Terminology

Filler

A word, phrase or sound used to fill a pause while speaking.

Primary purpose

The main and most easily recognizable purpose

Secondary purpose

An additional and more subtle purpose

Contraction

A shortened form of a word, group of words, often created by combining words and omitting letters

Colloquial

Informal everyday language (e.g. kids instead of children)

Polysyllabic

A a word containing more than one syllable

Neologism

A newly created word, expression or meaning given to an existing word (e.g. selfie or Google)

Idiom

A fixed expression whose meanings cannot always be understood literally from the individual words (e.g. it's raining cats and dogs)

Idiolect

The individual way a person uses language. It is unique and influenced by factors like age, gender, social background. (e.g. always saying literally)

Sociolect

The language associated with a certain social group. It can be influenced by age, ethnicity, occupation (e.g. teenagers saying bro)

Dialect

Language associated with a particular geographical region. It inc(e.g. me instead of my)

Synonym

Words that mean or nearly mean the same thing

Denotation

Dictionary definition of a word

Connotation

Figurative or emotional meanings of a word

Prototype

The ‘best fit’ example of a particular category

Antonym

One pair of words with opposite meaning (e.g hot and cold)

Formality

The level of acceptability in language, often dependent on context

Register

The type of language used in a particular situation.

Mode

Method of communication- written, spoken or electronic

Field

The topic area

Genre

Category of text with typical expectations

Accent

Language/pronounciation associated with a particular geographical region

Collocation

The idea certain words are likely to appear together (e.g. bull shit)

Lexeme

A word in a field

Metaphor

Comparison between 2 things without using like or as

Simile

Comparison between 2 things using like or as

Personification

Giving non human things human qualities or actuons

Oxymoron

2 words placed together with opposite meaning

Hyperbole

Extreme exaggeration used to emphasize something

Sociolinguistics

The study of the relationship between language and society

Term of address

Words/expressions used to address another person (e.g. Mr, bro)

Reciprocal address

Both speakers using equivalent forms of address (e.g. hi mate/bud)

Non reciprocal address

Speaker uses different forms of address (e.g. morning Jack/Mr Williams)

Macro variation

Language variation due to social factors

Micro variation

Language variation due to immediate situations

Figurative language

Describes something in non literal terms

Semantic field

Group of words connected through a shared area of meaning

Hypernym

Word representing a broad category (e.g. animal is a hypernym for dog, cats)

Hyponym

Specific word contained within a broader category (e.g. tulip is a hyponym of the hypernym

Slang

Highly informal vocabulary associated with particular groups

Taboo language

Socially inappropriate vocabulary in some contexts

Paradox

incompatible notions being bought together (e.g. a whole lot of nothings)

Formal language

Vocabulary associated with professional context

Fixed expressions

Traditional expressions (e.g. Yours sincerely)

Occupational register

Specialized vocabulary associated with a profession

Blends

Combining existing words (e.g. breakfast + lunch = brunch)

Compound

Combination of 2 existing words (e.g. smartphone)

Acronym

Words formed by the first letters of a phrase (e.g. NATO)

Initialism

Initial letters being said individually (e.g. BBC)

Eponym

Words that originate from names or places (e.g. diesel from Rudolf Diesel)

Semantic change

Meaning of an existing word changes over time

Semantic narrowing

Word becoming more specific (e.g. girl used to mean a young child now is specific to females)

Semantic broadening

Word develops a wider range of meanings (e.g. mouse to computer and animal mouse)

Semantic amelioration

A word developing more positive meanings/ association (e.g. fond used to mean silly but now means affectionate)

Semantic pejoration

A word developing more negative meanings/ association (e.g. silly used to mean blessed but now means foolish)

Semantic reclamation

A group reclaims a word that has historically been used negatively against them, giving it a new social meaning.

Euphemism

A polite word/phrase instead of an unpleasant one (e.g. passed away instead of died)

Dysphemism

A deliberately harsh word/phrase instead of a neutral one (e.g. kicked the bucket instead of died)

Discourse

Language in use and how it creates meaning in social contexts

Discourse event

Communications of producer and receiver at a specific time and place

Contextual parameters

Who, where, when, why

Text producer

Person, group or organisation responsible for creating text. They could be named, anonymous or an institution

Text receiver

Person interpreting the text

Modality

Language showing the speakers attitude/commitment towards something (e.g. will vs may)

Deixis

Words whose meanings rely on the context (e.g. here)

Cline

Continuum showing different degrees of a linguistic feature

Metalanguage

Language used to describe language (e.g. noun)

Participants

The text producer and receiver involved in communication

Social proximity

How socially close/ distance the participants are

Split discourse

Participants are separated by time and/or space

Audience positioning

The way a producer encourages an audience to interpret text

Text world

Mental picture/ understanding created by a text in the readers mind

Polysemy

Possibility of multiple meanings

Discourse community

Group who shares interests, values, knowledge, goals and way of communicating

Ogden + Richards triangle of meaning

Explains relationship between thoughts, symbol and referent

Represention

How language portrays people, events, places and ideas

Construal

Ability of language to represent the same thing in different ways

Blended mode

Text containing both speech and written (e.g. whatsapp)

Intertextuality

Where text refers to other texts or genres

Prescriptivism

Belief language should follow rules of standard usage

Descriptivism

Studying and describing how language is actually used

Meronym

A word that refers to a part of something else (e.g. car and wheels)

Clipping

Shortening of a long word

Style shifting

Changing the way you speak depending on the situation

Morpheme

Smallest unit of a word

What is a morphee split into

Root and bound

Morpheme at the start

Prefix

Morpheme at the end

Suffix

Morpheme added

Affix

Morphology

Study of the structure of words and how they create semantic and grammatical meaning

Free morpheme

Words that make sense by themselves

Inflectional bound morphemes

Change the form of the lexeme but not the semantics or the word class

Derivational bound morphemes

Change the semantics of the lexeme and often times the word class

Familect

Language associated with a particular family

Orthography

Spelling

Parathesis

Extra information added to a sentence, usually inside brackets, commas or dashes

Temporal context

Time period something happened/written

Synthetic personalisation

‘you’, creates an impression of a personal relationship

Text image cohesion

How written language and images work together to create a unified meaning

Relexicalisation

Swapping a normal word with a new/secret one but the meaning stays the same