VCE English Language 3 and 4 Metalanguage

Affixation

The process of combining a root and an affix, which can be a prefix, infix or suffix.

e.g: PREFIX: untrue, dislocate

INFIX: absobloodylutely

SUFFIX: friendly, faithless

Blending

The process of word formation in which parts of two independent words (one word can be in full) are combined to create a new word.

MALWARE: malicious + software

SMOG: smoke + fog

Borrowing

The process of acquiring new words or grammatical features from another language.

ARABIC: giraffe, lute

SPANISH: cargo, cigar

ITALIAN: latte

Collocation

The tendency for some words to occur in close association with each other.

e.g: hard-earned money, fast food

Commonisation

The process in which a brand name or other proper name becomes a common noun. The commonisation name is used to refer to all types of the same product regardless of by whom it is manufactured.

e.g: esky (coolers), band Aid (sticking plaster)

Compounding

The creation of a new word by combining two words that already exist.

e.g. Mouthwash (mouth + wash), Carport (car + port)

Contraction

A reduced form of one or more words in which the first and last letters remain the same, but some of the letters in the middle have been removed.

e.g: can't, won't, didn't, it's

Neologism

The creation of a new word or expression to fill a gap.

e.g: tweeting (to post on Twitter)

Shortening

The process of creating a new word by truncating a longer word.

e.g: Exam (from examination), plane (from aeroplane)

Alliteration

The use of the same initial sound in consecutive words, or in close succession.

e.g: Wonderful winter wonderland

Assonance

The repetition of identical vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of successive words, or in a series of words.

e.g: "No pay, no play"

Consonance

The repetition of identical consonant sounds, especially in the first syllables of successive words, or in a series of words.

e.g: "A stroke of luck", "Beanz Meanz Heinz", "Odds and ends"

Rhyme

A type of phonological patterning in which a word agrees with another in final sound

e.g: "Bright light", "Apples and pears = stairs"

Rhythm

The flow of words produced by consistent patterns of stress placement

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas that are similarly structured and used to show different ideas.

e.g:

"Big on comfort, small on price"

"If he wins, you lose"

Ellipsis

The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding because the meaning can be gauged from the context.

e.g:

"I went to school, but my friend didn't [go to school]"

"[Are you] coming to the party?"

Front-focus

Movement of a clause element (usually the adverbial) other than the subject to the beginning of a sentence.

e.g: Very slowly, John walked up the street.

Listing

Repetition of lexical items or grammatical structures to form a list.

e.g: I need apples, bananas and pears from the shop.

Nominalisation

Forming a noun or noun phrase from some other part of speech, most usually a verb.

e.g:

Verb to Noun: "We walked for charity" becomes "The charity walk"

Parallelism

The repetition of similar syntactic structures in a pair or series of related words, phrases or clauses.

e.g: "What you see is what you get

"I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock"

Anaphoric referencing

The use of pronouns (or other lexical items) which refer back to something already mentioned in the text.

e.g: "The fish was fresh, so it tasted delicious"

"Tim bought a PS4 after he got his pay"

Cataphoric referencing

The use of pronouns (or other lexical items) which refers to something that hasn't been mentioned in the text.

e.g: "The sisters thought she was ugly, but Prince Charming thought Cinderella was beautiful"

Deictic expressions

Terms used to denote words or expressions that rely on the context to convey meaning. 'Pointer' words.

e.g: this, that, those, now, then

Substitution

The replacement of one linguistic term by another, often in the following clause.

e.g: I've lost my pencil. Do you have one?

Personification

A type of figurative language in which non-human things are given human qualities (e.g emotions, desires, expressions, etc).

e.g: The wind howled.

Connotation

a feeling or idea that is suggested by a particular word although it need not be a part of the word's meaning, or something suggested by an object or situation:

Mother: caring (positive), excessive concern (negative)

Hollywood: success (positive), cheap and tacky (negative)

Denotation

The literal meaning of a word, its dictionary definition.

