English Language 3/4 Metalanguage VCE

Acronym

A word formed by using the initial letter of other words e.g. 'ANZAC'

Active voice

The grammatical structure where the subject is the 'actor' of the sentence, e.g. 'The cat chased the mouse'

Adjacency pairs

Adjacent turns in spoken discourse which relate to each other, such as question and answers or greetings and reponses

Adjective

A word which qualifies a noun e.g. The big elephant

Adverb

A word which qualifies a verb e.g. she sang softly

Adverbial

An element of cause structure. Adverbials perform several roles in a sentence: they can modify verbs e.g. he spoke hesitantly or link clauses together e.g. however, moreover

Affixation

The are three types of affixes, prefix, suffix and infix

Alliteration

The use of the same initial sounds in consecutive words e.g. wonderful water

Anaphoric reference

The use of pronouns to refer back to something already mentioned in a sentence, e.g. 'The cake was delicious and everybody ate it'

Animation

The process of giving animate or life like qualities to something

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting words/ideas e.g. big on comfort, small on price

Antonymy

The use of words which are opposite in meaning

Assimilation

The process which refers to sound being altered so they become closer to a neighbouring sound e.g. sandwich -> sam which

Assonance

The use of identical vowel sounds within words e.g. get better

Auxiliary verb

A verb which precedes the main verb e.g. to be, to have or to do

Back channelling

This indicates support, encouragement or acknowledgement in conversations e.g. mm, yes and right

Blend

A word composed of elements of other words e.g. ginormous - gigantic + enormous

Broad Australian Accent

The accent which is identified with the 'Australian twang'

Cataphoric reference

Pronouns which refer to something yet be mentioned e.g. 'It was beautiful - a holiday to remember'

Clause

A grammatical unit larger than a phrase and which usually contains a verb e.g. I hate Mondays

Clefting

Splitting a single clause into two clauses, each with its own verb e.g. Jenny ate the ice-cream -> It was jenny who ate the ice-cream

Coherence

Logically developed and integrated speech or writing

Cohesion

Links or connections which link one reference to another and mark the continuity of ideas. Cohesive ties include pronouns, conjunctions, ellipsis, subsitution, synonyms and antonyms

Collocation

A pairing or group of words which frequently go together e.g. tropical paradise

Colloquialism

An informal phrase or word

Complement

Complements give extra information about another clause element such as the subject or object

Complex sentence

A sentence made up of one main and at leas one subordinate clause

Compound sentence

A sentence made up of at least two main clauses joined together by a co-ordinating conjunction

Compounding

The combing of two or more free morphemes to make a new word e.g. armchair

Compound-complex sentence

A sentence that contains both co-ordination and subordination

Conjunction

A word which joins phrases, clauses or words. Co-ordinating conjunctions include: and, or, but. Subordinating conjunctions include: however, although and because

Connotation

The set of associations implied by a word in addition to its literal meaning

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds in words e.g. white gate

Content words

Words which carry the main meaning in a sentence: verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs

Context

The circumstances in which speech and writing take place

Contraction

A shortened form of one or more words such as you're, can't and he's

Co-ordination

The linking of two language units which have the same status

Covert norms

Language varieties which are associated with non-standard English and which have prestige within the social groups that use them. Covert prestige is acquired bye speakers wishing to belong to a certain community

Cultivated Australian Accent

An accent used by around ten percent of the Australian population. It is more rounded in its articulation of vowels than General or Broad accents

Declarative sentences

Sentences which are statements e.g. The sun was shining

Deixis

Terms which refer to the personal, temporal or locational characteristics of a situation and whose meaning only make sense in that context or situation. Words such as 'here', 'there', 'this' and 'that' only make sense when taken in context

Denotation

the dictionary definition of a word

Derivational morphemes

Affixes which can change the meaning or class of a word e.g. un-satisfactory

Descriptivism

A linguistic approach which focuses on language as it is, rather than how it should be

Determiner

A word which expresses the grammatical categories of definitesness, number, and possession

Dialect

The language of a regional or social group

Discourse

the overall patterns and structure of a spoken or written text which enable it to communicate meaning

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 the previous topic e.g. anyway, well, yeah, yeah-no

Doublespeak

Language which is deliberately used to confuse, mislead or obscure e.g downsizing operations for sacking

Dysphemism

A harsh or offensive word or expression in place of a more neutral one e.g. 'he carked it' rather than 'he died'

Elision

The deletion of sound in connected speech e.g. 'fish 'n' chips'

Ellipsis

The omission of words or phrases in a sentence because meaning can be gauged from context e.g. 'coming?' instead of 'Are you coming to the party tonight?'

Emoticons

A combination of keyboard characters to represent an emotion or paralinguistic cue.

