The document discusses the stages of language acquisition in children. It outlines several key stages: 1) The babbling stage occurs around 6 months as babies start producing sounds. Babbling may play a role in language development but its importance is still debated. 2) The holophrastic stage begins around 1 year as children use single words to communicate. Words take on multiple meanings during this stage. 3) The two-word stage emerges around 2 years as children connect words in pairs to form simple sentences through syntax and semantics. 4) The telegraph stage follows as children string more than two words together in sentence-like structures using functional vocabulary in addition to meaning vocabulary. Younger children's language

1. 小田 @ www.iloveppt.org
The Child’s
Acquisition
of Language
Chapter 9
V. Fromkin & R. Rodman

2. The development of the linguistic and communicative
competences in children is a process still under discussion
and investigation.
Children do not store all the words and sentences in a mental dictionary
They learn how to construct sentences
They learn to understand sentences they have never heard before
Children learn “rules” that permit them to have a more creative use
of the language
No one teaches them.

3. Linguistic and Communicative Competences
Competence: The knowledge that enables a person to speak and
understand a language.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Linguistic Competence: The knowledge of a person that allows him to
make the proper use of language in terms of grammar and meaning
Communicative Competence: The knowledge of a person that
allows him/her to make the proper use of language in terms of
social and cultural context

4. Learning/Acquisition Stages
Stages are similar/ universal
Some last for short time, some others remain longer
In some occasions, stages may overlap for a short period of time
Stages are divided in two major categories:
Prelinguistic & Linguistic

5. Stages
The Babbling Stage
It is called babbling when their regular sounds become more familiar
with what is a human language sound.
Starts around the sixth month of age
Babies start producing a large variety of sounds
All children babble
Scholars differ between if babbling is a crucial stage for language
development in children or not
Children must receive auditory input for language develop
(sign input for deaf children)
The role of babbling in language acquisition is still not
clearly understood

6. Stages
The Holophrastic Stage
Holo: “Complete” It is a stage in which children uses one word as a
Phrase: “Sentence” complete sentence.
Starts at the first year of age (varies from child to child)
Words/Sentences are every time acquiring more and different meaning.
During this period, the use of language with social purposes is also developed
Most of the Word-sentences used by children in this stage are Mono-syllabic
Linguists say that children will acquire sounds of most of the languages in the
world, and then those will be molded to acquire more difficult sounds.
It is not possible to determine the extent of grammar. Children are able to
understand more than what they can produce.

7. Stages
The two-word Stage
This is the stage in which children start using two-word utterances
Starts at the 2 years of age (varies from child to child)
Children start connecting words by pairs. Normally, those words are part
of the vocabulary they had/acquired during the holophrastic stage
The children will show definite syntactic and semantic relation to connect
two words. Also, will use intonation instead of a pause between those words.
Variations in meaning are this time much bigger than in the prior stage.

8. Stages
Telegraph to infinity
Called this way because children seem to speak like reading a WU message
It is the stage in which the children are able to string more than two words
together with a sentence-like structure
Sentences generated in this stage are formed only with meaning vocabulary
not with functional vocabulary
Functional vocabulary is developed also in this stage, approximating
to adult grammar
Discussing this stage, some researchers state that it is better to
stage the child’s language development depending on the amount of
utterances

9. Theories
Imitation: The children imitate what they hear
Imitation occur to some extent. By imitating, children is able to acquire the correct
pronunciation of words, and a more advanced vocabulary; but, they are still
capable of creating their own sentences. The child will not be able to imitate
a whole and far complex sentence , however, he/she will be able to convey
his/her desired message in the way he/she can and exclusively relying on his/her
resources (background knowledge or communicative competence)
Reinforcement: children corrects their speech by the continuous feed-back
and reinforcement obtained from adults surrounding them.
Even when it occurs to some extent, it doesn’t explain how children are
able to create sentences not heard before by them. Also, the corrections that
take place during the child’s speech, is more directed to correct the content, than
to correct the form. Also, for children will be hard to understand, that
they are committing an error, because, even when the correction is done in a
very direct manner, they will not realize they are being corrected.

10. Theories
Far beyond of imitating or receiving reinforcement, children use
other techniques to become creators of language:
Transforming
Pitch/Intonation
Create questions
Overgeneralization
Narrowing meaning
Learn the exceptions to the rule

11. Rodrigo
Salvador
Thank You