Introduction to Child Language: The Beginnings of Speech
Welcome to your study notes for Component 2: Child Language (Paper code: 9EN0/02)! In the Edexcel A Level English Language examination, Component 2 is a written exam lasting 1 hour 15 minutes, worth 45 marks, and counts for 20% of your total A Level qualification. You will be given unseen transcripts of children’s spoken or written language (aged 0 to 8 years) and asked to produce an extended analytical essay.
Don't worry if child language acquisition feels overwhelming at first. In this chapter, The Beginnings of Speech, we will break down how babies transition from biological noises into fully conversational speakers. We will explore the stages of speech, sound patterns, vocabulary growth, grammar, conversational skills, and the major theories that explain how it all happens.
1. Stages of Early Speech Development
Children do not start speaking in complete sentences overnight. They progress through recognizable developmental milestones at predictable age brackets.
A. The Pre-verbal Stage (0–12 Months)
Before producing recognizable words, infants experiment with sound and vocal mechanics:
• Vegetative / Reflexive Sounds (0–2 months): Involuntary, biological sounds such as crying, coughing, and burping. These are physical reflexes rather than deliberate communication.
• Cooing and Laughing (2–5 months): Open-vowel sounds (such as /uː/ and /ɑː/), velar consonants (sounds made at the back of the mouth, like /k/ and /ɡ/), and early laughter.
• Vocal Play (4–6 months): Controlled exploration of pitch and volume, including squealing, yelling, and blowing raspberries.
• Babbling (6–12 months): The production of syllable-like sequences:
- Canonical / Reduplicated Babbling: Repeated consonant-vowel (CV) combinations (e.g., "ba-ba-ba", "ma-ma-ma").
- Variegated / Non-reduplicated Babbling: Mixing different consonant and vowel combinations (e.g., "ba-de-da").
• Proto-words (Phonetically Consistent Forms): Consistent sound clusters that a child uses to refer to a specific object or action before they can pronounce the actual adult word (e.g., saying "ray-ray" consistently to mean "car").
B. Holophrastic / One-Word Stage (approx. 12–18 Months)
In this stage, a single word (a holophrase) conveys the meaning of an entire sentence. The meaning depends heavily on context, intonation, and gesture.
• Example: A child saying "Juice" might mean "I want some juice", "Look, there is juice", or "I spilled my juice".
C. Two-Word Stage (approx. 18–24 Months)
Children begin pairing two words together, showing the very beginnings of syntax (word order and grammar) without grammatical inflections. These pairings express key semantic relationships:
• Agent + Action: "Daddy go"
• Action + Object: "Kick ball"
• Possessor + Possessed: "Mummy shoe"
D. Telegraphic Stage (approx. 24–36 Months)
Similar to an old-fashioned telegram, utterances in this stage include essential lexical/content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives) but omit non-essential grammatical/function words (determiners like "the", auxiliary verbs like "is", prepositions, and inflections).
• Example: "Daddy throw red ball" instead of "Daddy is throwing the red ball".
E. Post-Telegraphic Stage (36+ Months)
The child's speech increasingly mirrors adult grammar. They begin using grammatical functors (such as "a", "the", "in", "on"), auxiliary verbs, verb inflections (e.g., -ed, -ing), question inversions, and complex/compound sentences containing coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
Section Key Takeaway: Speech develops along a clear continuum: Pre-verbal (0–12m) \(\rightarrow\) Holophrastic (12–18m) \(\rightarrow\) Two-Word (18–24m) \(\rightarrow\) Telegraphic (24–36m) \(\rightarrow\) Post-Telegraphic (36m+).
2. Phonological Development and Simplification Strategies
Producing speech requires fine motor control over the lips, tongue, vocal cords, and palate. Because adult words are physically challenging to articulate, children use systematic phonological processes to simplify them.
Key Phonological Simplification Processes
• Deletion: Omitting a sound entirely.
- Final Consonant Deletion: Dropping the final consonant of a word (e.g., pronouncing "cat" /kæt/ as [kæ]).
- Unstressed Syllable Deletion: Omitting a weak or unstressed syllable (e.g., pronouncing "banana" as ['nɑːnə]).
