Phonological, pragmatic, lexical, semantic and grammatical development

The idea

Children’s language development is studied across five interlocking levels. Phonological development covers the sounds a child can produce and perceive, from early cooing and babbling through to mastering consonant clusters and intonation. Pragmatic development concerns using language socially: turn-taking, politeness, presupposition and adapting to an audience. Lexical development is vocabulary growth, including over- and under-extension and coinages. Semantic development is learning meaning relationships such as antonymy, hyponymy and inference. Grammatical development traces morphology and syntax, from one-word holophrases through telegraphic two-word combinations to complex clauses and inflections. Analysing authentic child data means identifying which level a feature belongs to and explaining what it shows about the child’s stage.

What earns the marks

• Accurately labels a feature by level, for example over-extension as lexical, omission of past-tense -ed as grammatical, or rising intonation for a question as phonological.
• Explains what a feature reveals about the child’s stage or rule system rather than merely naming it, for example ‘goed’ shows overgeneralisation of the regular past-tense rule.
• Uses transcribed child data as evidence, quoting the utterance and linking it to a level and a developmental claim.
• Distinguishes levels that overlap, for example treating a coinage as lexical creativity while noting its morphological structure.
• Applies relevant terminology precisely, such as phoneme, holophrase, over-extension, under-extension, morpheme, utterance and turn-taking.
• Compares a child’s output with adult norms to judge what has and has not yet been acquired.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

• Treating every error as random rather than rule-governed.

  Put it right by showing the systematic pattern behind forms such as ‘runned’ or ‘foots’.

• Confusing lexical and semantic development.

  Put it right by separating vocabulary size and word choice from meaning relations and inference.

• Describing a feature without linking it to a level or stage.

  Put it right by naming the level and explaining the developmental significance.

Exam tips

• Anchor each analytical point to a short quotation from the data so the level and stage are evidenced, not asserted.
• Use the five levels as a checklist when planning, then select the two or three most productive features rather than listing all five superficially.
• Define terminology briefly on first use so precise terms such as holophrase or over-extension demonstrate understanding.