English AOS1 (not CRAPs)

Phonetics and phonology, spoken discourse and pragmatics, Morphology, Lexicology, Syntax, Semantics

Prosodic features

The elements of speech that exist outside single sounds such as vowels or consonants.

Stress

The intensity placed upon a syllable within a word.

Intonation

The patterns of pitch variation across phrases/clauses/sentences.

Pitch

The relative height of auditory sound.

Tempo

The pace with which an intonation unit is delivered

Volume

The relative increase or decrease in decibels across an intonation unit.

Phonological patterning

A set of phonological language features in written and spoken texts each with a distinct effect that varies depending on its context.

Alliteration

The repetition of sounds at the start of a word.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in the centre of a word

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds in the centre of a word.

Rhyme

Repetition of the same sound at the end of a word.

Rhythm

When the intonation of a set of words is repeated across two or more phrases/clauses/sentences.

Onomatopoeia

Words that represent sounds

Connected speech processes

How sounds change/blend/disappear when words are spoken together in natural continuous discourse.

Assimilation

When we change the sounds in a word to make them easier to say.

Vowel Reduction

Vowels are shortened and tend to make some speech unclear or relaxed.

Schwa

A short unstressed sound represented by the IPA symbol /ə/.

Elision (Opposite of Insertion)

When a speaker drops a sound segment usually vowels sometimes consonants and syllables.

Insertion (Opposite of Elision)

When a speaker adds a sound that would not normally be there.

Morphology (Greek word)

‘morphe’ meaning shape or form.

Morpheme

Smallest unit of meaning in a word.

Free morpheme

can’t be divided up any smaller and they can stand alone as a word.

Bound Morpheme

have to be attached to a root or stem to be used in a word.

Root

Smallest unit of meaning in a word and it carries the word’s primary meaning.

Stem

A unit of meaning that’s made up of more than one morpheme.

Prefix

Bound morpheme at the start of a word

Suffix

Bound morpheme at the end of a word

Infix

bound morpheme in the middle of a word

Inflectional

Add to the word to make it make sense in the context. Doesn’t change the meaning or word class.

Derivational

Change or add to the meaning of a word. Changes the meaning and word class.

Lexicology

the study of words. This includes how they behave

Noun (Content word)

words that name places/things/qualities/ideas.

Common noun

can be concrete or abstract general terms

Proper Noun

these are always capitalised and name specific things like places or people.

Pronoun (Function word)

short words that replace nouns and noun phrases in a sentence.

Verb (Content word)

Verbs are action words that denote an action/process/state.

Infinitives

An infinitive is a form of a verb which can be used as a noun/adjective/adverb. You usually make it a verb by adding ‘to’ before it.

Participles

Participles are forms of verbs which can be used to create certain tenses/aspects or used as adjectives.

Auxiliary Verb (Function word)

These modify or change some aspect of the main verb. They are used to form tense/form negatives/create questions/form the passive voice. They usually come before another verb.

Modal Verb (Function word)

Verbs used to express possibility/ability/intent/obligation/the necessity of an action happening.

Adjective (Content word)

These modify nouns. They are usually located before nouns or just after verbs. Can take -er or -est suffixes to indicate comparison or superlatives.

Adverb (Content word)

Adverbs are used to describe/modify/qualify other parts of speech. Usually verbs/adjectives/other adverbs and in some cases entire sentences.

Preposition (Function word)

A preposition explains the relationship between a noun and other elements in a sentence like words or phrases.

Conjunction (Function word)

These words link words/phrases and sentences together.

Coordinating

These conjunctions place two or more elements side by side in a way that shows they are equal.

Subordinating

These conjunctions connect two or more elements.

Determiner (Function word)

introduce nouns/noun phrases and act as modifiers.

Interjection (Content word)

Are words that express strong feelings. sometimes interjections can also be requests or demands. They are usually highly expressive or emotive.

Syntax

is the study of how words are ordered. This can include phrases/clauses/sentences. It also explores the communicative purpose of sentences.

