English Language metalanguage

All metalanguage for Unit 3 (and 4?)

Phonetics/Phonology

Phonetics is the study of how we make speech sounds and how we organise these sounds. Phonology is the study of the patterns that speech sounds form within a language.

Prosodic features

Volume
Pitch
Intonation
Tempo
Stress

Volume

The loudness of speech sounds

Pitch

The highness or lowness of a sound

Intonation

The variation or emphasis of pitch in speech that coveys emotion

Tempo

The speed at which speech is delivered

Stress

Emphasis on a part of the word to indicate meaning or importance

Connected speech processes

Speech processes where words are reduced or modified. In written texts, the lexical choices are spelt as if they were spoken. Includes assimilation, vowel reduction, insertion and elision.

Assimilation

When two sounds become more similar to one another because they are spoken consecutively

Vowel reduction

Absence of stress on a vowel

Insertion

The idea that we add a phoneme to a lexeme for ease of pronunciation. For example, ‘athlete’ may sometimes be pronounced as ‘athelete’.

Elision

The process of removing phonemes from lexemes to create a more free-flowing speech. For example, the lexeme ‘interesting’ would more commonly be pronounced as ‘intresting’.

Phonological patterning

A set of phonological language features in written and spoken texts used to express creativity or maintain attention of an audience. Includes alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, rhythm, rhyme

Alliteration

The repetition of phonemes at the beginning of words in a phrase, clause or sentence.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel phonemes across phrases, clauses or sentences.

Consonance

The repetition of consonant phonemes, often at syllable­ final boundaries.

Onomatopoeia

The process by which evocative words are created from the sounds they represent. ‘bang’ ‘pow’

Rhythm

Created when the intonation of a set of words is repeated across two or more phrases, clauses or sentences. ‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.’

Rhyme

The repetition of similar phonemes at the ends of two or more words. ‘The potato cake was fake.’

Morphology

Te study of words and their parts. Each word consists of one or more morphemes, which is the smallest unit of meaning within a word.

Morphemes

Root, stem
Free, bound
Affix (prefix, suffix, infix)
Inflectional, derivational

Root & stem

The root is the unit that provides the core meaning and to which affixes may be attached.
The stem is the unit to which affixes are attached.

Free & bound

A free morpheme is a stand-alone word, like ‘dog.’ ‘Dog’ cannot be broken into smaller morphemes without losing the word's meaning.
Bound morphemes cannot stand by themselves as words, such as the -s in the word ‘pens’

affix (prefix, suffix, infix)

Some morphemes are affixes: they can’t stand on their own, and have to attach to a base.
A prefix is an affix that attaches before its base, like inter- in international.

A suffix is an affix that follows its base, like -s in cats.

An infix is an affix that attaches inside its base.

inflectional & derivational

An inflectional morpheme is added to a noun, verb, adjective or adverb to assign a particular grammatical property to that word such as: tense, number, possession, or comparison. ‘Cats’, ‘Alex’s’, ‘stopped’ ‘running’.

Derivational morphemes help us to create new words out of base words. For example, we can create new words from ‘act’ by adding derivational prefixes and suffixes. So from ‘act’ we can get: re+act = react en+act = enact act+or = actor

Word formation processes/morphological patterning

Morphological patterning is the repeated presence of word formation processes. Affixation
Abbreviation
Shortening
Compounding
Blending
Backformation
Conversion of a word class
Initialism, acronym
Contraction

affixation

The use of affixes (prefixes or suffixes) to create new words. ‘government’ = ‘govern’ + the suffix ‘ment’

abbreviation

Shortened forms of words or phrases. ‘Dr’ instead of ‘Doctor’

Shortening

Abbreviating a word by reducing its length. ‘Lab’ instead of ‘Laboratory’

Compounding

The process of joining two or more whole words to create a single word. ‘Bookcase’

Blending

The process of combing two or more words, where at least one word has undergone a form of abbreviation before being joined. ‘Kidult’ (kid-adult)

Backformation

the process of creating a new word by removing what is falsely believed to be an affix from an existing word. ‘televise’ from ‘television’

Conversion of a word class

Changing the class of a word without changing the methodology. ‘email’ which was once a noun is now also a verb.

Initialism

A form of abbreviation formed by taking the first letters of words in a string of words and pronouncing them as letters or a combination of letters. ‘VCE’

Acronym

Form of abbreviation formed by taking the first letter of each word in a string of words and pronouncing them as a whole. ‘ANZAC’ ‘LOL’

Contraction

A word formed by removing some letters from words and marking the missing letter/s with an apostrophe. ‘she’s’ (she has)

Lexicology

The study of words and how they behave in the English language.

