Discourse Act Contributing to the Linguistic Formulation from Word to Sentence: Albanian Children

Abstract

In this argument, based on concrete observations of toddlers 2-4 years old, the case of lexical input at this age will be examined, as used in speech acts from communication through specific words—accompanied by extralinguistic means—and holophrases, to generating simple sentences as special constructs of syntax. Early phases of acquiring language have already slowly started in the first years of their lives. The child follows the unstoppable path to understanding and enriching knowledge. To support our study, in addition to their group and family life, didactic materials will also be included; as part of our study, these were “Open and Find out” books, which feature secret windows, and puzzle books, which contain plenty of material that serves children’s speech acquisition. The theoretical treatment of the problem above will be supported mostly by Albanian language data, or by Albanian children—as native speakers of that mother tongue. The principal phases of acquiring the language have slowly started during the first years of the child’s life. Now the child follows the unstoppable path to gaining and enriching his knowledge. The methodology followed in this study includes preschool children. During this phase, the child articulates more lexical words than grammatical words. We noticed this phenomenon when observing 14 children, who were selected from two age groups. The conversations of subjects of different ages and genders were analyzed, as well as the vocabularies they possessed. In this treatment, the linguistic features that children tend to change from one phase of life to another will be shown. It is also interesting to emphasize how, even in the word- and sentence-producing phase, children develop their skills through the use of didactic books.