Phonology; Language acquisition; Longitudinal study

Abstract

The process of language acquisition presents a particular pattern in the establishment of linguistic areas common to all children. The data that we intend to present were collected through a longitudinal study of a child, monolingual speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, in the process of normal language acquisition. This monitoring was made through observation of linguistic performance, interaction through play activity and record the speech data of a child for one year. The beginning of the collection occurred when the child was 1 year and 6 months of age and ended at 2 years and 6 months. The entire collection was made aiming at spontaneous conversation, in which the dyad was composed by the child and the researcher or the child and a family member. Data were collected fortnightly, recorded and documented on tape sessions with about 30-60 minutes. Lexical items produced were transcribed phonetically, and observations of performance and interaction were recorded in field diaries. It has been achieved from this research, a detailed description of the linguistic performance of children and the aim was to contribute data on the lexical and phonological acquisition. The data showed a significant increase in inventory lexical and an aggregation of many phonemes in the phonological system of children in the study period, which can be corroborated with the findings of other studies.