Language and Representations / Key Terms

Key Terms for Language and Representation (AQA English Language)

Abstract Noun

Nouns which describe things that you cannot see with your five senses.

Active Voice

A form of sentence where the subject is emphasised over the object.

Adjective

A type of word which describes or modifies a noun.

Adverb

A word or expression which modifies another word.

Antonym

A word which has the opposite meaning to another word.

Assonance

Juxtaposition of similar sounds, especially vowels.

Auxiliary Verb

A word that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause that it appears in. Usually to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, or to provide emphasis.

Bound Morpheme

A morpheme that can only appear as a part of a larger expression.

Clause

A group of words, containing a subject and a verb, which have some sort of relationship in a sentence.

Collective Noun

Words which refer to things or people as a single unit.

Collocation

A series of words or terms that co-occur more than should by just chance.

Common Noun

Nouns which name people, places, or things that are not specific.

Comparative

A sentence construction which expresses a comparison between two (groups of) entities in quality or degree.

Complex Sentence

A sentence which combines a dependent clause with an independent clause.

Compound Sentence

A sentence which is made up of two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction or semicolon.

Concrete Noun

Nouns which describe things that you can perceive with your five senses.

Conditional Clause

A part of a sentence which expresses that one thing is reliant on something else occurring.

Conjunction

A word used to connect clauses or sentences, or to coordinate words in the same sentence.

Connotation

A commonly understood cultural or emotional association that a word carries.

Consonant

All letters except for A, E, I, O and U. Formed with the closure of the vocal tract.

Consonance

Juxtaposition of similar consonant sounds.

Copula / Copular Verb

A special type of verb that joins a noun complement or an adjective to the subject of the sentence.

Declarative

A statement.

Denotation

The dictionary definition of a word.

Determiner

A word which determines the kind of reference a noun or noun group has.

Diphthong

A sound which is formed by the combination of two vowel phonemes in a single syllable, where the vowel begins as one sound and then moves to another.

Dissonance

The use of impolite, harsh-sounding, and unusual words. No similar combination of vowel sounds.

Dynamic Verb

A verb that shows a continued or progressive action on the part of the subject.

Dysphemism

Words or phrases that make an event sound worse than it actually is.

Euphemism

Words or phrases which make an event sound better than it actually is. Usually used for culturally sensitive topics.

Exclamation

Expression of surprise, a strong emotion, or pain.

Free Morpheme

A morpheme which is able to stand on its own.

Grapheme

The smallest unit of meaning in a writing system.

Hypernym

A term in which classifies a large variety of things.

Hyponym

A word with a specific meaning under a hypernym.

Idiom

An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of each word in it, but that has a separate meaning of its own.

Imperative

A command.

Interrogative

A question which demands an answer.

Intransitive Verb

A verb which can take a subject but not an object in a sentence.

Lexis

Vocabulary.

Lexicon

The collective name for an entirety of a person’s or group’s vocabulary.

Main Clause

A group of words that contain a subject and a verb, and can form a complete sentence on its own.

Morpheme

An element of meaning which is smaller than a word.

Noun

A word which names something

Passive Voice

A form of sentence where the object is emphasised over the subject.

Personal Pronoun

Pronouns which are associated with a particular grammatical person.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in speech.

Phrase

A group of words that does not count as a subject and a verb.

Possessive Pronoun

A word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship, specifically of possession.

Prefix

A bound morpheme which is placed before the stem of a word to change it into another word.

Preposition

A word which describes the relationship that something has in relation to something else, relating to location or time.

Pronoun

A word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase.

Proper Noun

A noun which names a specific person, place or object.

Reflexive Pronoun

Pronouns that refer back to the person or thing to indicate a relationship between the subject and the object.

Relative Clause

A clause which provides extra information in a sentence, but cannot exist without a main or independent clause.

Semantic Field

A lexical set of words which are grouped semantically, which refer to a specific subject.

Sibilance

Repetition of the ‘s’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’ or soft ‘c’.

Simple Sentence

A sentence consisting of only one clause, with a single subject and predicate.

Stative Verb

A verb that describes a state of being.

Suffix

A bound morpheme which is placed after the stem of a word, usually to change the word class.

Subordinate Clause

A clause which cannot stand alone as its own sentence.

Superlative

Describing something as being of the highest quality or degree.

Synonym

A word, morpheme, or phrase, which has the same/a similar denotation to another word, morpheme or phrase.

Transitive Verb

A verb which is able to express an action that is followed by a direct object.

Verb

A word denoting a state or action.

Vowel

The sounds represented by A, E, I, O, and U. Produced without restricting airflow in the vocal tract.

Graphology

The visual aspect of design and appearance.

Morphology

The aspect of grammar that refers to grammatical markings and morphemes.

Pragmatics

The study of words and their meanings within context.

Semantics

The study of literal meaning.

Semiotics

The study of signs and symbols.