• Substitution: Replacing a difficult sound (such as a fricative or liquid) with an easier one (such as a plosive stop or glide).
- Stopping: Replacing a fricative with a plosive stop sound (e.g., "sea" \(\rightarrow\) [tiː]).
- Fronting: Replacing a sound made at the back of the mouth with one made at the front (e.g., "car" \(\rightarrow\) [tɑː]).
- Gliding: Replacing the liquid consonants /r/ or /l/ with the glide /w/ or /j/ (e.g., "rabbit" \(\rightarrow\) ['wæbɪt]).
• Consonant Cluster Reduction: Simplifying complex consonant blends down to a single consonant to make pronunciation easier (e.g., "spider" \(\rightarrow\) ['paɪdə], "spoon" \(\rightarrow\) [puːn]).
• Assimilation: Changing a phoneme so that it matches or becomes more similar to a neighbouring sound in the word (e.g., pronouncing "doggie" as ['ɡɒɡi]).
• Reduplication: Repeating a whole syllable or part of a syllable (e.g., "bottle" \(\rightarrow\) ['bɒbɒ]).
• Addition / Diminutives: Adding an extra vowel sound (frequently the diminutive suffix /-i/) to complete a Consonant-Vowel (CV) structure (e.g., "dog" \(\rightarrow\) ['dɒɡi], "horse" \(\rightarrow\) ['hɔːsi]).
Comprehension vs. Production: The "Fis" Phenomenon
Berko and Brown (1960) conducted an experiment where a child referred to his plastic toy fish as a "fis". When an adult asked, "Is this your fis?", the child rejected the question, saying "No, fis". When the adult asked, "Is this your fish?", the child confirmed, "Yes, my fis."
Why this matters in the exam: The "Fis" Phenomenon proves that a child’s phonological comprehension (internal cognitive understanding of phonemes) develops before their physical phonological production (articulatory skill).
Section Key Takeaway: When analyzing transcripts, never dismiss mispronunciations as "cute baby talk." Label the precise phonological process: deletion, stopping, fronting, gliding, cluster reduction, assimilation, or reduplication.
3. Lexical, Semantic, and Morphological Acquisition
A. First Words and Early Categories
Katherine Nelson (1973) studied children’s first 50 words and identified four main categories:
1. Naming Words (Nominals): Account for roughly 60% of early vocabulary (e.g., "ball", "doggie", "juice"). Concrete nouns dominate early speech.
2. Action Words (Verbs): Words associated with movement and actions (e.g., "go", "up", "look").
3. Modifiers: Words describing properties or attributes (e.g., "hot", "big", "dirty").
4. Personal / Social Words: Words used for social interactions and emotional expressions (e.g., "bye-bye", "no", "please").
B. Semantic Errors in Early Speech
As children map meanings to words, they frequently make two distinct types of semantic errors:
• Overextension: A child uses a word too broadly to label items that share physical, functional, or perceptual qualities (e.g., calling all four-legged animals "doggy", or calling the moon a "ball").
• Underextension: A child applies a general word too narrowly to refer only to one specific item (e.g., believing the word "shoes" only applies to their own red sneakers, not to anyone else's footwear).
C. Morphological Acquisition and Overgeneralisation
As children develop grammar, they acquire bound morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) to express tense, number, and possession.
Roger Brown (1973) tracked the longitudinal acquisition order of 14 grammatical morphemes, discovering that children acquire them in a consistent sequence regardless of speed (e.g., present progressive -ing and prepositions in/on are acquired before regular past-tense -ed or possessive 's).
Virtuous Errors and The Wug Test
When children learn a regular grammatical rule (such as adding -s for plurals or -ed for past tense), they often apply it to irregular words where the rule does not work (e.g., saying "I runned", "two feets", "mouses"). This process is known as overgeneralisation.
In linguistic analysis, these are called virtuous errors. They are not random mistakes; they provide clear evidence that the child is actively grasping the underlying rule-governed nature of language rather than simply imitating adults.
The Wug Test (Jean Berko Gleason, 1958):
Berko Gleason showed young children a drawing of a fictional creature and said: "This is a Wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two..." Children consistently responded with "Wugs" /wʌɡz/.
Significance: Because children had never heard the pseudo-word "Wug" before, they could not be repeating something from memory. This proved that children possess an internalised, generative system of morphological rules.
