stages of language acquisistion Flashcards
what are the stages of child language acquisition
- babbling
- one word utterances
- 2 word utterances
- telegraphic stage
- multiword stage
what is the first stage of child languange acquisition and what are some notes about it
Babbling
* (5-7 months)
* sounds procuded are similar around the world (at this stage sounds produced are similar all over)
* gradually there is a decrease to the sounds to better their target language.
* intonation patterns are the first to be acquired (the rise and fall of the voice in speaking.)
* babbling appears to be innate, something humans are born with. Hearing children, deaf children, non deaf children of deaf parents all babble.
what is the second stage of child languange acquisition and what are some notes about it
one word utterances
* (12-18 months)
* children produce single-word, utterances, usually consonent-vowel (CV) in shape (e.g. ma)
* the vowel sound might also be dipthong. it is actual word, but many are very distorted.
* typically, the first meaningful utterance of any child will be concrete words - everyday objects important to the child such as “bikkie, cat, spoon and so on”.
* in the one word utterance stage they can typically use 50 words - simplified versions, but through semantic overgeneralisition; they can maxisime use of their limited set.
* children’s passive knowledge outstrips their vocal ability, thy are capable of understanding phonemes long before they can actually produce them.
extra notes about one word utterances
one word utterances
* (12-18 months)
* infants discover that sounds relate to meaning, and they start to use these sounds in an expressive way.
* dipthong; a combination of 2 vowels
* semantic overgeneralisation; is when children extend meaning beyond their usual use.
* e.g. an 4-legged animal = dog (extending a word to anything similar.)
* one word can be used for phrases or sentences
1. e.g. I need a spoon
1. Mum is using a spoon
what is the third stage of child languange acquisition and what are some notes about it
two word utterances
* (18-24 months)
* children generate on exuberance of new words, and they also combine them into two word utterances.
* many new words emerge
* children’s utterances contain only content words - the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs with lexical meaning; there are no function words and no morphemes; such as “in, one, is, -s, -ed”
* combination of 2 words is not random and is carefully structured.
* children are being creative at this time and they are not purely mimicking the utterances they hear around them.
1. -dada chair instead of ‘i want to sit in dada’s chair’
1. location is always in second position (e.g. Dada chair)
1. actions come after agent (e.g. Dada run)
1. action affects on entity, entity second (e.g. kick ball)
orders of subject + objects conforms to adult grammar
what is the fourth stage of child languange acquisition and what are some notes about it
telegraphic stage
* (early multiword stage and beyond, 24-30 months)
* the utterances are more sentence like but function words and morphemes are still lacking. (e.g. i want pat doggy)
* at this stage, they communicate meaning by combining content words (words that posess meaning) while omitting grammatical function words; for example, ‘ i want pat doggy’ and ‘i go shops’.
* can typically form questions a wh - word (what, where, why, when etc)
* grammatical parts start to emerge
* grammatical parts start to emerge
what is the fifth stage of child languange acquisition and what are some notes about it
multiword stage
* (30 months)
* children begin to use grammatical function words along with content words
* sentences become complex
* their sytactic knowledge has increased
* use of function words such as ‘is, the, a, can and will’
* proper word order (e.g. The dog is barking at the cat.)
