Telegraphic speech

Definition

This is a stage in language acquisition where a child, typically around the age of two, speaks using mainly nouns and verbs. Their sentences are often short and lack small connecting words.

Analogy

Think of telegraphic speech like a telegram message. In the old days, people had to pay for each word they sent in a telegram, so they would cut out all unnecessary words to save money. Similarly, children at this stage keep their sentences short and sweet by only including the most important words.

Related terms

Holophrastic Stage: This is an earlier stage in language development where children use single words to express complete thoughts. For example, saying "juice" when they want some juice.

Overextension: This is when children apply rules of grammar too broadly and incorrectly. For instance, adding 'ed' to all past tense verbs even if it's not grammatically correct (e.g., "I goed home").

Morpheme: The smallest meaningful unit of language. It can be as short as one letter or as long as several letters.