Sentence types

Useful for functions. Tell you what a sentence is doing

Interrogative

This type of sentence poses a question. as a rule it generally ends in a question mark.

Declarative

this type of sentence ‘declares’ something. It is a statement of some kind. It does not need to be true/accurate.

Imperative

This type of sentence gives commands/ makes demands/requests. They generally end with a full stop.

Exclamative

These express strong emotions. The purpose of these sentences is to emphasise something. They are often constructed using ‘what’ and ‘how’.

Subject

A person/place/thing/idea that the sentence is ‘about’. They are the main ‘actor’.

Verb

Action words that denote an action/process/state.

Object

This part of a clause provides extra information to the subject and verb. It can tell us extra information about the action.

Predicate

Collection of words that goes together. not a whole sentence. Can have a subject or a verb

Phrases

they lack a subject and predicate. They might have a verb or a subject but they never have both.

Noun

This contains a noun or other related words that help describe the noun. They are typically modifiers or determiners.

Verb

A verb phrase is a main verb plus any auxiliaries/related words/modifiers.

Prepositional

this is a preposition and the object of the preposition and any modifiers. They usually start with a preposition and end with a noun phrase.

Adjective

a group of words acting as an adjective in a sentence and any modifiers.

Adverb

These are words that function as an adverb in the sentence. they modify a verb/ adjective/another verb.

Clauses

a clause is a group of words containing a subject and a verb

Independent

Can be a sentence on their own

Dependant

Need to be attached to the rest of a sentence

Coordinating (FANBOYS)

For And Nor But Or Yet So

subordinating

Tie an independent to a dependant clause with prepositions being used at conjunction

Give extra information in the dependent clause

Simple sentence structure

1 clause. Can be long or short (2 words min). Only has one subject and one verb. Can have other structural elements

compound sentence structure

2+ clauses - all independent. FANBOYS

complex sentence structure

2+ clauses (1 independent & 1+ dependent) subordinators

Compound - complex sentence structure

2+ clauses (2+ independent

fragment sentence structure

Not a complete sentence. missing subject or verb

Paralinguistics

The non-verbal elements of communication that accompany spoken language.

Features of spoken discourse

These are the things we do usually without thinking much about them

Openings and Closings

The often formulaic ways that we open and close a conversation.

Adjacency pairs

Adjacent turns in spoken discourse that relate to each other. Often includes questions and answers/greetings/responses.

Minimal responses

Sounds and words that let us show our encouragement and support for the speaker. Minimal responses are used for back-channelling to show we are listening.

Overlapping speech

Talking over the top of one another. Overlapping is very common in spontaneous discourse. Overlapping can be cooperative (agreeing with the other speaker/s) or competitive (jumping in)

Discourse particles

The little ‘fillers’ we insert in our speech for a particular purpose. These markers have a role; often they are to react (OMG!) or they help to hedge and reduce the force of a statement.

Non-Fluency features

A natural part of speech. Occurs mostly when we’re trying to formulate words or ideas and often at grammatical boundaries in our speech.

Strategies of spoken discourse

These are things we are usually more conscious of

Topic Management

These are the strategies we use for controlling the topic of conversation.

Turn Taking

For a conversation to run smoothly. participants need to respect the cultural norms in the particular social context.

Management of repair sequences

Repair management is the process used by speakers to identify and correct communication problems in spoken discourse to ensure smooth and continuous conversation. These problems could be related to pronunciation/grammar/word choice/misunderstanding.

Code Switching

When a speaker switches between two or more languages in a single interaction or text. Code switching can be done for many purposes including to demonstrate group membership/to reflect a shared cultural/linguistic background/to increase social bonds.

Semantics

What words mean

Domain

Words can be grouped together in specific domains because they have interrelated meanings.

Inference

Filling in the gaps with what’s not said. Not background knowledge. Reading between the lines/meaning is implied.

Denotation

The literal meaning of the word

Connotation

The values/feelings/emotional associations attached to different words.

simile

Uses ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare one thing to another.