Section Key Takeaway: Look for overgeneralisations in exam transcripts. Identify them as virtuous errors and link them to Berko Gleason's Wug Test to show the child's active grasp of morphology.
4. Pragmatic Development: Communicative Intent
Pragmatics refers to how language is used in social contexts to accomplish goals and interact with others.
A. Michael Halliday’s Communicative Functions (1975)
Halliday identified seven functional purposes of early language:
1. Instrumental: Used to express needs and desires to obtain material things (e.g., "Want juice").
2. Regulatory: Used to control the behaviour of others (e.g., "Pick up", "Go away").
3. Interactional: Used to establish and maintain social relationships (e.g., "Love you", "Bye-bye").
4. Personal: Used to express feelings, opinions, and personal identity (e.g., "Me good").
5. Heuristic: Used to explore, investigate, and learn about the environment (e.g., "What that?").
6. Imaginative: Used to create an imaginary world, pretend, or tell stories during play (e.g., "I'm a roaring tiger").
7. Informative / Representational: Used to convey facts, propositions, and information (develops slightly later; e.g., "The car is blue").
B. John Dore’s Infant Speech Acts (1975)
Dore categorized early utterances by individual speech acts based on what the child intends to do at the moment of speaking:
• Labelling: Naming an object (e.g., pointing and saying "Cat").
• Repeating: Echoing an adult’s utterance.
• Answering: Responding directly to an adult's inquiry.
• Requesting Action: Asking an adult to do something.
• Requesting Answer: Asking a question to get information.
• Calling: Shouting or calling out to attract attention.
• Greeting: Welcoming someone (e.g., "Hello").
• Protesting: Objecting to an adult's action or demand (e.g., "No!").
• Practicing: Using language when alone without an immediate conversational partner.
Section Key Takeaway: When examining a child's short utterance, ask yourself: What is the child trying to achieve socially? Use Halliday’s or Dore’s frameworks to classify their communicative intent.
5. Theoretical Models of Language Acquisition
A core requirement for Edexcel Component 2 is evaluating theoretical perspectives against the transcript data. Never write about a theory in isolation—always link it to specific evidence in the text.
Summary of the Four Main Theoretical Perspectives
1. Nativism / Innatism (Noam Chomsky)
• Core Idea: Human brains are biologically pre-programmed with a capacity for speech through an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and a framework of Universal Grammar (UG).
• Key Concepts:
- Poverty of the Stimulus: Chomsky argues that the language children hear around them is often fragmented, messy, and incomplete, yet children still acquire fluent grammar rapidly.
- Virtuous Errors: Overgeneralisations (e.g., "she holded") prove children do not learn purely by imitation, as adults do not say these forms.
• Limitation: Underestimates the crucial role of social interaction and real-world caregiver input.
2. Behaviourism (B.F. Skinner)
• Core Idea: Language is a learned behaviour acquired through operant conditioning, imitation, association, and reinforcement.
• Key Concepts: Children imitate adult speech; positive reinforcement (praise, getting what they want) encourages repetition, while negative reinforcement or corrections extinguish errors.
• Limitation: Cannot explain virtuous errors, novel sentences the child has never heard, or why explicit adult corrections rarely fix a child's grammatical errors immediately.
3. Cognitive Theory (Jean Piaget)
• Core Idea: Language acquisition is dependent upon and driven by wider cognitive development and conceptual understanding.
• Key Concepts: A child must understand a concept before they can linguistically encode it. For example, a child must acquire object permanence (the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight) before they can use naming words or words referring to absent things (like "gone" or "where ball?").
• Limitation: Some children with cognitive impairments still show strong linguistic fluency, showing that syntax and cognition do not always develop in lockstep.
4. Social Interactionism (Jerome Bruner & Lev Vygotsky)
• Jerome Bruner: Proposed the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). While Chomsky proposed the internal LAD, Bruner argued that children require social scaffolding from caregivers through structured routines (e.g., bedtime stories, peek-a-boo) and Child-Directed Speech.
• Lev Vygotsky: Emphasized the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)—the gap between what a child can do unaided and what they can achieve with guidance from a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO).
