Speech and Language

Speech is how we say sounds and words. Speech includes:

Articulation

• How we make speech sounds using the mouth, lips, and tongue. For example, we need to be able to say the “r” sound to say "rabbit" instead of "wabbit.”

Voice

• How we use our vocal folds and breath to make sounds. Our voice can be loud or soft or high- or low-pitched. We can hurt our voice by talking too much, yelling, or coughing a lot.

Fluency

• This is the rhythm of our speech. We sometimes repeat sounds or pause while talking. People who do this a lot may stutter.

Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share ideas and get what we want. Language includes:

Semantics - what words mean

• Some words have more than one meaning. For example, “star” can be a bright object in the sky or someone famous.

Morphology - how we make new words

• We can change words and change their meaning. For instance, we say “friend,” “friendly,” or “unfriendly” and mean something different each time.

Syntax - how to put words together

• In English we say, “Peg walked to the new store” instead of “Peg walk store new.”

Pragmatics - what we should say at different times

• For example, we might be polite and say, “Would you mind moving your foot?” But, if the person does not move, we may say, “Get off my foot!”