The aim of this article is to describe the language practices in clinical situations considering language activities and their characteristics. For this purpose, 28 sessions of clinical interactions were analysed. They come from 4 longitudinal follow-ups between speech and language pathologists and children with specific language impairment. The analyses concern: the description of structured and functional activities and their influence on the discourse of the speakers (adult/child). The discussion will focus on two aspects. The first one is to highlight the complementarity of these activities for language intervention. The second one is to consider structured and functional activities not as opposed but as the two ends of a continuum of practices.