English Language Unit 3 & 4

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 to become more similar to a neighbouring sound.

e.g: samwich instead of "sandwich"

Elision

When a sound is omitted.

e.g: 'cos, goin', '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)

Emphatic stress

Prosodic feature used to highlight and/or strengthen a point being made by the speaker. Type of stress that 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"

Formulaic expression

When language follows a set pattern. Most frequently 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?

"Do you have fly-buys? Any cash out?"

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'

Tag question

A grammatical structure in which a declarative statement or imperative is turned into a question by the addition of an interrogative tag, which is always separated by a comma.

e.g: "There isn't training after school today, is there?"

"Take care, won't you?"

Pause

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

Pause filler

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 bold headings, Sub-headings, text type conventions, inference, logical development of ideas, listing, dot-points, parenthesis, semantic field

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, conjunctive adverbs, adverbials, ellipsis, repetition, semantic field, 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. Primary auxiliar verbs and modal verbs.

Covert prestige

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.