What Is Telegraphic Speech?

Telegraphic speech by definition is a manner of speaking using a limited number of content words which are only considered relevant to conveying ideas or messages such as nouns and verbs, thus omitting function words and inflections. Function words are used to express grammatical relationships with other words. For example, articles (e.g. a, an, the), conjunctions (e.g. and, or, but), prepositions (e.g. to, at, from), and auxiliaries (e.g. would, has, be). On the other hand, inflections are endings added to word bases to alter grammatical function and meaning. These include endings such as -‘s to make ‘dog’s’ possessive, or -s to make ‘songs’ plural (noun).

Origin of Telegraphic Speech

The term ”telegraphic speech” was coined in the early 1960s, while behaviorist Roger Brown and psycholinguist Colin Fraser worked on a study for their article ”The Acquisition of Syntax.” Brown and Fraser observed thirteen toddlers and recorded their speech patterns as part of their research. They discovered that when these children were first learning to compose sentences, they tended to leave out any information or extraneous terminology that wasn’t necessary for them to be understood. For instance, a two-year-old would respond, ”Mommy food,” rather than, ”Mommy, I am hungry. I want food.”

What Are Telegraphic Sentences?

Telegraphic sentences are concise sentences that usually contain five words or less. They are commonly used by toddlers during the second year of their language acquisition by taking away grammar in making sentences and just leaving the content words. Telegraphic sentences contain nouns and verbs with direct meaning. As what Roger Brown and Colin Fraser observed in their study, toddlers just employ the most basic phrases to communicate what they see, think, or need, such as ”I’m hungry.” In most of their sentences, they will use a noun (”I”) and a verb (”hungry”), or an adjective and a noun, such as ”more food.” Although the sentences are brief, they are densely packed with purpose and meaning.

Telegraphic Stage of Language Acquisition

The telegraphic stage of language acquisition typically begins when toddlers reach 18 to 24 months (1.5-2 years old). However, some children who are more advanced in speech development start as early as 16 months, but most phrases only contain two words. By the time they reach 24 to 30 months (2-3 years old), they make progress in using telegraphic sentences with 3 or more words.

The child’s telegraphic stage speech pattern is often demonstrated by the following semantic relations:

The manner in which children speak at this stage is similar to the way in which telegrams were written. This is why this stage is known as ”telegraphic.” Because each word in a telegram cost money, people used to write the shortest messages possible to save money. For instance, someone might write ”London next week” instead of sending ”We will go to London next week.” Function words (pronouns, conjunctions, and prepositions) and inflections are often missing.

Importance of Telegraphic Speech in Child Development

Communicating emotions

During the early stage of child development, babies and toddlers often cry because it is their only way to express their thoughts and emotions. Subsequently, parents are frustrated in guessing the meaning of their child’s behavior. This is where the telegraphic speech comes in by associating feelings with words and combining two different meanings into one idea. This development allows children to express themselves in short phrases like ”more play” or ”this shoe wet.”

Understanding sentence formation

The words in toddlers’ telegraphic speech are usually in the correct order. They also make use of nouns and verbs. At this stage, they learn sentence construction and experiment sentence structures though they may not understand grammar yet. This gradually scaffolds them to become adept in employing structurally correct sentences. As a result, using telegraphic speech has a positive impact on language development.

Moving to the next stage of language development

Toddlers can smoothly level up to the next stage of language development by practicing sentence formation. They will be able to understand all commands and develop their vocabulary throughout the next few months. They gradually learn to decipher complex phrase structures and utter grammatically accurate sentences.

Telegraphic Sentence Examples

The following are examples of commonly-used telegraphic sentences:

• Check inbox.

Working environments usually have tight schedules and sending updates or reminders requires brief and concise statements. Employees are always in a rush, and they do not have time to read lengthy messages and requests from their colleagues. Thus, saying ”Check inbox” is more practical than saying ”Please check your inbox. I have sent you a message.” Giving directions and commands often uses telegraphic sentences to be more precise and easy to follow.

• Russia-Ukraine conflict escalates crisis.

Newspaper and other media headlines have a limited number of words when reporting current events and important information, so instead of using conjunctions or other function words, they replace them with punctuation marks such as commas, hyphens, dashes, or colons. In this example, the line ”The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalates the crisis.” is far too lengthy and occupies more space, so the conjunction ”and” is replaced with a hyphen and the article ”the” as well as the preposition ”between” are omitted.

• On my way ASAP.

This kind of sentence is very common, especially in online chats, texts, and on Twitter. To save time and effort on typing characters, most people prefer to write in shortcuts and direct ways. Therefore, using abbreviations, numerals, and simple verbs is more convenient than writing lengthy sentences. In this example, the words ”I am” are omitted, and the common phrase ”as soon as possible” is abbreviated to ”ASAP” to give more emphasis on the action being taken.

• Good job.

Some statements sound better when told in a telegraphic manner because it gives emphasis to emotions and gives more impact as well as conviction. For example, instead of saying blandly, ”You did well” after working hard to finish something, one would say, ”Good job!” to express compliment and congratulate someone for doing great. The former gives a more resounding achievement than the latter and makes one feel better after hearing it.

Lesson Summary

Telegraphic speech by definition is a manner of speaking using a limited number of content words which are only considered relevant to conveying ideas or messages such as nouns and verbs, thus omitting function words and inflections. The term ”telegraphic speech” was coined in the early 1960s by behaviorist Roger Brown and psycholinguist Colin Fraser while working on a study for their article ”The Acquisition of Syntax” where they noticed that in the toddlers’ early stages of being able to construct sentences, these children often left out function words, or those used to express grammatical relationships with other words, such as articles (‘the’), conjunctions (‘and’), prepositions (‘at’), or auxiliaries (‘be’). They also observed that children omit inflections, which are endings added to word bases to alter grammatical function and meaning such as (-‘s, -s).

Telegraphic sentences are concise sentences that usually contain five words or less. They are commonly used by toddlers during the second year of their language acquisition by taking away grammar in making sentences and just leaving the content words. The manner in which children speak at this stage is similar to the way in which telegrams were written. This is why this stage is known as ”telegraphic.” Although the sentences are brief, they are densely packed with purpose and meaning. Telegraphic sentences are important in child development because it helps in communicating emotions, understanding sentence formation, and moving to the next stage of language development.