Components of
Language Review
DES 320
Components of Language
 Form
 Content
 Use
 Comprehension and
Production
 Auditory-Oral System
 Visual-Graphic System
 Visual-Gestural System
Inter-relationship between language areas
Bloom and Lahey (1978)
COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE
Language
Form
Content
Use
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE
Language
Morphology
Form
Content
Phonology
Syntax
Use
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE: FORM
 Phonology
 Study of the sound system of a language
 Phoneme: a speech sound
 Phonological rules: rules that govern which sounds
may appear together and where
 Variations between languages
 English- gnat,
 Examples from other languages? Nouveau (Fr),
Knockwurst (Ger)
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE: FORM
 How we say things
 How sounds are arranged
 How words are arranged N+V+O
 Structure!!!!
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE: FORM
Morphology= branch of
grammar devoted to the structure
or forms of words
 Morpheme= the smallest grammatical
unit in language
Not necessarily equivalent to syllables
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE: FORM
 Free morpheme
Can stand alone as a word
Cannot be broken apart
 Bound morpheme
Cannot stand alone as a word
Changes the original meaning
MORPHOLOGY
 Example:
 Dog = free morpheme
 Dogs= 2 morphemes
Dog= free morpheme
s= bound morpheme
MORPHOLOGY

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happy- 1 free morpheme
unhappy - 1 bound and 1 free morpheme
unhappily- 2 bound and 1 free morpheme
unhappiest- 2 bound and 1 free morpheme
HOW MANY MORPHEMES?
 Monkeys
 Monkeys eating
 The monkeys are eating
 The monkeys are eating quickly
 The unhappy monkeys are eating
in the forest
 The unhappy monkeys are eating
in the deepest forest
SYNTAX
How words are arranged to form meaningful
sentences
 Follows a collection of rules for combining words
into phrases and sentences
 Keeping the same words but changing the order
can change the meaning
 Examples:
The students are sitting in class.
Are the students sitting in class?
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE: CONTENT
Language
Form
Content
Use
CONTENT
 Many words have multiple meanings so
the meaning is influenced by the use and
the form.
 Semantics- the study of meaning in
language
 Ex- The Steelers beat the Cardinals.
The criminal beat the dog.
The music had a fast beat.
COMPONENTS OF
LANGUAGE: USE
Language
Form
Content
Use
 Pragmatics
USE
 The use, function or purpose of the language
 Examples: how to…
 Enter a conversation
 Exit a conversation
 Take turns
 Answer a question
 Change topics
 Sharing an opinion
 Highly influenced by the situational context and the
communication partners
 Friends vs. teachers vs. parents, etc
Comprehension and
Production

Encoding, expression, production

Decoding, understanding,
interpreting, comprehending,
reception

In clinical work, comprehension
and production are often
addressed separately

Debate on how independent
language comprehension and
production are in the human
language processing architecture
Models of Language
 Auditory-Oral System




Evolutionally old
Universal
Flexible
Multidimensional
 Visual-Graphic
System




New
Needs to be taught
Need paper, pencil….
One-dimensional
Models of Language
(cont’d)
*Visual-Gestural System
 Gesturing
*Nonverbal
communication through
gestures, body postures
and facial expressions
*Thinking for speaking
 Sign Languages
*ASL
 AAC
Models and definitions
of language disorders
DES 320
ASHA definition of
language disorder
 A language disorder is an impairment in:
-comprehension/production
-spoken, written, other symbol system
-form
-phonology, morphology, syntax
-content - semantics
-function - pragmatics
Normative/Neutralist
 A language disorder exists when….
 Normative position
 When it affects the child’s social and academic functioning
 Neutralist position
 The child scores significantly below expectations in a
normative test
 Problems with assessment instruments
 What is “significantly below”?
 Varies by institution
 Research supports 10th percentile/ 1.25 SD below mean/
SS of 81
Case
 You are an SLP in a school district that
implements a kindergarten language
screening. In your screening, you
discover that Jim scored below your cutoff for language impairment. Additional
testing reveals similar results. Jim’s
teacher and parents feel like Jim is doing
just fine. According to the normative
position, does Jim have a language
impairment?
Discrepancy criteria
 Chronological Age
 Discrepancy between chronological age and
language testing
 Mental Age
 Discrepancy between cognitive level
(determined by IQ testing) and language
testing
Terminology






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Childhood aphasia/ dysphasia
Language delay / language deviance
Impairment/ disorder
Disability
Specific Language Impairment (SLI)
Developmental Language Disorder
Person first: children with SLI
Thought Questions
 What are the connotations associated
with the terms, “dysphasia”, “delay”,
“deviance”, impairment”, “disorder” and
“disability”?
 Does the term imply something more
than “not functioning typically”?
 Does the term have a negative tone?
If you or your child had a language XXX,
which term would you like to use to talk
Models of language
disorders




Systems Model
Categorical Model
Descriptive-developmental model
Specific disabilities model
Systems Model
 Language disorder exists in the
relationship between the speakers
 A useful concept in the context of
 Language differences (dialect, ESL)
 Severe language disorders
Categorical Model
 Classifications of language disorders based on
syndromes
 Identification of similarities among children with the
same diagnosis
 Motor disorders, cush as Cerebral Palsy
 Sensory deficits
 Central nervous system damage
 Social emotional disorders, such as Autism
 Cognitive disorders
 Specific language impairment (SLI)
 Shared etiology
 Caution
 Not all children within a diagnostic category have
the same abilities
 You cannot pick intervention goals solely based on
the diagnosis
Descriptive Developmental Model
 Description of the child’s current level of
language functions
 Vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology,
phonology and pragmatics
 Determining where the child is in the sequence
of normal development
 Subtyping based on components of language
 Expressive and expressive/receptive
 New directions: Vocabulary and grammar

(Tomblin & Zhang, 2006; Toblin, Maniela-Arnold, Zhang, 2007)
Specific Disabilities Model
 Profile strengths and weaknesses in
cognitive processes
 Cognitive mechanisms associated with
language development
 For example…
 Auditory perceptual deficit
 Working memory deficit