Section Key Takeaway: Use theories as analytical tools. If a child makes a virtuous error, consider Chomsky; if a caregiver scaffolds a conversation with questions, turn-taking, and recasts, apply Bruner and Vygotsky.
6. Child-Directed Speech (CDS) and Caregiver Interaction
Child-Directed Speech (CDS) refers to the specialized speech patterns adopted by caregivers when communicating with young children.
Linguistic Features of CDS
• Phonological Features:
- Higher overall pitch and exaggerated, melodic intonation contours.
- Slower rate of speech with elongated vowels.
- Longer, clearer pauses between utterances to mark boundaries.
• Lexical Features:
- High frequency of concrete nouns and vocabulary focused on the child's immediate environment.
- Use of diminutives (e.g., "doggie", "blankie", "tummy").
- Specialized nursery lexicon (e.g., "choo-choo", "moo-cow").
• Grammatical Features:
- Short Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) and simplified sentence structures.
- Frequent use of imperatives (commands) and interrogatives (questions).
- High use of tag questions (e.g., "That's a big dog, isn't it?") to prompt the child to speak.
- Expansions: The caregiver fills out the child’s incomplete utterance into a grammatically complete sentence (e.g., Child: "Car go." \(\rightarrow\) Caregiver: "Yes, the red car is going very fast.").
- Recasts: The caregiver rephrases the child's grammatically incorrect utterance into the correct form without explicitly scolding them (e.g., Child: "I runned." \(\rightarrow\) Caregiver: "Yes, you ran over there!").
• Pragmatic / Discourse Features:
- Frequent use of the child's name rather than pronouns.
- Deictic pointing (e.g., "Look over there!") to establish joint attention.
- Explicit management of conversational turn-taking (e.g., asking open questions and waiting patiently for the child's vocal response).
Section Key Takeaway: CDS is not just "simplifying" words; it provides the conversational scaffolding (LASS) that allows children to learn syntax, phonology, and social turn-taking.
7. Pitfalls and Examiner-Reported Errors to Avoid
When analyzing Component 2 exam transcripts, keep these essential examiner tips in mind:
• Avoid "Theory Dumping": Never write a generic biography of Chomsky, Skinner, or Bruner. Every theoretical point you mention must be directly tied to a word, phrase, or pattern in the transcript.
• Analyze the Dyad (Interaction): Do not analyze the child in total isolation. Component 2 scripts reward candidates who evaluate the conversational dynamic between the caregiver and the child (e.g., how the caregiver’s questions or recasts shape the child’s subsequent response).
• Use Precise Linguistic Terminology: Avoid informal descriptions. Use precise terms such as consonant cluster reduction, stopping, holophrase, auxiliary verb, bound morpheme, or virtuous error.
• Do Not Confuse Spoken and Written Frameworks: Ensure you apply spoken language frameworks to speech data. Do not apply literacy models (like Kroll or Rothery) to transcripts of early spoken speech.
• Recognize Virtuous Errors: Do not describe overgeneralisations (like "feets" or "catched") as failures or bad grammar. Always evaluate them as evidence of morphological rule acquisition.
Quick Reference Summary
• Developmental Stages: Pre-verbal \(\rightarrow\) Holophrastic (1-word) \(\rightarrow\) Two-Word \(\rightarrow\) Telegraphic \(\rightarrow\) Post-Telegraphic.
• Phonological Simplification: Deletion, Substitution (stopping, fronting, gliding), Cluster Reduction, Assimilation, Reduplication.
• Key Experiment: The Fis Phenomenon (Berko & Brown) proves comprehension precedes production; The Wug Test (Berko Gleason) proves children internalize morphological rules.
• Pragmatics: Halliday’s 7 Functions (Instrumental, Regulatory, Interactional, Personal, Heuristic, Imaginative, Informative).
• The Four Theoretical Pillars:
- Nativism (Chomsky): Innate LAD, Universal Grammar, Virtuous Errors.
- Behaviourism (Skinner): Conditioning, Imitation, Reinforcement.
- Cognitivism (Piaget): Cognitive stages, schemas, object permanence.
- Social Interactionism (Bruner & Vygotsky): LASS, Scaffolding, ZPD, MKO, CDS (Recasts & Expansions).