Unit 8 Vocabulary

Discourse

Discourse

Any spoken or written language that is longer than a sentence. (In this section it mainly applies to spoken language.)

Utterance

A section of spoken language which is often preceded by silence and followed by silence or a change of speaker.

Body Language

Communication which uses all forms of non-verbal gestures to put across meaning

Turn-Taking

In conversation, people usually wait their turn to speak. Some may interrupt, out of eagerness or rudeness, but the norm is for one speaker to yield the floor by prolonging a pause or glancing at the elected speaker who then takes their turn.

Adjacency Pair

Dialogue that follows a set pattern (ex: when speakers greet each other) of an utterance from one speaker and a response from the other

Conversational Floor

Speaking until you have finished what you wish to say, or until someone interrupts you.

Status

The perceived position of a person’s authority and influence in relation to those around them.

Topic Shift

The point at which speakers move from one topic to another.

Feedback

A group of verbal and nonverbal signals given by the listener to show they are following the conversation.

Back-Channeling

Feedback in words and sounds which a listener gives a speaker to show they are listening. (‘umm’, ‘really’)

Elison

The omission of a sound or syllable from a word in speech.

Ellipsis

The intentional omission of words from a text usually indicated by three dots. (...)

Transcription

A written record of spoken language which uses symbols and markings to represent the distinctive nature of speech.

Culture

All the values and information for life in a society.

Colloquial

The casual conversation of everyday language.

Metalanguage

Language used to describe language.

Phatic Communication

Communication mainly in the form of greetings which has a social function to help build a relationship between participants. (it is not used to inform)

Accent

The characteristic pronunciation associated with a geographical area or social group.

Phonetics

The study of speech sounds in the way they are spoken and pronounced.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of distinguishable sound which distinguishes one word from another in language. (ex: /f/ - Phone, /c/ - cat)

Intonation

The rise and fall of the voice while speaking which can alter the meaning of a word.

Micropauses

A very short pause to take breath(.).

Tone Units

The natural phrases of speech usually separated by a micropause or breath.

Pitch Movement

The physical way that the voice quality changes when people speak, if meaning is added to pitch movement it becomes the tone.

Tonic Syllable

The main stress in a tone unit.

Babbling

A stage in child language acquisition in which an infant starts to produce patterns of sounds which have no meaning to the child but which starts to resemble patterns of syllables in the child’s native language.

Caretaker Language

The simple style of speech used by those who look after infants and small children.

Holophrastic

In language acquisition, a single word that expresses a complete idea - caregivers need contextual clues to interpolate holophrases.

Plosive

A speech sound which involves a small explosion of air after the closure of the voice passage.

Nasal

Air passes through the noise to produce the sound.

Telegraphic Stage

From the age of about two years, children make limited utterances of two to three words which make sense.

Overextension

When a word is used more broadly than it should be.

Underextension

When a word is used in a very narrow context.

Hypernyms

Words for categories of things like furniture and animals.

Hyponyms

Names or actions which are specific and which can be grouped in the broader class of a hypernym. (ex: hypernym = furniture and hyponym = chair and desk)

Virtuous Errors

Errors made by young children which show their application of some rules of grammar as they apply regular rules to irregular forms. (ex: ‘-ed’ form of the past tense ‘swimmed’)

Restricted Code

Language which assumes a shared understanding amongst the speakers. It is limited and generally uses a limited lexical range and syntax construction and is used among members of a close-knit community such as a family.

Elaborated Code

Language used more broadly in society which is more complete and often more complex in lexis and syntax.

Context-Bound

Related to the particular situation being considered.

 Instrumental Language

Used to fulfill a need- for example, obtaining food, drink and comfort.

Regulatory Language

Used to influence the behavior of others - concerned with persuading, commanding or requesting other people to do things you want (eg. 'Mummy get Rohan juice'; 'play with me').

Interactional Language

Used to develop social relationships and the process of interaction - concerned with the phatic communication of talk. This is talk which is just concerned with getting along with others and has no informative function (e.g. ‘here's my teddy’; 'shall we play pirates?)

Personal Language

Used to express the personal opinions, feelings, and identity of the self, sometimes referred to as the "Here l am!' function, announcing themself to the world (e.g. 'me good girl;"best stripy socks'; 'tired boy').

Recentational Language

Used to exchange, relay or request information (e.g. 'need to see Granny; 'finished tea all gone’).

 Heuristic Language

Language used to explore the world and to learn and discover- children use language to learn. This may be questions and answers, or the running commentary that frequently accompanies children's play (e.g. 'Why is that bird singing?;"Why is the Sun vellow?'; "Where does the sea go?: The dollies are having tea in the doll's house, 'Suki is building trains'; 'Riya needs hat for Elsa).

Imaginative Language

Language used to explore the imagination - may also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling (e.g 'teddy's going to school'; ‘farmer in his tractor driving brum brum’).