Euphemism

The substitution of a mild, indirect or vague term for one that is considered harsh, blunt or offensive (taboo)

e.g: "pass away" instead of "die"

Dysphemism

The use of a disagreeable, offensive word for an otherwise inoffensive term.

e.g: "pig" for policeman

Idiom

An expression that means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words.

e.g: "Raining cats and dogs"

"Keeping an eye on things"

Irony

The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. It is an expression marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.

e.g: Saying "lovely weather we're having" on a rainy day.

Lexical ambiguity

When a lexical item can be interpreted with more than one meaning.

"The teacher raved about his students" - is the teacher raving because he is angry or happy?

Metaphor

Type of figurative language in which the meaning of one thing is transferred to another to which it is not literally applicable, in order to suggest a strong resemblance.

"The city is a concrete jungle"

"Broken heart"

"Feeling blue"

Oxymoron

The use of contradictory words in a phrase.

e.g: "Deafening silence"

Pun

A play on words that makes humorous use of multiple meanings of words, or of words that sound similar but are different in meaning.

"Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses"

"An Elephant's opinion carries a lot of weight"

Simile

Type of figurative language that performs the function of comparing two things because they share similar qualities.

"He is as strong as an Ox"

"She sings like an angel"

Assimilation

When a sound is changed, sometimes to become more similar to a neighbouring sound.

e.g: samwich instead of "sandwich", goin' instead of going

Elision

When a sound is omitted.

e.g: 'cos, 'ere, 'n

Insertion

When a sound is introduced between other sounds, often in the middle of a word.

e.g: athelete (athlete), knowan (known) or drawring (drawing)

Stress

Prosodic feature used to highlight and/or strengthen a point being made by the speaker. Ensures audience is focused on the central theme/issue.

Rising intonation

Intonation that suggests that there is more to follow. More frequent use is referred to as High Rising Terminal (HRT).

Falling intonation

Intonation that implies a sense of finality, helping the audience recognise the end of an utterance.

Tempo

Speed of speaking. Fast speed usually means that the speaker is excited or upset, whereas a slow speed means that the speaker is choosing their words more carefully.

Adjacency pair

Two-part exchanges that follow a predictable pattern and have close association with each other. Common pairs:

QUESTION & ANSWER - Whose book is this? I think it's mine.

STATEMENT & RESPONSE - You didn't do your homework. Yes I did.

GREETING & RESPONSE - Good morning. Good morning to you, too.

Minimal response

Short responses by the audience in a spoken interaction to indicate they are actively listening by offering support, encouragement or acknowledgement. These can take the form of the words such as 'yeah', 'ok', 'right' or sounds like 'hmm', 'ahh' or 'oh'. Also known as backchanneling.

Discourse particle

Words or small expressions that are used in a text to communicate to the audience information such as changes of topic, turn-taking, personal attitudes and other nuances of meaning. Examples include well, yep, you know, sort of, like and I mean.

False start

When a speaker, having already begun an utterance, hesitates or changes his or her mind about what they want to say. This often takes the form of changing from one grammatical construction to another one before the initial construction has been completed.

e.g: "I drove my- (.) I took the Camry to work"

Openings and closings

Employed at the beginning and end of conversations to clearly signal the intention of the speaker and avoid ambiguity.

e.g: "Welcome to AAMI. This is John speaking. How may I help you?

"Thank you for joining us today"

Hedging expression

A word or phrase that makes a statement less forceful or assertive. Avoid a definite commitment on the speaker's part, which may be advantageous in certain circumstances. Common examples include: 'perhaps, 'hopefully', 'probably', 'approximately' and 'maybe'

Pause

When a speaker breathes during a turn at talking or when he or she needs time to think - nothing is uttered

Filled pauses/voiced hesitations

Expressions such as 'um' and 'err' that are used by a speaker to indicate that a turn has not finished, even though he or she may have briefly stopped speaking. Allow a speaker some thinking time in order to plan what he or she will say next. Indicates a desire to retain the floor, which is subconsciously understood by the audience.

Phatic communication

Technical term for small talk or social chit-chat. Plays an important role in establishing and maintaining social relationships.

Politeness marker

Expressions that are used to show courtesy and respect towards others, and to mark social status and/or social distance. Common expressions include 'please' and 'thank you'.

