english language definitions

register

the use of language that is appropriate depending on the context

formal language

Characterised by the use of standard English and elevated lexis. Can also have a social purpose of (depending on the situation) maintaining or challenging positive and negative face needs, reinforcing social distance or authority, establishing expertise, promoting social harmony by negotiating social taboos and building rapport and clarifying, manipulating or obfuscating a text for an audience

informal language

Characterised by the use of non-standard English, everyday lexis and colloquialisms. Informal language can have a social purpose of (depending on the situation) encourages intimacy, solidarity and equality, maintaining or challenging positive and negative face needs, promoting linguistic innovation and supporting in-group membership

situational context

This will influence the language choices made in any text

function

refers to the reason a text exists and what participants in the text are trying to achieve e.g. to express an idea, to record facts, to persuade someone

mode

refers to whether the text is written, spoken, signed, or e-communicated

setting

refers to where and when the text was created and where and when the text might be heard or read

subject/domain

refers to what the text is about; can affect language features like lexical choice

interlocutors

who the participants are in a discourse and the relationship between those participants will affect language choices; the social distance, solidarity and power balance between participants should be considered, as well as each of the participants values and beliefs (cultural context)

cultural context

refers to individual and community values, attitudes and beliefs; influences the language choices of the participants and the way the discourse is interpreted by the participants

social purpose

in contrast to function, which refers to the reason a text exists and what participants in the text are trying to achieve, it is related to the intended effect of the text as a whole but also individual language features on the audience of the text e.g. the function of the 'safety zone' signs at train stations is to inform people that there are areas of the train station where there are brighter lights, security cameras etc., but the social purpose of those signs is to make people feel safe and to discourage people from doing anything illegal

Standard English

the variety of English that is codified in dictionaries, grammar books and style guides and promoted by the education system; contributes to the formality of language

non-standard English

use of language that does not follow the 'rules' of the standard; contributes to the informality of language

political language (PC)

an impartial, anti-discriminatory style of language that is designed to reduce or avoid potential offense or exclusion and avoid threatening a person's positive face needs

overt norms

linguistic practises that are widely accepted as prestigious within society e.g. the use of standard English; can be used if a person wants to present themselves (whether all the time or just in specific situations) as educated or having a high socio-economic status

covert norms

linguistic practises that are not given prestige by the wider community and are rarely codified but have more value in certain social groups because of their ability to include and exclude e.g. the use of jargon or slang

jargon

language particular to a trade, occupation, hobby or group which is highly specific to its context; is used to efficiently communicate complex ideas, but can have the side-effect of obfuscation (jargon relies on the knowledge of the participants so participants outside of the field may not understand), meaning it can also include/exclude

slang

very informal language that is not standard in any variety of English, does not last very long (if slang lasts, it is then labelled as a colloquialism), is associated with a particular group and usually has a meaning unrelated to denotation (the dictionary meaning); can be used to reduce social distance, reduce formality or include/exclude people

colloquial language

informal language that demonstrates a casual and relaxed tone which is (unlike slang) permanent and widely understood and even included in the standard e.g. contractions, shortenings; can be used to reduce social distance or just to reduce formality

double-speak

the use of euphemistic, ambiguous or indirect language to deliberately mislead, confuse or obscure meaning e.g. the use of the term 'peacekeeping' to justify military presence in a country; can be used to indirectly lie or to acknowledge a person's positive face needs by trying to reduce offending them

taboo language

language that is deliberately controversial or offensive e.g. profanity, obscenity or expletives; can be used to offend/anger, reduce social distance or for emphasis depending highly on the context

public language

the language that is used in the public domain such as in the fields of politics, media, law and bureaucracy which tends to be more formal, adhere to language standards in the relevant field and be more planned than other (especially spoken) discourse; in politics, language choices may be made either to obscure meaning or to appeal to people, while in the media more emphasis would be made on standard, objective and politically correct language, and in the field of law language needs to be factual and objective with no ambiguity, while in bureaucratic language (language used by the government, companies etc,) the aim is to obscure meaning and sound impressive

rhetoric

the type of language used when the intention is to be strongly persuasive, especially by appealing to the audience's sense of ethical responsibility, their empathetic nature or their logic and reasoning; any use of language that helps reinforce a message in any way has a rhetorical function

positive face needs

refers to an individual's need to be liked, respected and treated as a member of a group (usually used when communicating with friends and family); positive politeness strategies include any language or behaviour that builds rapport, signals approval or encourages equality or inclusiveness e.g. expressing affection, offering praise, listening attentively to a person talking etc

