules of the target language from early on. In English, the word order is as follows: Subject - Verb - Object (SVO). So, even though children in the Two-Word stage do not yet talk in complete sentences, you would not hear the following utterance from a 20-month-old: 'cookie want'. As the SVO order is already engraved in its linguistic repertoire - thanks to the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) - the young child would rather say 'want cookie' to express their desire.
In the Two-Word phase, the child’s 'mini-sentences' usually consist of two content words - words that have meaning and are primarily nouns and verbs. However, morphological and syntactic features are still lacking. For that reason, contextual cues like non-verbal communication (gaze, pointing, facial expression) and familiarity with the child, are important to understand the exact meaning of the utterance. That is also why strangers usually struggle to understand young children.
The Telegraphic stage typically occurs in children around 2 and 2.5 years old. During this phase, children begin to form more grammatically complete sentences. However, the pattern of leaving out most functional morphemes persists, so the children’s utterances often resemble language used in telegrams - hence the name of this stage.
Nevertheless, children begin stringing more than two words together in a telegraphic style. A sentence like 'She go eat.' would be an example, in which it is apparent that the third person agreement is still lacking. After all, towards the end of this stage, children start using certain grammatical morphemes, such as regular plural -s: 'Lucas like dogs.'
Besides acquiring basic functional structures, children in the Telegraphic stage also have a fast vocabulary increase and may produce between 50 and 1’000 words.
Activity 1: Discussion
Two-word stage:
What could these different ‘two-word expressions’ mean? How do we know what the child is saying?
Utterances:
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'Cat play'
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'No veggie'
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'Mommy car'
Telegraphic stage:
In 1958, Jean Berko Gleason created the Wug Test, which you can see in the picture on the left.
What word belongs in the blank?
Imagine a child in the telegraphic stage answering correctly. What does this signify?
Two-Word stage: Contextual clues are important to understand the literal meaning of the utterances. We might have to look at the child’s pointing or gaze or observe what the child is doing to understand the exact meaning. Possible meanings of the utterances: The cat is playing. I don’t want vegetables. My mom is in the car. Telegraphic stage: wugs The wug is an imaginary animal which does not exist. So, the child could not memorise the plural form of it. This indicates that the child has learned the English language rule that most plurals are formed by adding an -s.
Unit 2: Multi-Word Stage
Alongside having an evermore increasing vocabulary, grammatical or functional structures and whole sentences begin to emerge around the age of 30+ months. Entering the Multi-Word or Beyond Telegraphic stage, complex structures and the essential syntax of the grammar begin to evolve more and more, which develop into full language skills around the age of 6 years.
At 3 years old, about 80% of the child’s utterances are comprehensible to strangers, which shows that contextual cues are no longer necessary to understand the meaning of the sentences. Around the same age, children can form imperative sentences like 'Give me my glass!'
Throughout the Multi-Word stage, children acquire the ability to use tense and agreement inflection correctly. The former refers to modifying verbs to indicate the present, past, or future tense; the latter matches the verb form with the person and number of the subject. However, during this phase of language acquisition, children may progress backwards. Let’s look at it with the example for the morpheme development: -ed, which declares the past-tense. Often, children learn and know irregular past tense forms and use them correctly. However, as they learn about the typical past tense marker -ed, children may use it incorrectly and say 'goed' or 'cutted' instead of 'went' and 'cut'. This over-regulation is a common linguistic phenomenon in a child’s language development.
Around the age of 4-5, children can speak in more complex structures and can, for example, use coordination (relationship of equivalence) sentences: 'He is tall, but I am taller.'
By 6 years old, having developed most language skills, a child may know 14,000 word meanings.
Having come to the end of the two lessons on language acquisition from birth to 6 years old, it is important to note that the development of language acquisition, of course, differs from child to child. What you have learned in lessons 1 and 2 are the general occurrences.
Activity 2: Drag-and-Drop
Listen to the following three audios:
Try to assign the stages (orange) to the audios (blue) by pulling the orange square into the blue one and check the answers afterwards.
Why did you assign the audio to the specific stage? What were the characteristics?
What did you notice?
Final Thought
A child has acquired language and is able to speak roughly around the age of 6 years. However, even adults keep learning new words and adding to their vocabulary. So, what are your thoughts? Does language acquisition ever stop? Is there an end to the acquisition process?
Sources
Text
Herschensoh, J. (2007). Language Development and Age. Cambridge University Press.
Lust, B. (2006). Child Language: Acquisition and Growth. Cambridge University Press.
The Stages of First Language Acquisition. Language acquisition part 4. (2010, August 24). mnstate. Retrieved September 28, 2023, from https://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page4.htm.
The Stages of First Language Acquisition. Language acquisition parts 5 and 6. (2010, August 24). mnstate. Retrieved September 28, 2023, from https://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page5.htm.
Picture
Berko, J. (1958). The Child's Learning of English Morphology. Word. doi:10.1080/00437956.1958.11659661.