Kaarten: Linguist List

acronym

A word composed of the initial characters of other words.

acrophony

The use of a graphic symbol originally representing a word (or the object to which it refers) to denote the initial syllable or sound of that word.

alphabet

A set of letters or symbols in a fixed order used to represent the basic set of speech sounds of a language.

applied linguistics

The branch of linguistics concerned with practical applications of language studies, for example language teaching, translation, and speech therapy.

competence

A person's subconscious knowledge of the rules governing the formation of speech in their first language.

context

A term referring to the environment in which an element (sound, word, phrase) occurs.

contrast

A difference between two linguistic items which can be exploited systematically.

convention

An agreement, usually reached unconsciously by speakers in a community, that relationships are to apply between linguistic items, between these and the outside world or to apply in the use of rules in the grammar of their language.

convergence

In a general sense, a process whereby two languages or varieties come to resemble each other more and more.

conversation analysis

The techniques for examining and structuring conversations or any type of social interaction which involves verbal and non-verbal conduct.

corpus

Any structured and principled collection of data from a particular language.

cross-linguistic

Refers to phenomena which occur in several different languages or in investigations which draw on data from diverse languages.

descriptive

An approach to linguistics which is concerned with saying what language is like and not what it should be like.

diachronic

Refers to language viewed or studied over time.

dictionary

A book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language (typically in alphabetical order) and gives their meaning, or gives the equivalent words in a different language, often also providing information about pronunciation, origin, and usage.

discourse analysis

The investigation of the structure and patterning of discourse (human speech). It contrasts explicitly with analyses of written language or of contrived examples in linguistic works.

displacement

One of the key characteristics of human language which enables it to refer to situations which are not here and now.

etymology

The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.

extralinguistic

Any phenomenon which lies outside of language. An extralinguistic reason for a linguistic feature would be one which is not to be found in the language itself.

figurative

Any use of a word in a non-literal sense.

formalist

An adjective referring to linguistic analyses which lay emphasis on relatively abstract conceptions of language structure.

general linguistics

A broad term for investigations which are concerned with the nature of language, procedures of linguistic analysis, etc. without considering to what use these can be put.

generative grammar

A linguistic theory that regards grammar as a system of rules that generates exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language.

grammaticalisation

This is an historical process in language which refers to a change in status from lexical to grammatical for certain elements, frequently due to semantic bleaching (loss of lexical meaning).

head

The centre of a phrase or sentence which is possibly qualified by further optional elements.

hierarchy

Any order of elements from the most central or basic to the most peripheral.

language system

Invented, consciously designed system of communication, mostly designed by a small group of people, intended to be used by many.

language change

A process by which developments in a language are introduced and established. Language change is continual in every language and it is largely regular. However, the rate of language change is different among different languages.

language contact

Contact between two different (usually neighbouring) language communities, especially resulting in the development of common linguistic features; frequently attributive designating a situation in which this occurs.

language death

The process or phenomenon whereby a language, usually that of a cultural minority, disappears or falls into disuse.

language

A system which consists of a set of symbols (sentences) — realised phonetically by sounds — which are used in a regular order to convey a certain meaning. Apart from these formal characteristics, definitions of languages tend to highlight other aspects such as the fact that language is used regularly by humans and that it has a powerful social function.

linguistic area

A part of the world in which several genetically unrelated languages are spoken but which nonetheless show structural similarities. Such areas usually form an approximate geographical unit.

linguistic universals

A postulated set of linguistic features which are common to all languages.

linguistics

The study of language and its structure.

loan-word

A word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification.

metalanguage

A form of language or set of terms used for the description or analysis of another language.

neologism

A newly coined word or expression.

paradigm

A set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles.

paralinguistic

A component of meta-communication that may modify or nuance meaning, or convey emotion, such as prosody, pitch, volume, intonation etc. It is sometimes defined as relating to nonphonemic properties only. Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or unconsciously.

performance

An individual's use of a language, i.e. what a speaker actually says, including hesitations, false starts, and errors.

pragmatics

The branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used, including such matters as deixis, the taking of turns in conversation, text organisation, presupposition, and implicature.

prescriptive

An approach to linguistics which is concerned with formal rules of correct usage of a language.

second language teaching

There are many views on how a second language is learned, above all in comparison with the relative perfection of first language acquisition. Research here tends to concentrate on developing models to explain the process and ideally, they should be applied to the actually teaching of foreign languages to improve results.

sign language

A naturally developed communication system in which people exploit the visual-tactile modality, rather than the auditory-oral modality.

synchronic

A reference to the study of one point of time in a language. This may be the present but need not be.

taxonomic

A reference to linguistics in which the main aim is to list and classify features and phenomena. It is usually implied that no attempt for linguistic generalisations is made.