negative face needs

refers to an individual's need to act free from imposition from others (usually used when communicating with strangers or superiors); negative politeness strategies include any language or behaviour that demonstrates respect or minimises imposition e.g using hedges to soften the impact of a demanding statement ('Can you please...?') or using a title to address someone (Mrs, Sir)

language varieties

an established pattern of language use across multiple subsystems that (usually) reflects the identity of the person/people who use it

ethnolect

a cultural language variety that is associated with specific ethnic groups where an individual's use of English is affected by another language

sociolect

where a person's use of English is affected by their social role or group to do with social class, interests, occupation, age, gender or aspirations

idiolect

refers to a person's own specific speech habits which is a reflection of individual identity and is influenced by factors such as personality, nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, gender and aspirations

prescriptivism

an attitude toward language that focuses on the 'correct' or 'incorrect' use of language and the rules of the 'correct' usage of English; the problem with that attitude is that prescriptivists can be seen as dictating how others speak

descriptivism

an attitude toward language that focuses on how language is used rather than how it should be used; in this subject you have to have a descriptivist attitude and be able to describe why a language feature is used, not if it is 'correct' or not

prosodic features

phonological properties that relate to the pronunciation of syllables, words and phrases (not phonemes - individual sound segments)

pitch

refers to the 'height' of a sound in auditory tones from low to high; excitement can cause pitch to rise and a person wanting to sound serious or authoritative may lower their pitch

stress

refers to the degree of strength (sustaining pitch, slight increase in volume and duration) used to pronounce a syllable (usually); stress gives speech rhythm, can change the meaning of a word e.g. recall (noun) vs recall (verb), or emphasise a word in a phrase which can change the meaning of the phrase e.g. He wants to eat the apple. vs He wants to eat the apple.

volume

speaking loudly can aid a social purpose of displaying anger and a softer voice can aid a social purpose of soothing someone

tempo

the pace of speech can indicate things like nervousness (fast speech), deliberation (slow speech) or grammatical features in discourse or be used for dramatic effect

intonation

refers to the pattern of pitch changes in speech and can indicate grammatical structure e.g. punctuation or questions, or the attitude or emotions of the speaker

High rising terminal (HRT)

where rising intonation is used at the end of phrases that are not questions; used to invite feedback from the listener and to hold the floor

paralingustic features

(also known as vocal effects) can be used within speech to indicate moods, attitudes etc. e.g. coughs, laughter, breath

connected speech

sentences are more of a continuous sound than separate words, and that can affect pronunciation

assimilation

where a sound changes to become more like a neighbouring sound e.g. the word handbag pronounced as 'hambag', the word butter pronounced as 'budder' and the phrase won't you pronounced won'chu

vowel reduction

unstressed vowels are pronounced as a schwa ('uh' sound)

elision

where sounds are omitted in connected speech e.g. the phrase going to pronounced as 'gonna'

insertion

where a sound is added to make pronunciation easier e.g. drawing pronounced 'draw-ring' and going pronounced 'go-wing'

Broad accent

the accent that is stereotypically associated with Australians which is mainly characterised by lengthened vowel sounds and has positive connotations (mateship and friendliness) and negative connotations (low socioeconomic status and 'bogan-ness'); there is a correlation between the use of Broad accent and the use of non-Standard English

General accent

the accent that is used by the majority of Australians and it is the most commonly heard accent in the media; this accent does not have many connotations other than the positive of being the accent that most people use

Cultivated accent

the accent is the Australian version of the British Received Pronunciation associated with the Queen's English which is now seen as pretentious and is used by very few people

phonological patterning

refers to sound patterns in language that are used to produce specific stylistic effects

alliteration

the repetition of an initial consonant sound; can be used to make a text more memorable (part of phonological patterning)

assonance

the repetition of identical vowel sounds (within words)

consonance

the repetition of consonant sounds (within words)

onomatopoeia

use of a word formed by the imitation of a sound e.g. splash, rustle, miaw

rhythm: refers to the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in speech

rhyme

refers to the repetition of word endings that have the same (or similar) vowel and consonants sounds; used to capture attention and make a text memorable

affixation

when a bound morpheme is added to a free morpheme

prefix

when a bound morpheme is added to the start of a free morpheme e.g. un+official

suffix

when a bound morpheme is added to the end of a free morpheme e.g. function+al

inflection

when a suffix does not change the meaning or word class of a word but provides grammatical information

derivation

when an affix changes the meaning and/or word class of a word e.g. game+(e)r

infix

(uncommon) when a bound morpheme is added inside a free morpheme e.g. abso+bloody+lutely; used for emphasis

