One of the greatest cognitive processes that a toddler goes through is language development. The complete development of language skills takes place from birth to approximately the ninth year of a child. This development takes place at the 6 language levels. The six language levels are further elaborated in this article.
All levels of language carry meaning. Semantics therefore studies not only the semantic level, but also all other levels of language. There are six different levels of language: phonological level, morphological level, syntactic level, semantic level, pragmatic level and orthographic level. Below all levels are discussed and the associated important terms. The six levels of language:
- Phonological level
- Morphological level
- Syntactic level
- Semantic level
- Pragmatic level
- Orthographic level
Phonological level
Phonology studies the smallest parts of language. Phonology is all about phonology. Phonemes create a difference in meaning between the words. Like with moon and man. Maan has two phonemes, aa and man has one phoneme, a. Assimilation also influences phonology. In assimilation, one sound influences the other sound. For example, we pronounce litter as nesje. The word accent, stress, sentence accent, and sentence melody are also important in phonology.
Morphological level
Morphology looks at how the words are constructed. Morphology is concerned with morphemes. There are free and bound morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a word. Fietsbel has two free morphemes, namely bicycle and bell. Boys or beautiful is a bound morpheme. The s for boys and the ig for beautiful are not meaningful units, therefore these are bound morphemes.
Also at the morphological level we look at compositions, derivations, inflections and conjugations. Compositions are two meaningful words, which together form a new, meaningful word. An example is bicycle bell. The composition consists of the words bicycle and bell. Back door is also a composition, which consists of the words back and door. A distraction is a word that arises from another word, such as refusal. Refusal arises from the word refuse. In addition, declension belongs to morphology, a declension is a change of the ending of the word according to grammar. Examples are big and tall. Conjugations are also part of the morphology. A conjugation is a declension of a verb.
Syntactic level
The syntactic level looks at the structure of sentences. A distinction is made here between word types, word groups and phrases. The sentence types are also looked at. There are three different sentence types. The communicating sentence, the interrogative sentence and the imperative sentence. With the communicating sentence you communicate something, with the interrogative sentence you ask something and with the imperative sentence you give an order or an assignment. An example of an imperative sentence is ‘Come in!’.
The syntactic level also looks at the active / active sentences and passive / passive sentences. In addition, also to the direct reason and indirect reason. When a sentence is in the immediate reason, say: ‘Pick up that pen’. The indirect reason says, “She said I should pick up that pen.”
Semantic level
In semantics we study the meaning of the words. This includes looking at antonyms. Antonyms are words with an opposite meaning. An example of this is light and dark. Synonyms are also looked at. Synonyms are two different words with the same meaning. Such as car and car, wallet and purse, angry and angry. In addition, homonyms are looked at. Homonyms are the same words with different meanings. An example of this is bank. A bank can be a place where you deposit or withdraw money or a piece of furniture on which you sit. In addition to homonyms, hyponyms are also looked at. Hyponyms are words or a word concept. Husband is a hyponym of husband and red, white, blue are hyponyms of color. Finally, we look at a polysemy. A polysemy is a word with several meanings. For example, stone can mean a boulder, but also gemstone or stone on the grave.
Pragmatic level
At the pragmatic level it concerns the language usage rules. Language use is influenced by several things. It may be through the spoken language versus the written language. Because of the topic at stake, is it at school, at work or is it an everyday conversation. The use of language also depends on the gender and the type of text. Is it a Twitter message or a job interview.
Orthographic level
At the orthographic level we look at the writing. The spelling is important here. The orthographic level is related to the other levels of language. At the orthographic level, homophones and homographs are considered. Homophones are words that sound the same, but you write differently. An example of this is courage and must. Homographs are words that sound the same and that you write the same, such as bank and bank.