Quick questions on Spoken language acquisition - Edexcel A-Level English Language

The progression also shows the U-shaped development curve: a child may first produce a correct irregular form ("went") by rote, then start producing the error ("goed") once they internalise the regular rule, then finally recover the correct irregular form once they learn it is an exception. The temporary "regression" is actually progress, because it marks the moment the rule became productive.

Pragmatic competence is the social use of language: taking turns, adjusting to a listener, using language for purposes. Michael Halliday identified seven early functions of child language, including the instrumental (to satisfy needs, "want milk"), regulatory (to control others, "go away"), interactional (to relate to others, "love you"), personal (to express identity, "me good"), heuristic (to explore, "what that?"), imaginative (for play) and representational (to convey information). These functions show that children use language to do things socially well before their grammar is complete.

A child of 14 months says "dog" while pointing at a horse, then at a cow. A strong analytical paragraph would name the single word as holophrastic (one word doing the work of a whole utterance, here a labelling or requesting function), identify the misapplication as overextension by perceptual similarity (four legs, a tail), and explain that this is evidence of an active category-forming process: the child has built a concept and is mapping the word onto it, slightly over-generously. The error is a window onto the developing semantic system, not a failure of memory.

A child of 26 months says "no want bed" and pushes a toy away. The paragraph would name the utterance as telegraphic (content words, omitted auxiliary and subject), identify the early negation strategy (the negator fronted before the verb phrase, a documented stage in acquiring negation), and analyse the function through Halliday as regulatory (controlling another's behaviour) and instrumental (asserting a need). The point is that the child's pragmatic competence (using language to refuse and direct) is running ahead of the grammatical completeness of the utterance.

What characterises the telegraphic stage, and how does it differ from the post-telegraphic stage? [3 marks]

Explain why a virtuous error such as "goed" is significant for theories of acquisition. [3 marks]

Analyse how the phonological, lexical and grammatical features in a child-language transcript reflect the child's stage of development. [16 marks]