Eng lang

prosodic features

pitch, stress, volume, tempo, intonation

pitch

how high or low a sound is

stress

emphasis given to a word or syllable

volume

how loud or soft a sound is

tempo

how fast or slow speech is

intonation

variation in pitch

vocal effects

coughs, laughter, breath

sounds in connected speech

assimilation, vowel reduction, elision, insertion

assimilation

two sounds becoming more like one another

vowel reduction

a vowel sound weakens or becomes less defined

elision

the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking

insertion

inserting an extra sound into a word

phonological patterning

alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, rhythm, rhyme

alliteration

repetition of initial consonant sounds

assonance

repetition of vowel sounds

consonance

repetition of consonant sounds

onomatopoeia

a word that imitates the sound it represents

rhythm

pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

rhyme

repetition of sounds at the end of words

noun

person, place, or thing

verb

action word

auxiliary verb

assists the main verb; primary ones 'be', 'do' and 'have' denote changes of tense. tense, mood or voice

modal verb

assists the main verb be expressing possibility, obligation etc.; must, might, may, could, can, should, shall, would, will

adjective

describes a noun

adverb

describes a verb

preposition

shows the relationship of a noun or a pronoun to some other word in a sentence, primarily related to time or space

pronoun

replaces a noun in a sentence

conjunction

joins words or groups of words

determiner

positioned in front of nouns to add detail or to clarify; the, this, these etc.

interjection

a word thrown into a sentence or conversation; yay!, ouch!, damn! etc.

prefix

a syllable or word that comes before a root word to change its meaning

infix

a type of bound morpheme that is inserted into the middle of the stem

suffix

an affix that is added at the end of the word

hypocoristic use of suffixes

creating nicknames with suffixation, like 'Johnsy' or 'Bazza'

word-formation processes

blends, acronyms, initialisms, shortenings, compounding, contractions, collocations, neologisms, borrowing, communisation, archaism

blends

two words that are combined but some of the letters are dropped

acronyms

abbreviations formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word

initialisms

an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately

shortenings

words that have been shortened/cut off

compounding

two words that are combined but retain all their letters

contractions

words that have been shortened, using an apostrophe to indicate missing letters; don't, can't, I'm, you're etc.

collocations

words that are often used together

neologisms

new words in the lexicon

borrowing

word or expression taken from another language

commonisation

the process whereby a proper noun or brand name becomes a common noun; google, kleenex, hoover

archaism

word, expression, spelling, or phrase that is out of date, rarely used in modern communication

morphological patterning

conversion of word class, creative word formation

conversion of word class

using a word in a word class that it is not normally in; 'friend' as a verb - 'I friended her'

creative word formation

the process by which new words are made, including compounding, shortening, affixation

sentence types

declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamative

declarative sentence

a sentence that makes a statement

imperative sentence

sentence used to command or instruct

interrogative sentence

a sentence that asks a question

exclamative sentence

sentence that states something with emotion, normally ending with !

syntactic patterning

antithesis, listing, parallelism

antithesis

two opposing terms used close together in order to highlight a contrast

listing

series of items in meaningful sequence

parallelism

similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses

features of spoken discourse

openings and closings; adjacency pairs; overlapping speech; minimal responses/back-channeling; discourse particles; non-fluency features including pauses, filled pauses/voiced hesitations, false starts,

repetition, repairs

opening

used to greet someone or open a conversation

closing

used to farewell someone or close a conversation

adjacency pair

a pair of two related utterances by two different speakers, where the second utterance is always a response to the first

overlapping speech

two or more speakers talking simultaneously

discourse particles

short expressions or words which have an important function in speech, such as indicating a change of topic or bringing the conversation back to a previous topic, e.g. 'anyway', 'yeah', 'well', 'yeah-no'

non-fluency features

pauses, filled pauses/voiced hesitations, false starts, repetition, repairs

pauses

breaks in speech

filled pauses/voiced hesitations

sounds used to buy time while speaking; er, um, ah

false starts

the speaker realises the beginning of an utterance isn't working and so effectively re-starts by rephrasing

repairs

the speaker makes a slight adjustment after mis-speaking

repetition

unintentionally saying the same thing twice, sometimes to buy time while speaking

strategies in spoken discourse

topic management, turn-taking (taking, holding and passing the floor), code-switching for group membership; repair management strategies

topic management

the way topics in a conversation are organised, how they begin and end

turn-taking

when one speaker hands over speaking to another person

taking the floor

when a speaker indicates that they want it to be their turn to speak, sometimes done by interruption

passing the floor

when a speaker hand over their speaking turn to another interlocutor

holding the floor

the person who dominates the conversation is seen to be 'holding the floor'

minimal responses/back-channelling

sounds made by a speaker who is not currently holding the floor, to indicate that they are listening to the person who is holding the floor

Paralinguistic features

non-verbal communication

semantic field/domain

a group of words that are related in meaning, the topic being addressed

euphemism

a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing

dysphemism

substitution of a more offensive or disparaging word or phrase for one considered less offensive

register

informal or formal, or somewhere in between

Standard English

form of English generally considered acceptable at school, as reflected in textbooks and grammar instruction

non-Standard English

any variety of language that does not conform to the standard, prestige form of english accepted as the norm by society

slang

a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people

colloquial language/colloquialism

a type of language (slang) used in everyday speech but not used in formal speech or writing

taboo language

words that are typically avoided because they are considered offensive

positive face needs

the desire to be appreciated, liked, and honored

negative face needs

the desire to be autonomous, to have the right to do as we wish, not to be imposed upon

situational context

the social or environmental setting of a person's behaviour

cultural context

the beliefs, values, orientations, underlying assumptions, and rituals that belong to a specific culture

purpose

the aim that is trying to be achieved in a broader sense or how a person wants to be viewed socially; what a person wants to achieve by producing a text

coherence

features that make a text easier to understand

cohesion

features that make links within a text

formatting

headings/subheadings, typography, font size/colour, paragraphing, bullet points/numbers, images/graphics, indentations

anaphoric reference

a word or phrase that refers back to another word or phrase which was used earlier in a written or spoken text

cataphoric reference

a word or expression in a text that refers forward to another part of the text which has not yet been mentioned

jargon

special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.

semantic patterning

irony, metaphor, oxymoron, simile, personification, animation, puns, lexical ambiguity

irony

the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning