LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 26:6 June 2026
ISSN 1930-2940

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Pragmatic Profiling in Malayalam speaking children with ID

Sona Merin Jacob
Dr. Satish Kumaraswamy

Abstract

Language is a complex system of arbitrary symbols which is used for human communication. (American Speech and Hearing Association, ASHA, 1982). Pragmatics is the study of relationship between language and content. It includes particularly conversational exchanges, where two or more participants take turns to construct a text (Mc Tear, 1985). Profiling pragmatics in Intellectual Disability is crucial because it evaluates how a person actually uses language in real world social contexts rather than just measuring their vocabulary or grammar. The study aims at profiling pragmatic language in Malayalam speaking children with ID. 15 children with Intellectual disability within the age range of 8-13 years (mental age: 4-5) and 15 Typical children of age range (4-5 yrs) participated in the study. Tasks given were general conversation, picture description and question answering. The results of the present study revealed that Typical children performed better than children with ID. The results emphasize the urgent need for targeted, context-based social communication interventions to better support this population in real-world interactions.

Keywords:Pragmatic profiling, Intellectual disability, Typical children.

Introduction

Language is a structured system of communication using symbols, sounds and rules to convey meaning encompassing phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. However, language is more than just words and sentences. It also includes various forms of expression that we often use unconsciously. Native speakers of a language naturally understand many of these expressions and the rules that govern them. One important area that examines these rules is pragmatics.

Pragmatics is quoted as the ability to apply language resources to facilitate effective social interaction considering the needs of the conversational partner and demands of the physical context (Stephens & Matthews, 2014). It defines as involving the understanding and using of language for different purposes such as to comment, direct, reject, protest, greet, inform, demand, state, promise, request etc. It includes adapting language to listeners situations and conversation rules like turn taking and topic maintenance. This includes starting a conversation appropriately with a question or statement introducing and maintaining topics taking turns while speaking asking for clarification when needed repairing communication breakdowns providing clarification and organizing language according to different discourse genres such as narration and expository text (Cummings, 2014; Matthews, Biney, Smith, 2018).

A linguistic profile is a systematic description of the characteristics of an individual's language use that allows the person to be identified for a particular purpose (Crystal,1982). Pragmatic profiling involves the systematic evaluation of pragmatic abilities through methods like conversational analysis, play based tasks or checklists to chart strengths and weaknesses in social communication. It assesses key skills such as turn taking, sustaining topics and tailoring language to listeners or contexts that underpin successful interactions.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Sona Merin Jacob
Post Graduate Student (MASLP)
Dr M.V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing,
Malady Court, Kavoor,
Mangalore University-15
sarahkurian8@gmail.com
&
Dr. Satish Kumaraswamy
Ph.D. Speech and Hearing
Professor
Dr M.V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing,
Malady Court, Kavoor,
Mangalore University-15
sat8378@yahoo.com

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