Suffixation in Australian English

a common feature of Australian English is to shorten a word then add a suffix such as -y, -ie, -a or -o e.g. service station becomes servo; the effect of these colloquialisms is to add some 'Australianism' to a person's language, which is related to identity (playful, irreverent and anti-authoritarian) and also to decrease formality

bound morpheme

a morpheme that cannot stand independently

free morpheme

a morpheme that is a word when it stands alone

root morpheme

either a bound or a free morpheme that is the centre of a word e.g. bio+logy, bio+mass

content words

words that have a meaning; nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs

function words

words that only have a grammatical purpose; determiners, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and interjections

neologisms

the term given to a newly coined word, expression or usage

blends

words produced by using parts of two words to create a new word e.g. brother+romance=bromance

acronyms

words that evolve as the result of using the first letter of a series of words and pronouncing it as a word e.g. Australian and New Zealand Army Corps = ANZAC

initialisms

words that evolve as the result of using the first letter of a series of words and pronouncing it as individual letters e.g. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals = RSPCA

shortenings

where the end and/or the beginning of a word is dropped e.g. refrigerator = fridge

compounding

where two free morphemes are added together to form a new word e.g. blue+berry=blueberry

contractions

where two words form one word with an apostrophe e.g I+will=I'll

collocations

where two or more words are closely associated with each other e.g. 'safe and sound' or how the word brunette (meaning brown) is only used when referring to hair colour

borrowing

where an English word is borrowed from another language

commonisation

where a word that was originally a proper noun becomes common e.g. the word 'thermos' was originally a brand name, but it is now used to refer to any vacuum flask

archaism

words that are no longer used in everyday life which may be preserved in special contexts

coversion

where a word is converted from one word class to another e.g. the word 'email' was first a noun, but is now also used as a verb

morphological patterning

where there is the repeated presence of words made by one or more of the above mentioned word-formation processes e.g. in the phrase 'a mishy-mashy mix of fauvism, cubism and surrealism'; used for emphasis or to make a text more memorable

conversion of word class

when a word that previously limited to one word class is used as another word class without adding a suffix to the word e.g. the word 'email' was first a noun, but is now also used as a verb

creative word formation

where a word is formed using a variation of one or more of the word-formation processes e.g. describing the ocean as a greeny-blueish colour

lexical choice

refers to what words a person chooses to use in a text and why they choose them (affected by context and social purpose)

lexical patterning

involves the repeated presence of a word and its various forms; used for emphasis or to make a text more cohesive

phrase

a collection of words that have a grammatical relationship with each other e.g. noun phrase 'shiny red apple', verb phrase 'was played loudly', prepositional phrase 'in the morning' etc.

clause

a collection of words (minimally) containing a subject and a verb e.g. an independent clause 'the cat meowed' or a dependent clause 'because it was angry'

sentence

a collection of words that contains at least one independent clause which makes sense as a whole e.g. 'The cat meowed because it was angry.'

fragment

a 'sentence' that does not contain a complete independent clause but still acts as a sentence e.g. 'Tried to, but no.'; more efficient use of words, decreases formality of the text (sentence structures)

simple sentence

a sentence that contains a single independent clause e.g. 'I bought three potato cakes.' (sentence structures)

compound sentence

a sentence that contains at least two independent clauses joined with conjunctions e.g. 'I bought three potato cakes and she bought a burger.' (sentence structures)

complex sentence

a sentence that contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause e.g. 'I bought three potato cakes because I was hungry.' (sentence structures)

complex compound sentence

a sentence that contains at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause e.g. 'I bought three potato cakes and she bought a burger because we were both hungry.'

coordination and subordination

create different sentence structures which gives variation and rhythm in the text; can also change the emphasis of a sentence by changing the order of words or phrases in a sentence

ellipses

involves the omission of words or phrases from an utterance, especially if they are implied; reduces unnecessary repetition which aids cohesion, and is often used in more informal texts

nominalisation

when a noun is created from a word from another word class to focus on a concept rather than something like an action e.g. 'participation is encouraged' instead of possibly 'I encourage you to participate'; often results in more abstract and impersonal prose and a more formal register

declarative sentence type

a sentence that functions to provide information, observations or statements

imperative sentence type

a sentence that functions to give a direct order or instruction

interrogative

a sentence that functions to ask a question

exclamative

a sentence that functions to make an exclamation

subject

the noun or noun phrase that performs the verb (ask 'who (verb)ed?') e.g. He gave his teacher a gift. [part of a clause]

direct object

the noun or noun phrase that receives the action (ask 'subject (verb)ed what?') e.g. He gave his teacher a gift. [parts of a clause]