Stages of Language Acquisition

Why This Matters

Language acquisition is one of the most remarkable feats of human cognition—and it happens largely without formal instruction. Understanding the stages of acquisition reveals how phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics develop in predictable patterns across all typically developing children, regardless of which language they're learning. You're being tested on your ability to identify what linguistic knowledge emerges at each stage and why the sequence unfolds the way it does.

Don't just memorize age ranges—know what each stage demonstrates about the child's developing linguistic competence. Exam questions often ask you to identify a stage from a speech sample, explain what grammatical features are present or absent, or compare how different linguistic components (sounds vs. syntax vs. meaning) develop at different rates. The key insight? Children aren't just imitating adults; they're actively constructing a grammar based on the input they receive.

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Pre-Verbal Communication: Building the Foundation

Before children produce recognizable words, they're already developing crucial prerequisites for language: turn-taking, intentional communication, and phonetic discrimination. These stages demonstrate that language is fundamentally social and that infants are tuned into linguistic patterns from the start.

Prelinguistic Stage

• Birth to ~12 months—infants communicate through crying, cooing, and gestures before any word production begins
• Intentional communication emerges as infants learn to direct caregiver attention through pointing, reaching, and eye gaze
• Phonetic perception narrows during this period; infants lose the ability to distinguish non-native sound contrasts by around 10 months

Babbling Stage

• Canonical babbling (4-6 months) features repetitive consonant-vowel sequences like "ba-ba" or "da-da"—reduplicative patterns that cross-linguistically favor stops and low vowels
• Variegated babbling follows, with more varied sound combinations that increasingly reflect the phonetic inventory of the ambient language
• Motor practice and phonological development occur simultaneously; deaf infants exposed to sign language "babble" with their hands

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First Words: Mapping Sound to Meaning

The transition to meaningful speech marks a critical shift: children must now coordinate phonological forms with semantic content. These stages reveal how vocabulary and conceptual development interact, and why context is essential for interpreting early speech.

One-Word Stage (Holophrastic Stage)

• 12-18 months—single words function as entire utterances, with "milk" potentially meaning "I want milk," "there's milk," or "I spilled the milk"
• Holophrases demonstrate that children have communicative intentions that exceed their productive capacity
• Overextension and underextension are common; a child might call all four-legged animals "dog" (overextension) or only apply "cup" to their specific cup (underextension)

Two-Word Stage (Telegraphic Speech)

• 18-24 months—children combine words in consistent semantic relations like agent-action ("daddy go") or action-object ("want cookie")
• Function words are omitted—articles, prepositions, and auxiliaries are absent, leaving only high-content words (hence "telegraphic")
• Word order reflects target language syntax; English-acquiring children say "want cookie," not "cookie want," showing emerging grammatical knowledge

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Grammatical Explosion: Building Complex Structures

Once children move beyond two-word combinations, their grammar develops rapidly. These stages showcase the acquisition of morphology, complex syntax, and pragmatic competence—and reveal that children don't just imitate but actively hypothesize rules.

Early Multiword Stage

• 24-30 months—utterances expand to three or more words ("I want more juice"), showing emerging phrase structure
• Overgeneralization errors appear—children say "goed" or "foots," proving they've extracted morphological rules rather than simply memorizing forms
• Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) becomes a key metric; researchers count morphemes per utterance to track grammatical development

Later Multiword Stage

• 30 months to ~5 years—children master complex structures including embedded clauses, passives, and questions with auxiliary movement
• Grammatical morphemes are acquired in a predictable order (progressive -ing before past tense -ed before third person -s)
• Pragmatic skills develop alongside syntax; children learn to adjust speech for different listeners and engage in extended discourse

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Mature Competence: Language as a Tool

By school age, children have acquired the core grammar of their language and can use it flexibly across contexts. This stage demonstrates that acquisition involves not just structure but metalinguistic awareness and stylistic variation.

Adult-Like Language Stage

• Ages 5-7—children demonstrate productive control of complex syntax, including relative clauses and conditionals
• Metalinguistic awareness emerges—children can judge grammaticality, segment words into sounds, and appreciate language play like puns
• Vocabulary growth continues throughout life, but the core grammatical system is essentially complete by this stage

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. A child says "doggy goed outside." What stage is this, and what does the error reveal about the child's grammatical knowledge?

2. Compare the holophrastic stage and telegraphic speech: what specific linguistic evidence distinguishes a child at 14 months from a child at 20 months?

3. Which two stages provide the strongest evidence that children are not simply imitating adult speech? Explain what phenomena in each stage support this claim.

4. If an FRQ presents the utterance "want more cookie please," what stage would you identify, and what features (present and absent) justify your answer?

5. Why does phonetic perception narrow during the prelinguistic stage, and how does this relate to the transition into babbling?