thesaurus

A work of reference that lists words in groups of synonyms and related concepts.

typology

A field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural and functional features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages.

vocabulary

The set of words in a language.

zero

Any element which is postulated by linguists but which has no realisation in a particular language.

ablaut

Alternation in the vowels of related word forms, especially in Germanic strong verbs.

affricate

A phoneme which combines a plosive with an immediately following fricative or spirant sharing the same place of articulation.

allophone

Any of the various phonetic realisations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning.

alveolar

(of a consonant) pronounced with the tip of the tongue on or near the alveolar ridge.

bilabial

(of a speech sound) formed by closure or near closure of the lips?

cardinal vowels

Each of a series of vowel sounds used as a standard reference point to assist in the description and classification of vowel sounds in any language.

consonant

A basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable.

contrastive

Refers to any elements which are in opposition to each other. A phonetic distinction is contrastive if it has significance on the phonological level, i.e. if it distinguishes meaning.

dental

(of a consonant) pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth (such as 'th') or the alveolar ridge.

devoiced

A voiced speech sound, pronounced without vibration of the vocal cords, making it voiceless.

diphthong

A sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another.

discrete

A characteristic of human language where there is no continuous transition from one unit to another.

fricative

Denoting a type of consonant made by the friction of breath in a narrow opening, producing a turbulent air flow.

glide

A sound produced as the vocal organs move towards or away from articulation of a vowel or consonant.

glottal

A term referring to sounds produced by a closing of the vocal folds.

homophone

Each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling.

homorganic

Any set of sounds which are articulated at the same point in the vocal tract.

intonation

That part of the sound system of a language which involves the use of pitch to convey information. It consists of both accent (concerns individual words) and sentence melody (concerns word groups).

IPA

A system of transcribing the sounds of languages which consists of some Latin and Greek letters and a variety of additional symbols and diacritics. The goal is to represent each recognisable sound in a unique fashion. The IPA was developed at the end of the last century; the acronym stands for International Phonetic Alphabet.

labial

(of a consonant) requiring partial or complete closure of the lips (e.g. p, b, f, v, m, w), or (of a vowel) requiring rounded lips (e.g. 'oo' in moon).

labio-dental

(of a sound) made with the lips and teeth.

labio-velar

(of a sound) made with the lips and soft palate.

manner of articulation

The formation of a speech sound by constriction of the air flow in the vocal organs at a particular place (e.g. the tongue, teeth, or palate) and in a particular way (as a plosive, affricate, etc.).

minimal pair

Any two words which are only distinguished by one feature.

monophthong

A vowel that has a single perceived auditory quality.

nasal

(of a speech sound) pronounced by the breath resonating in the nose.

palatal

(of a speech sound) made by placing the blade of the tongue against or near the hard palate.

palatalisation

Making (a speech sound) palatal, especially by changing a velar to a palatal by moving the point of contact between tongue and palate further forward in the mouth.

palato-alveolar

(of a consonant) articulated by placing the tongue against the alveolar ridge and close to the hard palate.

paradigmatic

Of or denoting the relationship between a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles.

phone

A speech sound; the smallest discrete segment of sound in a stream of speech.

phoneme

Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another.

phonemics

The study of phonemes or distinct units of sound in a language.

phonetic

A reference to a phenomenon in the area of phonetics (often as opposed to phonology).

phonetics

The study and classification of speech sounds for a specific language.

phonological

A reference to the phonology of a language, i.e. to the deeper and more abstract organisation of the sounds of a language.

phonology

The system of contrastive relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the fundamental components of a language.

pitch

The quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of highness or lowness of a tone.

place of articulation

The point in the vocal tract at which a sound is produced. This can be anywhere from the lips at the front to the glottis.

plosive

Denoting a consonant that is produced by stopping the airflow using the lips, teeth, or palate, followed by a sudden release of air.

rhotic

Relating to or denoting a dialect or variety of English (e.g. in most of the US and south-western England) in which r is pronounced before a consonant (as in hard) and at the ends of words (as in far).

rhythm

All the patterns of strong and weak syllables in a language.

schwa

The unstressed central vowel (as in a moment ago), represented by the symbol /ə/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

sibilant

(of a speech sound) sounded with a hissing effect.

stop

A consonant produced with complete closure of the vocal tract.

stress

Emphasis given to a particular syllable or word in speech, typically through a combination of relatively greater loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration.

syntagmatic

Of or denoting the relationship between two or more linguistic units used sequentially to make well-formed structures.

transcription

A system of representing sounds in writing unambiguously.

unstressed

(of a syllable) not pronounced with stress.

vocal folds

Two muscular folds running from the front of the thyroid cartilage backwards to the front ends of the arytenoid cartilages.