Definition:
A simplified manner of speech in which only the most important content words are used to express ideas, while grammatical function words (such as determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions) and inflectional endings are often omitted.
Telegraphic speech is a stage of language acquisition (typically in a child's second year): though syntax is largely absent, meaning is usually clear.
See also:
Etymology:
Named after the compressed sentences used in telegrams when the sender had to pay by the word.Examples and Observations:
- "Sure enough, I hear a little voice from the other side of the room: 'No, mummy--no go sleep!'
"I cringe. 'I'm right here, honey. I didn't go anywhere.' But my comforting words fall on deaf ears. Neil starts crying."
(Tracy Hogg and Melinda Blau, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers. Random House, 2002) - "A preschooler who called 911 on Thursday to report 'mom and daddy go bye bye' helped authorities find three young children left unattended in a home with drug paraphernalia.
"A 34-year-old woman, the mother of two of the children, was arrested when she showed up later after a gambling trip, Spokane police spokesman officer Bill Hager said."
(Associated Press, "Three Preschool Children Found Home Alone in Spokane." The Seattle Times, May 10, 2007) - "Exactly why these grammatical factors (i.e., function words) and inflections are omitted [in telegraphic speech] is a matter of some debate. One possibility is that the omitted words and morphemes are not produced because they are not essential to meaning. Children probably have cognitive limitations on the length of utterances they can produce, independent of their grammatical knowledge. Given such length limitations, they may sensibly leave out the least important parts. It is also true that the omitted words tend to be words that are not stressed in adults' utterances, and children may be leaving out unstressed elements (Demuth, 1994). Some have also suggested that children's underlying knowledge at this point does not include the grammatical categories that govern the use of the omitted forms (Atkinson, 1992; Radford, 1990, 1995), although other evidence suggests it does (Gerken, Landau, & Remez, 1990)."
(Erika Hoff, Language Development, 3rd ed. Wadsworth, 2005) - "Given the fact that adults can speak telegraphically, there is a strong implication, though of course no sure proof, that telegraphic speech is an actual subgrammar of the full grammar, and that adults using such speech are gaining access to that subgrammar. This in turn would be very much in line with the General Congruence Principle, which suggests that the acquisitional stage exists in the adult grammar in something like the same sense that a particular geological layer may lie underneath a landscape: it therefore may be accessed."
(David Lebeaux, Language Acquisition and the Form of the Grammar. John Benjamins, 2000) - "Where was Hassel? I dug the square for Hassel; he wasn’t there, he was in Riker’s Island, behind bars. Where Dean? Where everybody? Where life?"
(Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)
Also Known As: telegraphic talk, telegraphic style, telegrammatic speech
