English Language (U3 AOS2)

Figurative Language

The use of words to convey a meaning different from their literal definition. Includes similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, allusions and idioms.

Irony

Deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

‘The world is a stage’.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction. ‘Faith unfaithful’.

Simile

A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind.

‘He ran as fast as the wind’.

Personification

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Animation

The attribution of movement or life-like qualities to inanimate objects, without necessarily human qualities.

‘The wind whipped through the trees’.

Puns

A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

‘The railway society reception was an informal party of people of all stations’.

Lexical ambiguity

When a word or phrase has multiple possible meanings, leading to a sentence or expression having more than one interpretation.

‘Bank’ could refer to a financial institution or the edge of a body of water.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

‘The greatest thing you’ve ever eaten’.

Idiom

An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole.

‘Kill two birds with one stone.’

Denotation

The literal or primary meaning of a word.

‘Rose’ is the literal flower.

Connotation

An idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

‘Discipline’ has unhappy _____ of punishment and repression.

Alliteration

Repetition of an identical consonant sound at the beginning of adjacent or nearby words.

‘The crisp caramel cookie crumbled’.

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in words that are close together.

‘His tender heir might bear his memory’. (eh sound).

Consonance

A literary device that repeats consonant sounds within nearby words.

‘He struck the clock with a quick flick’

Onomatopoeia

Mimics the sound they describe.

Hiss, boom, chirp.

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in speech or writing. It contributes to the musicality, flow, and mood of the language, and can be used to emphasise key ideas, make speech more memorable, or engage an audience.

Rhyme

The repetition of identical or similar sounding endings in words, especially at the ends of lines or phrases, used to create cohesion, rhythm, or memorability.

Conversion of Word Class

Word formation process where an existing word changes its word class without changing form.

The noun ‘sign’ can become the verb ‘sign’.

Creative Word Formation

Involves various methods for creating new words or altering existing ones, including neologisms, blends, acronyms, initialisms and semantic broadening.

Lexical Choice

The purposeful selection of words, particularly open class, to convey meaning effectively and achieve specific rhetorical effects.

Lexical Patterning

The repetition or strategic use of words or word types to create meaning, emphasis, cohesion, or stylistic effect.

‘No means no’.

Nominalisation

The process of converting words (often verbs or adjectives) into noun forms, which allows ideas to be expressed more formally, abstractly, or impersonally.

“The implementation of the new policy will improve safety.”

You could say:

• This sentence uses _____ (“implementation”) to create a formal and authoritative tone.

• It removes the agent (who implemented it?), making the statement more objective or impersonal.

• This supports the speaker’s institutional authority and promotes trust in the message.

Euphemism

A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant.

‘Passing away’ instead of ‘died’.

Synonymy

The relationship between words or phrases that have the same or nearly same meaning in language.

‘Happy’ and ‘joyful’.

Antonymy

Relationship between words that have opposite meanings.

‘Buy’ and ‘sell’.

Hyponymy

A linguistic relationship where one word is a more specific instance of a broader, more general field.

Hyponym

A subset of the hypernym.

Hypernym

Subset of the hyponym.

Collocation

A group of two or more words that are commonly used together in a natural and predictable way.

E.g. Verb + Noun

• Make a decision (not ‘do a decision’)

• Take a photo (not ‘do a photo’)

• Have a dream (not ‘make a dream’)

Clefting

A grammatical process where a sentence is transformed to emphasize a particular element by moving it into a separate clause, often using ‘it’ or ‘what’.

It-Clefting

Adds prominence to the start of the sentence.

‘Joe had the most trouble with trigonometry’ becomes ‘It was trigonometry Joe had the most trouble with’.

Pseudo-clefting (Wh- cleft)

Adds prominence to the end of the sentence.

‘Joe had the most trouble with trigonometry’ becomes ‘What Joe had the most trouble with was trigonometry’.

Front Focus

A word or phrase, typically found in the middle or end, is moved to the beginning to emphasize it.

‘He opened the door carefully’ becomes ‘Carefully, he opened the door’ (focusing on the carefulness of the action).

End Focus

The most important information in a sentence or clause is placed at the end.

‘I saw the cat’ becomes ‘The cat was in the garden’ (the focus shifts from the cat to the garden).

Anaphoric Reference

A form of substitution that avoids unnecessary repetition. The referent comes first, then the anaphor replaces it.

• Javier was so glad he had not gone to school.

• The dog chased its tail for a while.

Cataphoric Reference

The cataphor comes first, then the referent.

• Before she went to bed, Barbara chose her outfit for the party.

• If you want some, there’s cake in the kitchen.

Substitution

Not anaphoric or cataphoric reference if it is not replaced with a pronoun.

‘The teacher’ for ‘Mr Draper’.

Conjunctions

A word that connects words, phrases or clauses within a sentence, creating relationships between them and allowing for more complex expressions. FANBOYS.

Adverbials

A word, phrase or clause that modifies a verb, adjective, adverb, or another clause, providing more detail about how, when, where, why, or to what extent something happens. Essentially, they add information about the action or state described in the sentence.

• ‘Quickly’ modifies ‘She walked quickly’.

• ‘In the morning’ modifies the verb ‘woke’ in ‘She woke in the morning’.

Deictics

Another type of substitution, but one that relies on contextual information to determine what’s being referred to.

Can be determined by the use of words which have no specific meaning out of context, such as that, here, you, tomorrow

‘Are you going to be here tomorrow?’ instead of ‘Is Aryan going to be in the Melbourne High School Library on the 24th of April 2025?’

Repetition

The act of doing, saying, or writing something again. Used to emphasize a point.

• I have to practice my timetables over and over and over again’.

