Developmental and Acquired Language Disorder

14 to language deficits that results from neural trauma stroke, traumatic brain injury or neurological disease e.g., Alzheimer, Parkinson, schizophrenia, all of which result in some degree of language impairment.

2.2.2 Medical and Environmental language Disorder

According to Chaer 2009: 148 language disorder divided into two major divisions; 1 language disorder due to medical factor and 2 language disorder due to social factor. The language disorder results from medical factor including abnormalities in brain functions and speech organs. And the social factor including unnatural environment, such as separated or isolated from normal social life. Language disorder due to medical factors differentiated into three groups. Sidharta 1984 in Chaer 2009: 148 said that medically, language disorder can be divided to three groups: Speech disorder, Language disorder, and Thought disorder.

2.2.2.1 Language Disorder

Human use language to communicate and interact with others. Language is human specific-species Gleason Ratner, 1998. It means that only human that has the ability to acquire and use complex system of communication. In other view point, language can be defined as a symbolic, rule governed system used to convey a message. The symbols can be words, either spoken or written and gestures. In this viewpoint, the term language refers to speaking and 15 understanding language, it includes using words to built-up conversation and understanding and making sense of what people say. When this ability to speaking and understanding language is impaired due to several factors, such as damage to the portion of the brain which is responsible to language, in the left hemisphere of the brain for most right-handed people Steinberg, 2001: 319, or due to disorganized thought in schizophrenia patients – since language and thought cannot be separated and thought reflects in language, this condition is called language disorder. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association ASHA has defined language disorder as an impairment in “comprehension andor use of spoken, written, andor other symbol system. The disorder may involve 1 the form of language phonologic, morphologic, and syntactic system, 2 the content of language semantic system, andor 3 the function of language in communication pragmatic system, in any combination” American Speech- Language-Hearing Association, 1993: 40 Paul, 2007: 3. From the definitions above, it may be said that language disorder is a specific impairment in understanding and sharing thoughts and ideas, i.e., a disorder that involves the processing of linguistic information. Language disorder often use as general term refers to abnormalities in mother tongue or native language.