End focus

Give or familiar information followed by new information. This gives prominence to the final part of the sentence and can enable suspense to build

Epenthesis

This refers to the addition of sounds in certain words e.g. known -> knowan

Ethnolect

A variety of language spoken by a particular ethnic gorup. Migrant Englishes, instance are referred to as ethnolects. Such varieties of English are often marked by phonological or grammatical features of the speakers' native language

Euphemism

A mild or polite word or expression in place of a neutral one e.g. 'he passed away' vs 'he died'. A euphemism is the opposite of a dysphemism

Exclamative sentence

A sentence which expresses an emotion; often beginning with 'what' or 'how' e.g. 'What big teeth you have'

Expository essay

An essay which requires you to explain, explore or comment on a particular statement or quote.

False start

A hesitation or change of mind once a a speaker starts talking, very common in spontaneous discourse

Field

Another term for 'domain' or subject/topic

Figurative language

expressive use of language where words are used in a non-literal way i.e. idioms, metaphors, puns, personification

Flapping

The 'd' sound heard in place of 't' in words like butter -> budder

Floor-holding strategies

Techniques used by speakers to maintain their turn in conversation

Formulaic expressions

Language which follows a set pattern. Openings and closings of conversation usually contain formulaic expressions, such as 'Pleased to meet you' or 'See you later'

Front focus

Bringing information which would normally occur later to the front position in a sentence, to give it extra prominence

Function

The purpose of role of language use e.g. to inform, to persuade or to instruct

General Australian accent

The accent used by the great majority of the Australian population

HRT

The use of a high-rising or questioning intonation tat the end of a statement. Typical in young speakers, it has a range of discourse functions, such as seeking empathy or keeping the other interlocutors involved in the conversation

Hyponymy

The relationship between general and specific lexical items. For example 'dog' is a hyponym of 'animal'

Idiolect

A person's individual style of speech. Idiolects are marked by idiosyncratic features such as pronunciation or word choice

Idiom

A non-literal expression

Imperative

A command, directive or warning. Imperatives do not contain a subject and the verb is always in the infinitive form e.g. 'Add the eggs' or 'Be careful'

Inference

Something that has been deduced by using implicit information

Infix

An affix which occurs in the middle of a word, for example 'un-bloody-likely'

Inflection

A morphological term in word formation. Inflectional affixes signal grammatical relationships, such as plural, past tense and possession e.g. talk, talked

Information flow

Strategies for presenting information within a sentence, such as front focus, end focus clefting

Initialism

A word formation process where the initial letter of each word forms a group of initials e.g. RSVP Unlike acronyms, initialisms cannot be pronounced as words

Insertion

A phonological term referring to the additional sounds in speech which ease articulation e.g pronouncing drawing as 'draw-ring' instead of 'draw-ing'

Interlocutor

A participant in a conversation or dialogue

Interjection

Emotional noises, such as 'oh!', 'yuck!'

Interrogative

A question such as "what are you doing?"

Interrogative tag

Little expressions, such as 'isn't it' and 'will she?' which turn statements into quesitons

IPA

The international phonetic alphabet

Irony

A form of figurative language where the implication is the opposite of what is stated. It is often used for humuorus effect.

Jargon

The language of a particular social group or occupation. For instance, the jargon of law contains such terms as 'affidavit' and 'defendant'

Lexeme

A unit of vocabulary; a word

Lexical ambiguity

Ambiguity which arises due to the alternative meanings of a word

Lexicon

Another word for 'vocabulary'. Dictionaries contain the entire 'lexicon' of a language, and certain fields have their own lexicon or specialist vocabulary

Lexicology

The study of the lexicon of a language

Listing

A form of syntactic patterning; the repetition of grammatical structure to form a list

Metaphor

A type of figurative language where non-literal language expresses a concept or idea e.g. The playground was a jungle

Minimal responses

The co-operative responses or 'back-channelling' made by speakers to encourage their interlocutors to keep talking.

Modal auxiliary/verb

Verbs which convey necessity, possibility, obligation or probability e.g. must, may, might, can, could, should, would, will, shall.

Mode

The form language takes: spoken, written or signed

Morpheme

A 'morpheme' or 'root' is the smallest possible unit of meaning in composing words - 'free' morphemes can stand alone as words in their own right e.g. play and mouse, whereas 'bound' morphemes are prefixes and suffixes e.g. ing and un which must be attached to another morpheme to make sense

Morphology

The study of the structure of composition of words

Negative face

The need to be autonomous and act without imposition from others. Negative face refer to one's freedom to acti, and it is threatened when one person is forced to submit to the will of their interlocutor. Threats and warnings are examples of violating negative face needs.

Neologism

A new word or phrase in a language

Nominalisation

The conversion of verbs into nouns. Often a feature of bureaucratic language. e.g. 'their response' instead of 'they replied'