English Language Metalanguage complete set

Acronym

A word formed from the first letter of each word in a phrase eg SAC - School Assessed Coursework

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 questions and answers or greetings and responses.

Adjective

A word which describes a noun

Adverb

A word which qualifies a verb

Adverbial phrase

A word or group of words working as an adverb, usually giving information about time, place or manner.

Affixation

Bound morphemes which have three types: prefix, suffix and infix.

Alliteration

Repetition of initial consonant sounds in adjacent words

Anaphoric reference

The use of pronouns to refer to something already mentioned in a sentence.

Animation

The process of giving animate (living) qualities to something

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting words and ideas.

Antonym

The use of words which are opposite in meaning e.g. "hot" and "cold"

Assimilation

The process which refers to sounds being altered so they resemble a neighbouring sound, for instance, pronouncing 'sandwich' as 'samwich'

Assonance

The use of identical vowel sounds in nearby words, eg. 'get' and 'better'

Back channelling

Also known as 'minimal responses', this indicates support, encouragement or acknowledgement in conversation. Examples include 'Mm', 'yes', and 'right'

Blend

A word composed of partial elements of other words, eg 'ginormous' (gigantic/enormous)

Broad Australian accent

The accent which is identified with the 'Australian twang'

Cataphoric reference

Pronouns which refer to something yet to 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

Clefting

Splitting a single clause into two clauses, each with its own verb

Coherence

Logically developed and integrated speech or writing across a whole text

Cohesion

Connections within a text that

Collocation

A pair or group of words which frequently go together, eg 'tropical paradise'

Colloquialism

A word or phrase that is not formal or literary and is used in ordinary or familiar conversation

Complement

Complements given extra information about another clause element, such as the subject or objects.

Complex Sentence

a sentence made up of one main and at least one subordinate / dependent clause

Compound sentence

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

Compound-Complex Sentence

A sentence that contains both co-ordination and subordination

Compounding

the combining of two or more free morphemes to make a new work, e.g. armchair

Conjunction

A word which joins phrases, clauses or words. The seven coordinators are for, and, but, or, yet and so.

Subordinators include 'however', 'although' and 'because'.

Connotation

The set of associations implied by a word in addition to its literal meaning,e.g. the literal definition of 'spinster' is an unmarried woman, but has connotations of someone who is lonely and unhappy.

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds in words

Content words

Words which carry the main meaning in the 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', '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 by speakers wishing to belong to a certain community

Cultivated Australian accent

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

Declarative sentences

Sentences which are statements, such as "The sun was shining."

Deixis/deictic expression

Terms which refer to the personal, temporal, or locational characteristics of a situation, and whose meanings only make sense in that context or situation. For example, 'here' and '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- (as in unsatisfactory') and -al (as in 'national').

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 definiteness, number and possession, e.g. 'the', 'a', 'some'.

Dialect

The language variety of a regional or social group.

Discourse

The overall patterns and structures 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 a previous topic, e.g. 'anyway', 'yeah', 'well', 'yeah-no'.

Doublespeak

Language which is deliberately used to confuse, mislead or obscure, e.g. 'downsizing operations' for 'sacking'. It is also known as 'gobbledegook'.

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 sounds 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?'.

Emoticons

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

End focus

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

Ethnolect

A variety of language spoken by a particular ethnic group

Euphemism

A mild or polite expression used in place of a blunt one, eg 'he passed away' instead of 'he died'.

Exclamative sentence

A sentence which expresses an emotion, often beginning with 'what' or 'how'.

False start

A hesitation or change of mind once a speaker begins talking, common in spontaneous discourse.

Field

Another term for 'domain' or subject.

Flapping

The 'd' sound often hear in place of 't' in words like 'butter'.

Floor-holding strategies

Techniques used by speakers to maintain their turn in conversation.

Front focus

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

Function

The purpose or role of language use.

Function words

Words which convey grammatical meaning, such as conjunctions, prepositions, auxuiliary verbs and determiners.

General Australian accent

The accent used by the majority of the Australian population.

HRT (high rising terminal)

The use of an upward or questioning

Hyponomy

The relationship between general and specific lexical items. Dog is a hyponym of animal.

Idiolect

A person's individual style of sppech. Idiolects are marked by idiosyncratic (highly individual) features such as pronunciation and word choice.

Idiom

A non-literal expression established by common usage, such as 'kick the bucket' for 'die'.

Imperative

A sentence type that issues a command

Inference

A conclusion or fact that has been deduced by using implied knowledge

Infix

An affix that occurs in the middle of a word eg un-bloody-likely

Inflection

The modification of a word to express different grammatical functions, such as tense or gender

Information flow

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

Initialism

A word formation process where the inial letter of each word forms a group of initials, such as RSVP. It is not an acronym because it is not pronounced as a word.

Insertion

Additional sounds in speech which ease articulation, such as draw-ring for drawing. This term describes phonology.

Interjection

Emotional noises such as 'Yuk' and 'Oh'

Interrogative

A sentence type that poses a question

Interrogative tag

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

IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet (this is an initialism)

Irony

A humorous form of figurative language where the implication is the opposite of what is stated. "Yeah, right!"

Jargon

The language of a particular social group or occupation

Lexeme

A unit of vocabulary; a word

Lexical ambiguity

This occurs when a word has alternative meanings, eg bowl

Lexicon

Another word for vocabulary.

Lexicology

The study of the lexicon of a language

Listing

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

Metalanguage

The linguistic terminology required to discuss and analyse language

Metaphor

A type of figurate language where non-literal expressions convey a concept or idea

Minimal responses

The co-operative responses or 'back channelling' made by speakers to encourage their interlocutors to continue: mmm, ahaa.

Modal auxiliary

Verbs which convey necessity, possibility, obligation or probability: eg must, may, might, can, could, should, would, will, shall

mode

The form language takes; spoken, written or verbal

Morpheme

The smallest possible unit of meaning in composing words

Morphology

The study of the structure of words

Negative face needs

The need to be autonomous or act without imposition from others

Neologism

A new word; a recent lexical invention. Eg 'fitspire', 'schadenfreudgasm'

Nominalisation

The conversion of verbs into nouns

Non-discriminatory language

Language which doesn't discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, status, race, disability, physical characteristics or age

Non-fluency features

The features of speech which are typical in spontaneous discource: hesitations, pauses, false starts, repetition

Noun

A word referring to a thing/object or abstract concept

Obfuscate

Confuse or obscure meaning