Holophrase
Fixed-phrase
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Resources

Bruner, Jerome. Child's talk: Learning to Use Language.New York: Nortan & Company Inc.

Bruner addresses the transition from a child's prelinguistic communication to language.  He talks about how a child must learn to communicate first, and then the child will talk.  He,also, identifies different play and games such as peekaboo that leads to language developmental stages in the life of a child.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Children's Language.Ed. Keith E. Nelson.2 vols.New York: Gardener Press, 1980.
 

This volume consists of a variety of topics that deals with children's language such as "The Process of Rule Learning in Child Speech:  A New Look", "Two Comparative Psychologists Look at Language Acquisition", and "A Developmental Study of the Communication of Meaning:  the Role of Uncertainty and Information."

Gleason, Jean Berko. The Development of Language. 2^nd ed. Columbus: Merrill Publishing Company. 1989.
 

Gleason discusses studies that have been done on language development.   If you are interested in how children put works together, this book can very helpful in your research.  He concludes in the book examining some major causes and patterns of language delay and disorder in children.

Xrefer

This website is a reference engine.  It can be very useful if you want a quick definition of holophraistic stage and other words that relate to it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

It is simply amazing to know and learn how a child acquires the development of language.  For parents to watch their child progressing to one word to a two-word sentence is a moment to be captured on video. One of the earliest stages of grammatical growth is the holophrastic stage. 

DEFINITIONS

Holophrastic is deprived from the Greek word, holophrase. Holophrastic stage is the language period in a child's life, in which the child communicates using a combination of one or two words to express a sentence.   This term is categorized in the child language acquisition study of a short phrase that does not have any syntactic structure: mama, allgone, or doggie according to The Oxford Companion to the English Language (481).   Most children from 12 to 18 months go through this stage. As well holophrases are known as fixed-phrases which consist of adjectives and nouns (406).

Does the environment affect a child's language development?

A child first learns his native language through listening to his/her caretaker. The parent is the most influential role on a child's language development. According to Susan Leitch, the author of A Child Learns to Speak, a parent is the speech and language model in the child's environment, and can change her speech in ways that help the child to learn language. One can do this by repeating words or phrases, pointing or using other gestures when she is talking, or speaking more slowly. All of these things are helpful for children learning language (7). According to the writer, Marie Clay, language begins for a child when the child is being talked to in the first days of life and throughout the first year (Clay 7).

Leitch includes that noisy environment increases the difficulty of the language-learning task because it is harder for a child to pick out the primary main sounds in words. However, a child will benefit from the time a parent sets aside for talking and playing with him, time free from other distracting noises or activities (Leitch 7). 

Therefore, the number of holophrastic words the child can say depends on the parent. The word choices and phrases that are used by the child come from the parent’s language. That is why it is very crucial that a child interacts daily with his parents during language development.  As well, "the way in which [adults] respond to children's talk determines whether they will continue their efforts or not." This means parents need to encourage a child to go on talking so that he/she would want to say more (Clay 10).

THE CHILD UNDERSTANDS SIMPLE WORDS, COMMANDS AND GESTURES.

During the holoprastic stage of the acquiring language, a child absorbs different words first, and then expresses those words to communicate with the world.  For instance, the child may associate simple words the parent says with the appropriate activity or object such as the words: mama, daddy, ball, dog, up, cookie, go, and bye-bye (Leitch 18). Nevertheless, at about eight months of age before the holophrastic stage, the child's babbling changes to a more sophisticated form of babbling. He begins to jabber sounds as if it contains questions, commands, and statements. In fact, the child learns the melody and rhythm of adult sentences. For example, he picks out the accented syllable in a word and doubles it to produces "da-da" for daddy, "ga-ga" for all gone, or "na-na" for banana (19). 

The Making of the Holophrase

The previously mentioned jargon stage, which is when a child uses may be word of a particular group to communicate,  in a child's language development leads to the holophrastic stage. He develops his first expressive language skills with the use of his first words. It is important to understand that the first words he may say do not necessarily mean the same thing to his as they do to the parent. To the child in this stage a whole sentences worth of meaning may be "Milk!", which could mean "Give me some more milk!" The parent most likely can quickly understand what her child is saying.  We listen for clues, and then the mother may respond, "You want more milk?"  As ell, the child takes the main word(s), and use those to express  Here is an example in Table 1.1 of 2-word phrases from C.J. Howe’s observation of Victoria at age 1 year 9 months in just a single hour. 

Here are some of the 2-word sentences used by Victoria in a single hour. 

Note: Ady is the name of her brother s the name of her dog. 

(Cambridge Encyclopedia, 428)

Baby bed

Baby cry

Baby doll

Baby drink

Baby hat

Baby here

Baby mummy

Comb hair

Come out

Daddy there

Dolly there

Gone milk

Hat off

Horsie mummy

Is here

It gone

Kiss doll

Look elephant

More toy

Mumma drink

My apple

My bed

My teddy

There bluey

     The researcher, Tough, interviewed several mothers about how many words could they recall saying at 12 months. The majority of the mothers noted that their child first put together two words just before or just after his second birthday (Tough 9).  During the first months of life, the baby increases in his motor control skills meaning he is able to take up a range of postures, move himself from place to place.  As well, his voice comes more under his control, so the child begins to discover the different sounds he can produce.  In fact, according to Tough, the baby's own development and expectations of his parents and others, lead to the beginning of his first words.  These words may appear towards the end of the first year, but it seems generally the child begins to use these words to communicate (10).

The baby's first words like utterances which carry a range of meanings, are seen tools, which help him to differentiate his experiences.  An adult leads a child to the developing of classification of words (Tough 10).  For example, the child may say a word "ball", and demonstrate the use of it by using his own and the adult's use of the word in reference to his own particular ball.

Description of the Holophrastic Stage

According to the authors of The Acquisition of Language, "it appears that children select the stressed utterance segments, which usually carry the most information, called 'telegraphic' version of English "(13).  This means that a child listens to the adult's sentence, and then learns to pick out the main word(s).  In this book, the authors, also,  includes recorded data on a little girl, Susan, who started putting words together at 1 year and 8 months. Most of Susan's sentences use on and off in reflected model sentences with two-word verbs.  Susan's construction of the sentence would be the patter, W+I; W stands for any word(s), and I stands for off or on. The authors classify W as the complement, and the I as the particle.   The following is an example of sentences that Susan responded to the investigator.

At the end of the observation, they identify Susan's one-word sentences. Table 2 shows Susan's word sentences mostly used during the observation.

Table 2
Susan 1.9-2.0 years old

In conclusion, the holoprhastic stage is one of the earliest stage of the grammatical level for a child of 12 to 18 months.  I strongly believe this is one of the  most crucial stage in a child's life.  A child learns mostly how to speak the language by observation.  It's simply amazing and the beginning of a child trying to communicate in our big world.
 
 

Anisfeld, Moshe.  Language Development From Birth to Three. Hillsdale: 
   Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1984.

Clay, Marie M.  By Different Paths to Common Outcomes.  York: 
   Stenhouse Publishers,1998.

Crystal, David. "The Rise of Prescriptive Grammar."  The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language.  1995. 

Leitch, Susan M.  A Child Learns to Speak.  Springfield:  Charles C.
  Thomas Publisher, 1977.

Studies of Child Language Development.  Ed. Ferguson, Charles A. and
   Dan Isaac Slobin.  New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc, 1973.

The Acquisition of Language.  Ed.  Bellugi, Ursula and Roger Brown. 
    London: Univerisity of Chicago Press, 1964.

Tough, Joan.  The Development of Meaning:  A Study of Children’s Use of 
      Language.  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, 1977.