This document summarizes the key stages of child language acquisition from birth to age 5. It identifies 4 main stages: 1) the pre-linguistic period from birth to 10 months where babies develop sounds but no words; 2) the holophrastic period from 12 to 18 months when children use single words; 3) the telegraphic period from 2 to 3 years when children use 2-word phrases; and 4) the complex period from 3 to 5 years when grammar becomes more advanced. The document also discusses some of the milestones within each period, such as babbling and first words.

1. STAGES OF CHILD LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
An Introduction
By Shalini Agrawal
Banaras Hindu University

2. INTRODUCTION:
 Language development begins from the very first day after
birth. By the age of 5, the child knows most of the system of
language and it continues even after the age of 5.
 Research indicates babies listen to their mother's voice during
the last few months of pregnancy.
 Every child acquire a language as a native language with equal
ease.
 ‘How does a child learn his/her languages well in such a short
time? And what is the course of language learning?,
Developmental Psycholinguistics, has attempted to answer the
these questions over the past 30 years, and also provided us
with considerable insight into the how and why of the first
language acquisition’ (Kess, 1992).

3. INTRODUCTION: (Contd.)
 Languages are acquired in the predictable stages as the behavior
develops.
 ‘They do different in their onset and rate of development but the
chronology seems to remain constant.’ (Kess, 1992)
 Acquiring language is learning a game. One must learn the rules
of the game.
 Children also learn to improve and enhance their behavior for a
good member of a society.

4. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW:
 Diary studies: (from 1877- 1930)
 Language development studied through diary studies by recording the
speech of a child.
 Parents daily record the speech and maintain a diary.
 Large sample studies: (from 1930- 1957)
 Instead of collecting data of a single child they collect data from a
large number of children at a certain stage.
 Linguistic Studies: (from 1957 onwards)
 Instead of focusing just at the utterance of a child, they tried to
understand the rules behind it.

5. BASIC REQUIREMENTS:
 Stork and Widdowson (1974) points out two important
factors involved in language acquisition:
 Firstly, an innate human potential for the acquisition of a
language.
 Secondly, a linguistic environment for a child stimulated
by linguistic input.

6. MAIN STAGES OF CHILD LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION:
Stages Typical Age
1. The Pre-linguistic Period Birth - 10 months
2. The Holophrastic Period 12 months - 18 months
3. The Telegraphic Period 2 years - 3 years
4. The Complex Period 3 years - 5 years

7. 1. PRELINGUISTIC PERIOD:
(Birth- 10 months)
 From the moment of birth, a child discriminate speech from other
sounds.
 Start discovering phonemes.
 1 month: start crying or producing sounds in order to convey
several information.
 Hunger cry
 Angry cry
 Pain cry
 Cooing starts in response to pleasure. This is a universal stage.
 6 months: babbling stage, producing syllables like ba-ba-ba
 9-10 months: start using intonation patterns and also rephrase
babble that seems as if they are words. e.g. baba, mama, dada etc.

8. 2. THE HOLOPHRASTIC PERIOD
(12 months-18 months)
 12 months: single word phrase stage. Communication done with
single words in order to convey complex message.
 Example: a word “tedda” could mean: ‘I want my teddy, here is
my teddy, Where is my teddy?’
 Naming person, object and places like cookie, dog etc.
 Vocabulary moved to 30 words.
 Improved pronunciation.
 Says ‘no’ meaningfully.
 Start understanding what is being said like ‘come here’, ‘stop it’
etc.

9. 3. THE TELEGRAPHIC PERIOD:
( 2 years - 3 years)
 2 years: two word phrase stage. Child uses minimum words to
convey meaning of a whole sentence.
 Lack of function words in communication but recites familiar
nursery rhymes.
 30 months: start acquiring rules of syntax.
 Demonstrating semantic relations with two words. e.g.
Semantic Relations Examples
Agent + Action Mumma sit
Agent Object Papa car
Action + Object Eat mango
Action + Location Go park
Object + Location Teddy + floor

10. 4. THE COMPLEX PERIOD:
(3 years – 5 years)
 By 5 years: acquisition becomes slow but vocabulary continues
to grow.
 Developing morphology: start using functional words.
 Overgeneralization of rules: the child applies –s to the words like
‘foots’ or ‘mans’.
 Developing syntax: start forming complex sentences.
 Forming wh- questions like what, where, who, when etc.
 Forming negative sentences. e.g. I was not eating Pizza.
 Developing semantics: overextend the meaning of a word on the
basis of shape and size. Example, use ball to refer all round
things like an apple, an egg or a grape.

11. CONCLUSION:
 There is no clear-cut answer as to how language acquisition take
place.
 Language acquisition tend to run parallel to the physical
development. Though there is no correlation between these two.
 Generally, babbling occurs around the time when baby begin to
sit up. They utter single word just before they start to walk.
Grammar becomes complex when hands and fingers co-
ordination develops.

12. REFERENCES:
 Mathews, A. (1996). Linguistic Development.
 Kess, J. F. (1992). Psycholinguistics: psychology, linguistics,
and the study of natural languages. Amsterdam.
 Rahimpour, M. ‘Developmental stages of child Language’.
Journal of Faculty of Letters and Humanities, vol. 47, no. 190.
(pp 57- 70).

13. THANK YOU!!!