Language and Culture Terminology

Terms that should be explained

Native language

The language that is primarily used by an individual or a community.

First language

The language which someone acquires first. It is believed that in most cases, the ______ would be the equivalent to the native language.

Second language

The language a person acquires after their first language. Applies to multilinguals. The ______ is usually not native to the community and is used for certain purposes or certain social levels within the community.

Mother tongue

Some believe that it is the innate language which someone is exposed to even before they were born. A _____ is also connected to people’s identity and sense of belonging through emotional appeal.

Dominant language

The language in which a bilingual or multilingual person knows best or uses most often. It can also refer to the main language used amongst a community or region.

Language attitude

Feelings, opinions, and beliefs people have about a certain language, dialect, or accent.

Accent

A way of speaking that is influenced and shaped by a combination of geography, social class, education, ethnicity, and a person’s first language.

Dialect

A specific form of a language which is spoken in a particular region or social group. It differs in vocabulary, grammar, and/or pronunciation.

Stressed/unstressed

The weight a person places on a certain syllable or word in the same word with other syllables or sentence.

Syllables

A single unit of speech, which could be a word, part of a word that can be how a word is broken apart, and often contains a vowel. 

Consonants

Letters or a speech sound that is not a vowel or contains a vowel. Any letters apart from A, E, I, O, U (sometimes Y) are consonants.

Vowels

Letters or speech sounds that are made when air flows through the mouth without being blocked by the teeth, tongue, or lips. (A, E, I, O, U)

Prosody

Rhythm and intonation of language.

Intonation

The way a speaker’s voice rises and falls.

Vernacular

Form of language that a group of speakers uses naturally in informal events.

Slang

Informal language that is primarily spoken, not written.

Bilingual

A person who possesses a first and second language.

Multilingual

A person who possesses three or more languages.

Linguistics

The study of the human language and its structure, which includes the five components of language.

Sociolinguistics

A branch under linguistics that studies language in relation to social factors, such as the differences of class, regional, and occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism. 

Phonology

The study of how speech sounds are structured or functions to create meaning amongst languages.

Phonemes

The smallest unit of sound in a language that is spoken, which can change a word’s meaning.

Morphology

The study of how words are formed and are connected to other words in a language.

Morphemes

The smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function.

Semantics

The study of how individual words, phrases, and sentences create meaning.

Syntax

The study of grammatical structure of words and phrases to create coherent sentences amongst a language.

Pragmatics

The study of how context, speaker’s intention, and social interactions can influence the meaning of language. 

Linguistic relativity/relativism

The structuring of our language and its predetermined categories hardly impact how we perceive the external environment around us.

Linguistic determinism/Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Language is directly determining our thought process, and we only have the ability to think in the categories that are created by our language.

Universalism

Broad term to describe the belief that all human beings share the same “concept” (could be values, abilities, etc.)

Language Acquisition

The natural process by which people, especially children, become able to understand and speak a language, without the need for lessons or learning rules.

Language

A tool for communication.

Culture

Socially acquired knowledge.

Semiotics

The study of language as a system of signs.

Signifier

The indicator for a concept or meaning.

Signified

The concept associated with a signifier.

Linguistic Sign

Signifier + Signified