In this lecture, we will learn about: Clinical Linguistics Educational Linguistics

What is Clinical Linguistics? Clinical Linguistics is a sub-discipline of applied linguistics and involves the application of linguistic theory to the field of Speech-Language Pathology. In other words, the central focus of Clinical Linguistics is the application of the principles and methods of linguistics and phonetics to communication impairment (weakness) in children and adults. The application involves the linguist working in cooperation with the speech pathologist/therapist, audiologist and others in helping to assess, diagnose and remediate disorders of the production and comprehension of spoken and written language- disorders which may of course occur in educational as well as clinical settings.

As well as being a core subject in the education of speech and language therapists, clinical linguistics is also interesting and valuable for students of the linguistic sciences generally. In the UK the key figure in the emergence of clinical linguistics as an independent discipline was David Crystal, and a number of publications by him and his colleagues still provide a valuable introduction to the area for students.

Although linguists have long applied their science to a variety of language problems, Clinical Linguistics did not emerge as an independent discipline until the publication of Crystal’s influential Clinical Linguistics in Despite its youth, this specialist area has quickly evolved into a highly productive field of inquiry. From its inception, Clinical Linguistics has had a strong international presence. The field is interdisciplinary, with relevance to theoretical and applied linguistics, speech and language therapy, psychology, and education.

Where Crystal originally saw clinical linguistics as having primarily a clinical role in supporting the work of speech and language therapists, more recent interpretations of the term have stressed the two-way direction of influence: clinical linguistic analysis can support the SLT (Second Language Teaching) in assessing and treating individuals with communication impairments, but of equal importance, clinical linguistic data is a valuable tool in the critical evaluation of competing linguistic theories and methodologies.

For students of linguistics, clinical linguistics has valuable things to say about a number of key issues: how language develops in childhood?; how it is processed, stored and produced by the brain?; how it may fail to develop and how it may go wrong later in life? A central issue for linguistics students is the notion of normal language and its relationship with language variation. But its consideration of atypical language data, and its perspective on the continuum of normal to atypical (not common) language behaviour, clinical linguistics provides a perspective on what is normal and how one might set about making judgments of normality and normal variation.

Clinical linguistics can be introduced into the curriculum of linguistic sciences degrees in two main ways. Firstly, it can be integrated into the modules on different levels of language (e.g. phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.), which form a core part of many degrees in linguistic sciences. Just as sociolinguistic, historical, developmental and crosslinguistic material provides useful illustrations of how speech and language work, so examples from atypical language behaviour can also effectively illuminate aspects of linguistic theory. Clinical linguistic data can also be used in the critical evaluation of competing linguistic theories, adding to our understanding about which structures are fundamental to language, and providing evidence about the nature of speech and language processing.

The Clinical Linguistics literature has been especially selective, appearing in diverse scientific and professional publications. Many of these sources have limited circulation, a fact that challenges individuals and research libraries to maintain a comprehensive collection. Clinical linguistics plays a key role in the description, analysis and remediation of communication impairment. The study of linguistic aspects of communication development and disorder is also of relevance to linguistic theory and our understanding of language more generally.

Communication impairments which have been the focus of current or recent investigation include: 1- Autism. 2- Cleft palate. 3- Developmental speech and language disorders. 4- Traumatic brain injury. 5- Williams syndrome.

What is Educational Linguistics? The second major field of applied linguistics is Educational Linguistics. It is an area of study that integrates the research tools of linguistics and other related disciplines of the social sciences in order to investigate the broad range of issues related to language and education with the aim of presenting advice in these fields. As an area of inquiry, educational linguistics is young. It started in the early 1970s with the work of Bernard Spolsky. The history of educational linguistics is linked to applied linguistics, with which it continues to have a symbiotic relationship.

Educational Linguistics is dedicated to innovative studies of language use and language learning in educational settings worldwide. It provides a forum for work that crosses traditional boundaries between theory and practice, between micro and macro, and between native, second and foreign language education. At the same time, educational linguistics directly focuses on language and education. About ten years later the term is used in Britain for the first time as “a label for serious intellectual and academic activity” in naming the School of Applied Linguistics.