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10.4: Stages of Language Acquisition

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    Language Acquisition

    Children will typically go through the four stages of language acquisition.

    1. Pre-language stage (3 to 10 months) where a child makes a lot of ‘cooing’ and ‘babbling’;

      Definition: Babbling

      Infant vocalizations that represent the specific sounds used in the language a child is exposed to

    2. The holophrastic stage (12 to 18 months) where a child starts to comprehend a single unit of utterance like ‘milk’, ‘eat’, ‘dad’, ‘brother’;

      Definition: Holopgrastic Stage

      a stage in language acquisition where a child starts to comprehend a single unit of utterance like ‘milk’, ‘eat’, ‘dad’, ‘brother'

    3. Two-word stage (18 to 20 months) where a child, through a process of acquiring two nouns or a noun and a verb (noun + verb), begins pairing two words together such as ‘baby chair’, ‘mommy eat’, ‘cat bad’;
    4. Telegraphic speech-stage (before 3 years old) defines a stage where a child puts some words together, even if the words are in the incorrect order. It has a similar meaning as a sentence, such as ‘cookie I want’, ‘toy me fall’, but is not a complete sentence. [1]

      Definition: Telegraphic speech-stage

      A stage in language acquisition where a child puts some words together, even if the words are in the incorrect order, such as ‘cookie I want’, ‘toy me fall’, but is not a complete sentence

    [1] Fitria & Musthafa (2019). Conversational Interaction to Develop the Two-Word Stage of A Child’s Second Language Acquisition. In Eleventh Conference on Applied Linguistics. Atlantis Press. CC by NC 4.0 https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/conaplin-18/125911514


    This page titled 10.4: Stages of Language Acquisition is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Todd LaMarr (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative) .