Word classes

Nouns
Verbs - auxiliary and modal
Adjectives
Adverbs
Prepositions
Conjunctions - subordinating and coordinating
Determiners
Interjections

Nouns

Words that name places, people, things, qualities, ideas or concepts. Places, people, things are concrete nouns. Ideas and concepts are classed as abstract nouns.

Verbs - auxiliary and modal

Expresses actions, states or occurrences of a person, animal, place or thing.

Auxiliary - Used to build up or complete the verb. Primary auxiliary verbs ‘be, have, do’. Show progressive passive, perfect and negative verb tenses.

Modal auxiliary - ‘can, could, may, might, will, would’. Represent ability, permission, necessity and the degree of certainty. Followed by the simple form of the verb.

Adjectives

Words that describe or modify nouns and pronouns, providing more information about them. Can indicate qualities, size, age, colour, shape or other characteristics of the noun. ‘Fatal, sensible, false, heat-oppressed’

Adverbs

Modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs or sentences. They provide information about elements such as time, place, manner, frequency, degree, and cause and effect.
He completed the course enthusiastically.
Enthusiastically describes how he completed the course and answers the how question.

Steven recently enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Communication program at Walden.
Recently modifies the verb enroll and answers the when question.

Then, I verified that most of my sources were peer-reviewed.
Then describes and modifies the entire sentence. This is a conjunctive adverb (adverbs that join one idea to another to improve the cohesion of the writing).

Prepositions

Words used before nouns, pronouns or phrases to indicate elements such as direction, time, place, location and spacial relationships. ‘of’ and ‘in’ ‘under’ ‘above’ ‘before’ ‘after’

Pronouns

Replace nouns and noun phrases within a sentence. ‘She, he, they, I, we’

Conjunctions - subordinating and coordinating

Words that join two clauses.
Coordinating - link words, phrases or clauses of equal rank. ‘for, and, nor, but, or, so, yet’
Subordinating - Introduce dependant clauses and link them to main clauses. ‘because, although, if, while, since’

Determiners

Words that are placed in front of nouns to help clarify the noun, specify quantity or indicate possession. articles ‘a, an, the’, demonstratives ‘this and that’, possessive pronouns ‘my and yours’ and quantifiers ‘some, many’.

Interjections

Words or phrases that express emotions and sometimes requests. They tend to be expressive and indicate strong emotions such as sadness, surprise and joy. ‘Wow!’ ‘That’s amazing!’.

Lexical pattering

Repeated lexemes

Lexical word formation processes

Neologisms
Borrowing
Commonisations
Nominalisation

Neologisms

A newly coined word or expression, or expression, or a new usage of language. Often occur due to the need to express concepts that previously had no linguistic representation, and can arise from technological advances and cultural changes.

Borrowing

Words that have been adopted from one language into another. Borrowings can occur when there is contact between cultures with different languages, and there’s a need to express concepts or objects that exist in one culture but not in the other.

Commonisations

The process by which proper nouns become common nouns. ‘Band-aid’ has been commonised to refer to any adhesive bandage instead of the brand.

Nominalisation

When words (usually verbs or adjectives) are changed into nouns. This process often involves adding suffixes to the original word such as ‘ment’ to make ‘achievement’ and ‘ness’ to make ‘happiness’.

Syntax

The study of how words are ordered into phrases, changes and sentences.

Phrases

Phrases can function as subjects, objects and modifiers, contributing to the overall syntactic structure of the sentence.
Includes: Noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase

Noun phrase

Consists of a noun and its modifiers. ‘The quick brown fox’. (quick and brown are modifiers for the noun fox)

Verb phrase

Includes the main verb and its modifiers. ‘running quickly’ (running is the verb and quickly is its modifier)

Adjective phrase

Centres around an adjective. ‘Very happy’ (happy is the adjective)

Adverb phrase

Built around an adverb. ‘quite slowly’

Prepositional phrase

A phrase beginning with a preposition. ‘On the table’ (preposition = on)

Ellipsis

The omission of words or phrases, particularly when they are already known or have been referred to previously. (not repeating a persons name every time they do something)

Nominalisation

Nominalisation is the expression of a verb or an adjective as a noun or noun phrase. ‘development’ from ‘develop’, ‘failure’ from ‘fail’

Coordination and Subordination

Coordination means combining two sentences or ideas that are of equal value.
Remember FANBOYS

Subordination means combining two sentences or ideas in a way that makes one more important than the other.
‘although, because, when, if’

FANBOYS

For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So

Sentence type

Declarative
Imperative
Interrogative
Exclamative

Declarative

Makes a statement. ‘The cat is sleeping’

Imperative

Gives a command or request. ‘Close the door’

Interrogative

Asks a question. ‘Is the cat sleeping?’

