The stages of language development (plus examples and analysis)

The one word or holophrastic stage occurs between approximately 11 months of age and 1.5 years of age. By this point in time, children can produce a small number of isolated, single words and many sounds. This is now more language specific rather than universal babbling. 

By this point in time, children know which sounds and words get the attention of their parents (e.g. mama, dada, etc) and are again, positively reinforced. Children will over-generalize to maximize the effectiveness of their communication, and might call all four-legged animals a dog for example.

This early stage of the one word stage is definitely behaviorism.

Later though, when the child moves into the more holophrastic part of the one-word stage, it becomes more interactionism as the child starts using one word with the most information/meaning to replace whole phrases or even sentences.

They learn to associate one word with multiple meanings, which generally isn't taught to them and it's just something they pick up from interacting with adults around them.

An example of this holophrastic use is 'milk'. By only using the word milk, the child could mean multiple things such as 'I want milk', 'I spilled my milk', 'Where is the milk?', etc. 

By this point, a child can use and understand many features of language.

They understand phonology and can distinguish between the different sounds they hear.

Children here are developing a wider lexicon, and are well on their way in understanding morphology and the different rules words have.

While they may be in the holophrastic stage, they are developing their syntax and semantic skills 

After a few months of producing one-word utterances, a child will begin to use two word utterances and continue to do so until they are around the age of 2.5 years old.

These two-word utterances are usually in the form of noun-noun or noun-verb. Much of this is almost identical to one-word utterances, and so for awhile there may be a large overlap in the way they use one-word utterances and two-word utterances.

An example of a two-word utterance (noun-verb) might be 'doggie bark', meaning the dog is barking. This stage only contains content words (no function words or morphemes yet). A child's lexicon usually develops to around 50 words and then takes a dramatic leap forward and is sometimes commonly called the 'word spurt' or the 'naming explosion'. 

This is definitely interactionism, and somewhat nativism in the way that they definitely aren't taught how to structure their phrases, but know how to thanks to what is known as the LAD (Language Acquisition Device), which is located in the brain.

The LAD is a language mechanism or process that is supposed to have the function of being able to learn and process symbolic nature easily.

conversation with his mum about horses they saw during their walk earlier. Mum also uses this as an opportunity to try to teach Isaac how to count, building on practice they seem to have been doing prior to this conversation.

Isaac is in the two word stage but moving towards the telegraphic stage. Most of his utterance are short and either base adjective-noun or verb-noun combinations with only two including additional words like the coordinating conjunction ‘and’, the determiner ‘a’.

Bruner: children learn language best when they interact with caregivers, who act as role models for language - adults can scaffold a child’s talk by using a range of features, or child directed speech (CDS)

Mum uses a high degree of simple interrogatives: “can you count”, “what comes after three”, “then what’s after four” and “what were the horsies doing”.

Most of her interrogatives use a simple question stem of ‘what’ and relate to things she and Isaac have been doing.
concrete noun - ‘horsies’ - adopts the diminutive form, mirroring the language Isaac is most used to.

When Isaac gets stuck with counting to five, mum uses questioning  “is it number five” to help him remember the number sequence. successful in developing his speec - he then says “mumber five”, assimilating the initial ‘n’ sound for ‘m’ as a phonological error.

Mum uses questioning when she asks “did we go and see the horsies” and then tries to get Isaac to expand on his day with the simple interrogative “what were the horsies doing”.

mum teaches Isaac the rules of turn taking and conversation & helps him to talk about his experiences and the world around him: interrogative is successful as Isaac responds with “eating hay”, a simple verb-noun combination. 

The telegraphic stage is the last stage of language before a child can speak fluently and begins roughly around 2.5 years of age and onward indefinitely until a child has fluent language skills.Children at this stage progress very quickly and develop language at a much faster rate now that they have grasped the very essentials of language.

During this stage, children seem to have a much better understanding of syntax and semantics. Over the course of this stage (more specifically after the age of two), children often expand their lexicon by as many as ten to twelve new words a day, most of which are new social interaction words such as yes, no, please, by, etc. to discover these new words, many children at this age ask a large amount of questions typically beginning with 'wh', such as 'who, where, what' etc.

has a phonological difficulty with the consonant cluster in, ‘biscuits’ and so renames them with something she finds easier to say, ‘bissies’.

at the telegraphic stage where small verbs are omitted. The overall message though still remains intact and is expressed, despite an incapability to use smaller verb units.

extract constructed by imperative sentence, declarative sentence - imperative until the subject of the conversation switches from demanding a biscuit to inquiring about visitors. at this conversation switch the child elicits questions in interrogative sentences, and the mother answers them with declarative sentences.

more complex grasp of interrogative questioning - shown by her usage of question words such as, ‘ where’s’ and, ‘why?’ as opposed to merely using a raise in intonation. The grammatical structures are becoming more complex.

Halliday’s theories about children’s functions of language, Sophie’s initial function is instrumental in the sense that she uses language to indicate a need, e.g. ‘me want nother bissie’.

common virtuous error of repeating the subject form, ‘me’ in place of the object form: ‘me want more bissies’, used the subject form, ‘me’ instead of the object form, ‘I’ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaVONw2OReQ

S: You take your bissies

F: I’ve eaten them.

S: Me want more bissies.

F: No, you’ve had one of mine.

S: Me want nother bissie.

F: Well you’ll have one later.

S: No. Mary come me. Only little bit.

F: Not today cos it’s Wednesday.

S: Why? Jack come.

F: No. They came yesterday.

S: [5 syllable indecipherable utterance]

F: Where did you put it?

S: Over there. No.

F: Would you like to tidy up the doll’s house?

S: Where [1 syllable] go? Where’s the doll’s house?
F: Here on the floor. Shall we put this away?

S: No.