Five stages of Language

Acquisition
Prepared by:
ZENAIDA S. JORGE
BEED - III
Stages Of Language Acquisition
 Language acquisition is examined or observed according to different
stages of children’s cognition.
 Babbling
 One Word Stage
 Stage of Two Words
 Phonological Acquisition
 Syntactic Acquisition
 Semantic Acquisition
 BABBLING
 Babbling 3-4 months ---begin to show babbling
---only mothers can guess what is meant
---bilabials  alveolar consonants 6 months
---begin to use their mother tongue
---suprasegments (tones, stress, & intonation)
are acquired in the beginning
 SUPRASEGMENTS  segment Experiments indicate that
suprasegments are acquired before segments.
1. in English (rising & falling intonation) Children of the English
language are able to distinguish rising intonation from falling
intonation.
2. in Mandarin (rising & falling tone) In Taiwan, it has been noted
that children of six months are able to distinguish the rising
tone (the second tone) from the falling tones (the fourth
tones) of Mandarin Chinese.
 ONE WORD STAGE
 (12months old) holophrastic sentences Children use
one word for a sentence or a semantic unit, which is
also called holophrastic sentences.
 e.g.
milk  I want milk. / That is milk. substituted
sounds Children begin to have clearer sounds, though
sounds are substituted.
  e. g. Amhhl’s data In (a), the [s] is substituted with [t], and in (b) & (c), [g] with [k], [l] with
[g], respectively.
 Word

 Adult

 Amhhl’s reading

A
Bus
 [bs]
 [bt]

Bleg
 [lg]
 [gk]

clie
 [la]
 [da]
 Insertion or simplification Sometimes, insertion or simplification takes place at this stage. e.g.
a Chinese
Data
Words
Adult
Chia-chia’s reading
Fish
 [u_]
 [yu]
to see
 [kan]
 [ka:]
 Pain
 [tung]
 [du:]
patterns of simplification There are patterns
for children’s simplification in phonetics.
(a) syllable simplification: stop  [tap], desk 
[dk],[kan]  [ka:]
(b) substitution: bus  [bt], sea  [tiy], tung 
[du:]
(c) assimilation: tell  [dl], big  [pk]
perception  production perception +
production Language acquisition is
composed of perception and
production. perception > production
Children are much better in
perception. Most children are able to
understand what is heard at this
stage.
 e.g. a dialogue GUEST: (pointing to fish in the aquarium) What is it
e.g. a dialogue
 GUEST: (pointing to fish in the aquarium) What is it? CHILD: It’s [fs]
(fish ).
 GUEST: Oh, so it is [fs]. How beautiful [fs].
 CHILD: No. It is [fs], not [fs].
 GUEST: Is it not [fs]?
 CHILD: No.
 GUEST: No? It’s not [fs]. It is [f]. Child: (Happily) Yes. It is [fs].
perception (V) & production (X) The child, though failing to pronounce
the [] sound, can fully understand fish should be pronounced [f].
 STAGE OF TWO WORDS
(24 months) after 24 months Children step to the stage
of two words, using two words instead one for
expression. e.g. Baby chair, Daddy car, Here doggie…
referring to different meanings A phrase of two words
can be referred to different meanings. e.g. Baby chair 
This is the baby’s chair. Baby (I) want to sit on the
chair. Baby (I) am now on the chair.
 TELEGRAPHIC STAGE
The phrases are telegraphic without involving with
morphological suffixes (e.g. -s, -ed, etc.) or syntactic
derivations (e.g. nominative, objective, possessive
inflections ). a telegraph (short & brief) be verbs (X)
inflectional suffixes (X) morphological suffixes (X) e.g.
Get there by 10. Wait reply.  I will get there by 10,
and now I am waiting for your reply.
 e.g.The two-word phrases are straightforward, without having
any suffixes.

a. Daddy
 come(S+V)

b. Mommy
 cry

c. Eat
 Apple
 (V+O)

d. Sit
 car
 STAGE OF THREE-WORD (X)
THREE WORDS (X)
There is no stage of three-word in the literature
of LA. speak like adults do Soon after the stage of
two words, children get to the world of infinity
for they are able to speak like what adults do.
more words (V) phonological changes (V)
transformation in sentences (V)
 PHONOLOGICAL ACQUISITION
after 50 tokens Children begin to build
their own phonological knowledge after
they are able to speak 50 tokens.
phonological knowledge phonetic
inventories phonemes syllable structure
stress tonal rules
bee [bi] & pea [pi] Children can distinguish voicing, e. g

 bee [bi] & pea [pi] Children can distinguish voicing, e.g. bee
[bi] from pea [pi], at an early stage. perception (V)
production (X)---[s] or [] Even if they fail to pronounce [s]
or [], children try to show that they are different in their
mind. mouth [maut] & mouths [maudit] vs. mouse [maut] &
mice [maut] An experiment shows that children who
pronounce mouth and mouse identically [maut] distinguish
them in the use of plural forms, mouths being [maudit], but
mice being [maut].
 communication > errors Some sounds are
not correctly spoken
communication > errors Some sounds are not
correctly spoken. All the errors, if they should be
termed ‘errors,’ are of patterns and they never
stop children from communication. simplification
strategies Children have got phonological
knowledge at an early age though using
simplification strategies.
 Children have got the ideas of a
syllable, an onset &
a vowel (the nucleus-cannot be eliminated)CV / CVC (C:
consonant , V: vowel)Simple structure is preferred. aunt
[/at]To get a CVC syllable structure, a glottal stop is
usually inserted to the onset position of a syllable
without onset. spoon [pun], sprite [rat]When they
encounter with a complicated onset (CCV),one of the
consonants in the onset position will be deleted.
It occurs to children that stress plays an
important role.
banana & brownieIn the simplification of
syllables with a stress,The stressed syllable
remains intact. e.g. banana  nanabrownie
[brawni]  [bawn] / [bawni]
 SYNTACTIC ACQUISITION
the stage of one word The difference
between statements and interrogative
sentences is indicated by falling and rising
intonation. the stage of two words The
syntactic structure is full of diversities.
 SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE
Samples
agent + VJohn go.
V + patientEat apple.
C
V + locativeSleep be
possessor + possessedJohn bed
determiner + noun
This chair.
all the samples (only two words) in syntactic structure & theta-role (quite
different) inflectional or derivational suffixes (X)
 SEMANTIC ACQUISITION
lexicon, social & cultural background, and
cognition developments (close related) arbitrary
Children acquire lexical semantics by viewing a
concrete object or a picture. e.g. cats, birds &
mouse cats, birds, and mouse are arbitrarily
endowed with the reference to specific objects
connotation social / cultural background
 meanings differ e. g
connotation social / cultural background 
meanings differ e.g. mice  cute & lovely (Disney
publications / films) mice  dirty & devil (live in a
far remote country) abstract Semantics is quite
abstract for children. It takes time for children to
adjust the abstract referential point in the
beginning. e.g. space: this & that (the speaker’s
‘that’ vs. the listener’s ‘this’)