VCE English Language Metalanguage

Acronym

A word formed by using the initial letter of other words, e.g. 'ANZAC'.

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 qualifies a noun, e.g. the big elephant.

Adverb

A word which qualifies a verb, e.g. she sang softly.

Adverbial

An element of clause structure (along with subject, verb and object). Adverbials perform several roles in a sentence: they can modify verbs (e.g. 'he spoke hesitantly') or link clauses together (e.g. 'however', 'moreover').

Affixation

There are three types of affixes (a type of 'bound', morpheme): prefix, suffix and infix.

Alliteration

The use of same initial sounds in consecutive words, for example 'wonderful water'.

Anaphoric reference

The use of pronouns to refer back to something already mentioned in a sentence, for example, 'The cake was delicious and everybody ate it'.

Animation

The process of giving animate (living) qualities to something.

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting words/ideas (antonyms) e.g. 'big on comfort, small on price'.

Antonymy

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 become closer to a neighbouring sound, for instance, pronouncing 'sandwich' as 'samwich'.

Assonance

The use of identical vowel sounds within words, e.g. 'get' and 'better'.

Auxiliary verb

A verb which precedes the main verb, such as the verb 'to be' or 'to have' or 'to do'. It is sometimes known as a 'helping verb'.

Back channeling

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

Blend

A word composed of elements of other words, e.g. 'ginormous' (gigantic/enormous).

Broad Australian accent

The accent which is identified with the 'Australian twang'.

Cataphoric reference

Pronouns which refers to something yet to be mentioned, e.g. 'It was beautiful - holiday to remember'.

Clause

A grammatical unit larger than a phrase and which usually contains a verb, e.g. "I hate Mondays'.

Clefting

Splitting a single clause into two clauses, each with its own verb, e.g. 'Jenny ate the ice-cream' becomes 'It was Jenny who ate the ice-cream'.

Coherence

Logically developed and integrated speech or writing.

Cohesion

Links or connections which link one reference to another and mark the continuity of ideas. Cohesive ties include pronouns, conjunctions, ellipsis, substitution, synonyms, and antonyms.

Collocation

A pairing or group of words which frequently go together, e.g. 'tropical paradise'.

Collquialism

An informal phrase or word.

Complement

Complements give extra information about another clause element, such as the subject or object.

Complex sentence

A sentence made up of one main and at least one subordinate clause.

Compound sentence

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

Compounding

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

Compound-complex sentence

A sentence that contains both co-ordination and subordination.

Conjunction

A word which joins phrases, clauses, or words. Co-ordinating conjunctions are 'and', 'or', and 'but'; subordinating conjunctions 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 it has connotations of someone who is lonely and unhappy.

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds in words, for example 'white gate'.

Content words

Words which carry the main meaning in a 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 expressions

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 linguistics 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 or 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.

Epenthesis

This refers to the addition of sounds in certain words, for instance pronouncing 'known' as 'knowan'.

Ethnolect

A variety of language spoken by a particular ethnic group. Migrant Englishes, for instance, are referred to as ethnolects. Such varieties of English are often marked by phonological or grammatical features of the speakers' native language.

Euphemism

A mild or polite word or expression in place of a neutral one, e.g. 'he passed away'. A euphemism is the opposite of dysphemism.

Exclamative sentence

A sentence which expresses an emotion; often beginning with 'what' or 'how', e.g. 'What big teeth you have!'

Expository essay

An essay which requires you to explain, explore or comment on a particular statement or quote.

False start

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

Field

Another term for 'domain' or subject/topic.

Figurative language

Expressive use of language where words are used in a non-literal way, for example: idioms, metaphors, puns, personification.

Flapping

The 'd' sound often heard in place of 't' in words like 'butter' ('budder').

Floor-holding strategies

Techniques used by speakers to maintain their turn in conversation.

Formulaic expressions

Language which follows a set pattern. Openings and closings of conversation usually contain formulaic expressions, such as 'Pleased to meet you' or 'See you later'.

Front focus

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

Function

The purpose or role of language use, e.g. to inform, to persuade, to instruct.

Function words

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

General Australian accent

The accent used by the great majority of the Australian population.

HRT (high-rising terminal)

The use of a high-rising or questioning intonation at the end of a statement. Typical in young speakers, it has a range of discourse functions, such as seeking empathy or keeping the other interlocutor involved in the conversation.

Hyponomy

The relationship between general and specific lexical items. For example, 'dog is a hyponym of 'animal'.

Idiolect

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

Idiom

An idiomatic expression is a non-literal one, e.g. 'to kick the bucket'.

Imperative

A command, directive or warning. Imperatives do not contain a subject and the verb is always in the infinitive form, e.g. 'Add the eggs' or 'Be careful'.

Inference

Something that has been deduced by using implicit information (such as cultural knowledge).

Infix

An affix which occurs in the middle of a word, for example 'un-bloody-likey'.

Inflection

A morphological term in word formation. Inflection affixes signal grammatical relationships, such as plural, past tense and possession, e.g. talk, talked.

Information flow

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

Initialism

A word formation process where the initial letters of each word forms a group of initials, e.g. RSVP. Unlike acronyms, initialisms cannot be pronounced as words. Some textbooks refer to them as 'abbreviations'.

Insertion

A phonological term referring to the additional sounds in speech which ease articulation, e.g. pronouncing 'drawing' as 'draw-ring', instead of 'draw-ing'.

Interlocutor

A participant in a conversation or dialogue.

Interjection

Emotional noises, such as 'oh!', 'yuck', 'shhh!'.

Interrogative

A question, such as 'What are you doing?'

Interrogative tag

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

IPA

The International Phonetic Alphabet.

Irony

A form of figurative language where the implication is the opposite of what is stated. It is often used for humorous effect.

Jargon

The language of a particular social group or occupation. For instance, the jargon of law contains such terms as 'affidavit' and 'defendant'.

Lexeme/lexical item

A unit of vocabulary; a word.

Lexical ambiguity

Ambiguity which arises due to the alternative meanings of a word.

Lexicon

Another word for 'vocabulary'. Dictionaries contain the entire 'lexicon' of a language, and certain fields (e.g. the law, or cooking) have their own lexicon or specialist vocabulary.

Lexicology

The study of the lexicon of the 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. This glossary contains some of the many metalanguage terms from Units 3 and 4.

Metaphor

A type of figurative language where non-literal language expresses a concept or idea, e.g. 'The playground was a jungle'.

Minimal responses

The co-operative responses or 'back-channeling' made by speakers to encourage their interlocutors to keep talking.

Modal auxiliary/verb

Verbs which convey necessity, possibility, obligation or probability, e.g. must, may, might, can, could, should, would, will, shall.

Mode

The form language takes: spoken, written or signed.

Morpheme

A 'morpheme' or 'root' is the smallest possible unit of meaning in composing words - 'free' morphemes can stand alone as words in their own right (e.g. 'play, 'mouse'), whereas 'bound' morphemes are prefixes and suffixes (e.g. 'un', 'ing') which must be attached to another morpheme to make sense.

Morphology

The study of the structure or composition of words.

Negative face

The need to be autonomous and act without imposition from others. Negative face refers to one's freedom to act, and it is threatened when one person is forced to submit to the will of their interlocutor. Threats and warnings are examples of violating negative face needs.