Vocative

Type of lexeme used by the speaker to name or refer to someone else when talking to them. Has two functions:

To call someone in order to gain their attention ("John, it's time to go to school") or to address someone, expressing particular social relationships or attitudes ("Waiter, my soup is cold").

Common terms: Mr, Ms, Mrs, Sir, Madam, etc.

Colloquial language

Informal language that is not rude, but would not be used in formal situations. Makes discourse more personal, direct, sincere, sociable, blunt, playful or amusing.

Clause

Consists of a subject-verb combination. Subject can be a noun, pronoun or phrase.

Simple sentence

Sentence that contains only one independent clause.

Complex sentence

Sentence that contains an independent clause plus one or more subordinate clauses.

Inference

Reader required to bring knowledge that isn't expressed explicitly within a text

Coherence

The connections that exist within a text to make it meaningful/make sense eg formatting, text type conventions, inference, logical development of ideas, consistency of field-specific language

Cohesion

The linguistic connections and ties that exist between the words and sentences to give structure to a text. Anaphoric/Cataphoric referencing, deictic words, antonyms, synonyms, hyponymy, collocation, conjunctions, adverbials, ellipsis, repetition, substitution.

Non-fluency features

Includes false starts, repetitions, pauses, pause fillers

Declarative

Sentence type where a statement is made.

Imperative

Sentence type where a directive is issued

Interrogative

Sentence type where a question is asked

Exclamative

Sentence type where an exclamation is expressed.

Accent

A characteristic way of pronouncing a language or variety that is identified with national, regional, social or ethnic background.

Active

Most common type of grammatical voice, whereby the actor or agent occurs as the subject and the patient occurs as the object. (e.g: Fred kicked the dog)

Adverbial

A word or phrase functioning as a major clause constituent and typically expressing place (in the garden), time (in May), or manner (quickly).

Agentless passive

A passive without an agent or doer of the action.

Auxiliary verb

Type of verb that is used to support main verbs. They are inflected for person, number and tense. e.g: I WAS running.

Covert norms

The linguistic features that are valued by a sub-group within a community, usually associated with non-standard language. These attract covert prestige.

Hypocoristic use of suffixes

A suffix added to a common or proper noun (or shortened version) that indicates smallness and usually expresses affection (sometimes dismissal). Very common in Australian English. e.g: Tassie, Salvo.

Doublespeak

Language that conceals the true meaning of a word or utterance by making the negative seem positive

Face

One's public self-image.

Positive face

Self-esteem - the desire to be liked and valued.

Negative face

The want of a person not to be imposed upon.

Field

What you are communicating about.

e.g: The _____ of religion, the _____ of sport.

Figurative language

Language that is used in a non-literal way in order to invoke revealing comparisons. Includes metaphors, similes and oxymorons.

Function words

Words that have purely grammatical meaning and do not refer to anything in the real word; e.g: the, to, by.

Content words

Words that have real world meaning; e.g: table, leg, man.

Intensifier

A word or phrase that adds emphasis or colour; e.g: very, awfully, terribly.

Interlocutors

The people involved in a communication.

Jargon

Language shared by those who belong to a profession, trade or some other occupational group. Has two distinct functions:

1. To serve as a technical or specialist language (for precise and economical communication).

2. To promote in-group solidarity.

Lexicology

The study of the vocabulary of a language.

Lexicon

The vocabulary of a language.

Modal verbs

The type of verbs such as; can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might and must, that signal the attitude of the speaker and express notions such as probability, possibility, doubt, contingency, wishing and so on.

Morphology

The study of subunits of meaning which make up a word.

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit of grammar in a language.

Orthography

The study of the use of letters in a language, it includes the rules of spelling.

Overt norms

The linguistic features that are recognised by the culturally dominant group, usually associated with standard language. These attain overt prestige.

Slang

An in-group language feature in which people with something in common will interact and is often bound by time and generation. Is informal, usually spoken and involves mainly vocabulary. Playfulness is a striking feature.

Sociolect

A variety used by people from different social groups

Migrant ethnolect

A variety of a language associated with a certain ethnic or cultural subgroup