Stages in First Language

Acquisition
Aproximación a la Didáctica de la Especialidad.

Mauricio Chandía B.
mchandia@ubiobio.cl
 Before we Star…
Q
u
What is acquisition?
e
s What is it needed for acquisition to happen?
t
i Who are caregiver?
o What is caregiver speech (characteristics)?
n
Which are the pillar of FLA?
s
 Stages in Language Acquisition
1. Pre-language stages • 3 to 10 months

2. The one-word or
holophrastic stage • 12 to 18/24 months

3. The two-word stage • 18 to 20/24 months

4.Multiple-word stage or • 2 to 3 years

Telegraphic speech
1. Pre-language stages
• Cooing: 3months old
the first recognizable sounds
with velar consonants such as [k] [g]
as well as high vowels such as [i] [u]

• Babbling: 6months old

fricatives (f, s, v, z), nasals ( m, n) , syllable type sounds
9months old
recognizable intonation patterns, combination
10-11months old
use vocalizations to express emotions and emphasis
2. The one-word or holophrastic stage.
12 to 18/21 months.

• Characterized by speech in which single terms are

uttered for everyday objects
• Already extending their use
• Most verbs and nouns, infrequent function words
• Tend to imformative words
extending their use
Daddy is here !

Daddy

I saw daddy's
car !
Milk

Meaning……..?
3. The two-word stage.
18 to 20 months.

• Begin around 18 to 20 months,

• As child’s vocabulary moves beyond
50 distinct words.
• Combinations: Mama book.
happy boy.
big truck.
Sock pretty

Overextension/Underextension.
Mama book

• a)possession: This is Mama’s book.

• b)request : Mama gave me the book.

• c)statement ： Mama is reading the book.

4. Multiple-word stage

• Between 2-3 years old

• Producing a large number of utterances
• Telegraphic speech: strings of lexical morphemes in
phrases
• Develop some sentence-building capacity
• Can order some forms correctly
• A number of grammatical inflections begin to appear
 Telegraphic speech

• Cathy build house. • What that?

• Cat stand up table. • What her name?
• Daddy like this book. • No sit there.
• Chair all broken. • Mummy no play.
• I good boy today. • Me put it back.
• Baby no eat apple
Read and complete using the words in the box.
pre-language. - Caregivers’ speech. - one-word. – overextension.
Telegraphic speech. - underextension. – two-word.

• Some examples of _____________ are: exaggerated intonation, frequent use of questions, extra loudness and
slower tempo.

• Run park, mommy leave and threw ball are examples of the ____________________ stage.

• _______________ is to limit a word to a specific entity.

• At the ___________ stage, the words are for labeling things in the environment.

• Different sounds are produced during the ____________ stages. Children use vocalizations to express
emotions and emphasis.

• _______________ is defined as using one word to mean several similar entities.

• In ______________________________, sentences are formed of simple word combinations, usually basic

nouns and verbs.
 Complete the chart Before we GO…
STAGE NAME AGE CHARACTERISTICS EXAMPLE.

- Cooing k/ g/
- Babbling m/ n

The one-word or 12
Holophrastic stage. To
18 months

The two-word stage. 18

To
20 months.

2 - Telegraphic speech.
To - develop some sentence-building
3 years capacity.
old. - Order some forms correctly.