Telegraphic speech, according to linguistics and psychology, is speech during the two-word stage of language acquisition in children, which is laconic and efficient. In a telegram, writing in flowery language involves hours of deciphering and translation into Morse code. To avoid doing so, telegrams are written in two to three words, without conjunctions or articles, so they get the point across with the fewest amount of words and letters. As children develop language, they speak similarly: when a child says "Water Now!" it is understood that the child means, "I would appreciate a glass of water, please." In the field of Psychology, Telegraphic Speech is defined as a form of communication consisting of simple two-word, noun-verb sentences that adhere to the grammatical standards of the culture's language. For example, an English-speaking child would say "Give cupcake" to express that they would like a cupcake rather than "Cupcake give". Researchers have noted that this period of language acquisition occurs some time between the ages of 18-36 months and is present not just in English-speaking cultures, but can be found world-wide (Bloom 1970) . Chomsky would build his universal grammar theory based off of the process of Telegraphic Speech, theorizing that humans have an innate, species-specific language ability that predisposes them to speak in a grammatically correct way (Barker 2004).
See also
References
- Barker, S. (2004). Psychology (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.
- Bloom, L. (1970). Language development: Form and function in emerging grammars. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