Exclamative

Expresses strong emotions. ‘What a lovely day!’

Sentence structures

Simple
Compound
Complex
Compound-complex
Fragment

Simple

Contains one independant clause. ‘The cat meows’

Compound

Consists of two or more independent clauses connected by a coordinator. ‘The dog barks and the cat meows’

Complex

Includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause connected by a subordinator. ‘The cat meows when she is hungry’

Compund-complex

contains at least two independent clauses joined together by a coordinator, and at least one dependent clause joined by a subordinator. ‘The cat meows when she is hungry, and the dog barks’

Basic Functions in Clause structure (SVOCA)

Subject
Verb
Object
Complement
Adverbial

Subject

The person, place, thing or idea that is performing the action or being described.

Verb

The word used to describe the action, state, or occurrence.

Object

The entity affected by the action of the subject. Can be direct or indirect.
direct - ‘She reads a book’
indirect- ‘She gives him a book’

Complement

Words or groups of words that complete the meaning of a predicate (part of the sentences containing the verb and stating something about the subject). Complements come after copular verbs such as ‘be, seem, appear, feel, become, find’.
Subject complements - describe or identify the subject ‘the sky is blue’
Object complements - modify or refer to the object ‘they elected her captain’.

Adverbial

An adverbial is a word (typically and adverb), phrase or clause that provides extra information about a verb. It provides additional information about how, when, where, in what manner or to what extent something happens. ‘the cat was purring on my lap’ and ‘he studied just enough to pass the exam’.

Active and Passive voice

In the active voice, the subject of a verb performs the action, while in the passive voice the subject of the verb receives the action.

Frida threw the basketball, (active voice)
The basketball was thrown by Frida, (passive voice)

Syntactic patterning LAP

Listing
Antithesis
Parallelism

Listing

Listing is used to present a series or related ideas, items or elements. Words or phrases that are listed are often introduced by a colon and are seperated by commas or semicolons.
‘I need to buy pies, cakes, hot dogs and sausage rolls’
‘The room was filled with objects of all sorts: old books with torn covers, vintage furniture coated in dust, faded photographs

Antithesis

The presentation of two contrasting ideas near one another in parallel structures. It’s used to create balance between opposing ideas and to emphasise this contrast. Antithetical phrases can use antonymy, irony and contrast.
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’

Parallelism

The repetition of grammatical structures two or more times in succession.
‘Work hard, stay focused’ (verb+adjective repeated structure)

Discourse and Pragmatics

Discourse refers to written or spoken texts that are longer than a sentence.
Pragmatics is the study of how language is used within a given context contributes to meaning.

Paralinguistic features

Vocal effects, including whispers, laughter
Non-verbal communication, including gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, creakiness, breathiness

Code switching

When the speaker switches between two or more languages in a single interaction or text. Could demonstrate group membership and a shared cultural/linguistic background.

Coherence FLICCC

The logical and meaningful organisation of a text. It involves arranging ideas, information and the elements of a text in such a way that
the sentences, paragraphs and sections create a clear message with smooth transitions.
Formatting
Logical ordering
Inference
Cohesion
Consistency and Conventions

Formatting

Using less conventional formatting, such as shorter paragraphs, bullet points, more casual and playful fonts and colours, and use of emoticons, emojis and context-specific graphemes.

Logical ordering

A more conversational and less rigid structure in the ordering of information. It is more acceptable to jump between topics or introduce ideas spontaneously.

Inference

Relying on the listener's ability to infer meaning based on shared knowledge, assumptions or context. There is a greater use of slang, idiomatic expressions and cultural references.

Cohesion

All elements of cohesion contribute to coherence

Consistency

More flexibility in consistency of tense, sentence structures, and morphological features such as contractions and abbreviations.

Conventions

Reduced rigidity and flouting of rules when applying conventions in texts. Writers and speakers may end sentences with prepositions or use excessive or minimal punctuation.

Cohesion

Lexical choice - synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and collocation
Information flow - clefting, front- & -end-focus
Anaphoric and cataphoric reference
Deictics
Repetition
Ellipses
Substitution
Conjunctions and adverbials

Synonymy

Using pairs or groups of words that are equivalent or very similar in meaning.
‘choice, selection and preference’

Antonymy

The relationship of words that are opposite in meaning. Allows for easy contrast and comparison. ‘He’s always been hot and cold with me’

Hyponymy

A hyponym is a word that belongs to a larger category of terms, which is called a hypernym. A hypernym can have multiple hyponyms, and hyponyms can be hypernyms.

Collocation

Words that typically appear next to or very near eachother in texts. They strengthen cohesion by allowing readers or listeners to predict the next word in a sentence.
‘Do you like to drink strong or weak tea?’