Formatting

The structural and visual design elements of a text—such as headings, bold type, bullet points, font size, and colour—which influence readability, emphasis, and audience engagement.

Consistency and Conventions

How well a text sticks to the same style, tone, tense, spelling, or formatting throughout, to create a cohesive and logical piece of communication.

E.g. The tense of a text.

Political Correctness

The practice of using non-discriminatory, inclusive language to respect all individuals and groups, and to avoid marginalisation or offence.

Jargon

Specialized language, vocabulary, or slang used by a particular profession, group, or activity, often making it difficult for outsiders to understand.

‘Bug’ and ‘byte’ are used in the computer science field.

Dysphemism

A derogatory or offensive term used instead of a neutral or polite one.

‘Bean counter’ instead of accountant.

Inference

The process of drawing logical conclusions or making an assumption based on evidence, reasoning or available information.

• If someone mentions a particular place, you might infer they have a strong connection to that place.

Logical Ordering

Arranging sentences in a paragraph in a way that builds a clear and coherent argument or narrative.

Double Speak

Deliberately uses ambiguous or misleading terms to obscure the true meaning of something, often with the intention of making something seem more palatable or less offensive.

• Collateral damage instead of civilian deaths.

Taboo Language

Refers to words or expressions considered socially, culturally, or morally unacceptable or inappropriate to use in certain contexts. Often relate to profanity, obscenity, racism, sexuality, or religion.

Public Language

The formal, carefully constructed language used in public settings such as political speeches, media articles, academic publications, press releases, legal documents, and more. It is typically shaped to inform, persuade, or influence, and is often conscious of social expectations.

Rhetoric

The use of persuasive language techniques to influence, convince, or appeal to an audience’s emotions, logic, or values.

Antithesis

The direct opposite or a contrast between two ideas.

• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Listing

Listing out items within a text.

E.g. I went to the studio and made songs with The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Drake and Yuno Miles.

Parallelism

Using a similar grammatical structure for related ideas or items in a sentence or series of sentences.

‘We can do this, we can go through with this’.

Elevated Lexemes

The use of more formal and sophisticated vocabulary to create a sense of importance, authority, or academic tone.

E.g. instead of saying start, a writer might use ‘commence’, which is a more formal and elevated word to make the writing sound more professional and authoritative.

Affixation

The process of adding prefixes or suffixes to words to create new words or modify existing ones. Can change the word’s meaning or word class.

Abbreviation

A shortened form of a word or phrase. Encompasses several types of shortenings that may be analyzed.

Initialisms

These words are formed from the first letters of a series of words and are pronounced letter by letter.

E.g. VCE. OMG. ATM.

Acronyms

Formed from the first letters of a series of words, but are pronounced as a single word.

E.g. NASA. ANZAC. RAM.

Shortenings

Involve removing parts of a word, like the beginning or end. Often done to make things quicker to say and keep the register mainly informal.

E,g. Phone for telephone.

Gym for gymnasium.

App for application.

Oz for Australia.

Contractions

Combine two words, often with an apostrophe indicating missing letters.

E.g. don’t (do not)

can’t (cannot)

Compounding

Involves combining two or more whole words to create a new word. Can create more and precise and specific terms for concepts, categories, or professions. Often seen in academic, scientific, legal, and business.

E.g. Shareholder, policymaker, neurotransmitter, photovoltaic, socioeconomic

Politeness Markers

Linguistic features used to express consideration for others and to maintain positive social relationships. Good for positive and negative face.

Indirect Address

Good for maintaining negative face. Softens requests, suggestions, and criticisms by avoiding a direct imperative or statement aimed at the listener.

Honourifics

Politeness marker. Words or phrases used to show respect or deference to someone based on social status, age, or relationship.

Politeness Stategies

Used to maintain positive and negative face, by either showing interest, seeking agreement, or offering compliments. In-group language signals belonging and understanding. Hedging helps to maintain negative face, as well as apologizing and giving deference (honourifitcs).

Reinforcing Social Distance and Authority

Linguistic choices can create and maintain a sense of separation or formality between individuals, such as a formal register, which immediately establishes distance. Third person pronouns makes the text impersonal.

Establishing Expertise

The use of jargon can help to achieve this, as someone may know something from a specific field which may not be well understood by others. In turn, this can create distance as people would not be addressed.

Promoting social harmony

Create a sense of peace, agreement and positive interaction. Used to avoid conflict. Might use hedging or inclusive language. Also might choose to use politeness strategies as to not anger people, such as aboriginal people.

Negotiating Social Taboos

Using euphemisms to create a milder or more indirect term to refer to taboo subjects such as ‘passed away’ instead of ‘died’.

Building Rapport

Feeling of connection, understanding and mutual respect between individuals. Plays a crucial role in establishing and strengthening bonds. The use of inclusive language plays a big part in political speeches.

Clarifying

Make information more understandable, accessible and unambiguous. Reduces confusion and ensures effective communication. Used primarily with good formatting, such as instructions, listing or bullet points.

Manipulating

Aims to influence thoughts, feelings, or behaviour of others, often directly. Lexical choice might use emotive language, which evoke an emotion on whatever is being talked about. Lexemes such as ‘freedom fighter’ instead of ‘terrorist’ manipulates the audience’s attitude.

Semantic patterning: The use of certain words from a given semantic field can influence the audience’s perception. Passive voice can obscure agency and therefore responsibility. Modality has a degree of certainty or obligation.

Obfuscation

Intentionally vague language, obscures meaning, avoids accountability or misleads the audience. The use of imprecise terms avoids specific references. Excessive jargon and technical terms without an explanation may hide the true intentions or thing being discussed. Nominalisation plays a huge role.