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Transitional phenomena in early language acquisition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

John Dore,
Margery B. Franklin,
Robert T. Miller and
Andrya L. H. Ramer
John Dore
Affiliation:
Baruch College of the City University of New York and The Rockefeller University
Margery B. Franklin
Affiliation:
Sarah Lawrence College
Robert T. Miller
Affiliation:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Andrya L. H. Ramer
Affiliation:
The William Pater son College of New Jersey
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Abstract

Two transitional phases in the child's early language development are described; the first occurs between prelinguistic vocalization and one-word speech and the second between one-word and patterned speech. Cognitive, linguistic and affective inputs to the acquisition of reference and syntax are discussed in the light of the transitional phenomena that were found. We claim that each major linguistic stage is preceded by a transitional phase which serves as a bridging device for the next major acquisition; that sound and meaning develop partly independently in language development; and that the child's earliest patterned speech is not organized in terms of knowledge of grammatical categories, but in terms of more fundamental coordinations of conceptual meanings with phonetic outputs. A theoretical framework is proposed which provides a more systematic treatment of transitional phenomena than has previously been provided. The framework allows for interpretations of transitional phenomena and of their relations to the milestone periods of early language development.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , February 1976, pp. 13 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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Footnotes

[*]

This paper stems from collaborative work at the Rousso Research Nursery in the Department of Psychiatry at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. We wish to thank Drs Eleanor Galenson and Herman Roiphe for their helpful cooperation in making available material gathered in the course of an ongoing study of the second year of life.

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