VCE English Language Metalanguage

Phonetics

The study of how we make speech sounds and how we organize these sounds.

Phonology

The study of the patterns that speech sounds form within a language.

Morphology

The study of words and their parts. Each word is made up of morphemes, which are the smallest unit of meaning within a word.

Lexicology

Lexicology is the study of words and how they behave within a language.

Syntax

The study of how words are ordered into phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Discourse

Refers to written or spoken texts that are longer than a sentence.

Pragmatics

The study of how language is used within a given context, and how context contributes to meaning.

Semantics

Involves the study of understanding and meaning in communication, including both logical meaning and lexical (dictionary) meaning.

Assimilation

Occurs when a speech sound changes to become more like a neighboring sound. This can change in terms of place of articulation, manner of articulation or voicing. For example, in English, the word ‘handbag’ is often pronounced as ‘hambag’.

Vowel Reduction

In unstressed syllables, vowels often become less distinct and are reduced to a more central vowel.

Elision

The omission of a sound or syllable in a spoken language, such as in the contraction of phrases. I have becomes I’ve.

Insertion

Involves the addition of sounds. Happens for ease of pronunciation.

Prosodic Features of Speech

Pitch, intonation, stress, tempo, volume

Pitch

The relative height of auditory sound.

Intonation

The patterns of pitch variation across phrases, clauses and sentences.

Stress

The intensity that is placed upon a syllable within a word. Used for emphasis.

Tempo

Relates to the pace (speed) with which an intonation unit is delivered.

Volume

The relative increase or decrease in decibels across an intonation unit. Can create stress.

Affixation

The use of affixes to create new words (neologisms).

Abbreviation

Shortened forms of words or phrases. They can include shortenings, initialisms and acronyms. VCAA.

Shortening

The abbreviation of a word by reducing its length. ‘All caps’, where ‘caps’ is a shortening of ‘capitals’.

Compounding

The process of joining two or more whole words to create a single word. ‘Bookcase’ and ‘swimsuit’. Some are hyphenated.

Blending

The process of combining two or more words, where at least one word has undergone a form of abbreviation before being joined. ‘Kidult’.

Backformation

The process of creating a new word by removing what is falsely perceived to be an affix from an existing word. ‘Televise’ backformed from ‘television’.

Conversion of Word Class

Involves changing the class or role of a word, without changing its morphology. An example includes ‘email’, which was once only a noun but is now also a verb.

Initialism

A form of abbreviation, formed by taking the first letters of words in a string of words and pronouncing them as letters or a combination of letters and other symbols. The initialism cannot be pronounced as a whole word. An example includes ‘VCE’.

Acronym

A form of abbreviation, formed by taking the first letters of words in a string of words, and pronouncing them as a new word. ‘ANZAC’.

Contraction

A word formed by removing some letters from words and marking the missing letters with an apostrophe. ‘She’s’ and ‘It’s’.

Nouns

Name places, people, things, qualities, ideas or concepts.

Pronouns

Replace nouns and noun phrases within a sentence. ‘He’ ‘Her’ ‘It’.

Verbs

Express actions, states or occurrences. Take on inflectional morphemes such as suffixes ‘-ed’ and ‘-ing’ to indicate past and present tense. Future tense is not marked by inflecting a verb in English, but the modal auxiliary verb ‘will ‘is used to provide information.

Auxiliary Verb

A ‘helping’ verb, one that supports the main verb of the sentence.

Primary Auxiliary Verb

Used to construct tenses that could not otherwise be conveyed by inflectional morphemes on the main verb alone. There are three primary auxiliary verbs in English: ‘be’, ‘have’ and ‘do’. Can act as main verbs, but show an expression of time, continuity, and completion of an action when grouped with a main verb.

Modal Auxiliary Verb

Expresses request, obligation, advice, action or probability. Can take negative form.

Adjectives

Words that describe or modify nouns and pronouns, providing more information about them.

Adverbs

Modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs or sentences. They provide information about elements such as time, place, manner, frequency, degree, and cause and effect.

Prepositions

Used before nouns, pronouns or phrases to indicate elements such as direction, time, place, location and spatial relationships.

Conjunctions (Coordinators)

Link words, phrases or clauses of equal rank. The most common are through acronym ‘FANBOYS’. For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

Conjunctions (Subordinators)

Introduce subordinate (dependent) clauses and link them to main clauses. ‘Because’, ‘although’, ‘if’, ‘while’ and ‘since’.

Determiners

Words that are placed in front of nouns to help clarify the noun, specify quantity or indicate possession. They include articles (‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’), demonstratives (‘this’, ‘that’), possessive pronouns (‘my’, ‘your’) and quantifiers (‘some’, ‘many’).

Interjections

Words or phrases that express emotions and sometimes requests. Tend to be expressive and indicate strong emotions such as sadness, surprise and joy - for example, ‘Wow! That’s amazing!’.

Word Formation Processes

Neologisms, borrowings, communization, nominalization.

Neologism

A newly coined word or expressing, or new usage of language. These occur due to the need to express concepts that had no linguistic representation, and can arise from technological advances and cultural changes.

Borrowings

Words that have been adopted from one language into another. Often occur when there is contact between cultures with different languages. Over time, they become fully integrated into the borrowing language.

Commonisation

Refers to the process by which proper nouns become common nouns. ‘Band-aid’, a brand, has now become commonised to any small adhesive bandage.

Nominalisation

When words are changed into nouns. It is a common process in many languages for creating new nouns, and is particularly prevalent in academic and formal writing. Involves adding suffixes to the original word.

Phrases

A group of words that acts as a single unit within a sentence but does not include both a subject and predicate (main verb and modifiers). Categorized bases on the central word.

Noun Phrase

Consists of a noun and its modifiers, e.g. ‘the quick brown fox’.

Verb Phrase

Includes the main verb and its modifiers, e.g. ‘is running quickly’.

Prepositional Phrase

Begins with a preposition, e.g. ‘on the table’.

Adjective Phrase

Centers around an adjective, e.g. ‘very happy’.

Adverb Phrase

Built around an adverb, e.g. ‘quite slowly’.

Clauses

A group of words that contains both a sentence and a predicate. Independent clauses and dependent clauses are differentS

Subjects

The person, place, thing or idea that is performing the action or being described. It is typically a noun or pronoun, and is found at the beginning. ‘The cat sleeps’.

Predicates

The part of the clause that tells us what the subject is doing, or what is being done to the subject. Includes the main verb and its modifiers. ‘The flowers are blooming’, ‘are blooming’ is the predicate.

Objects

The entity that is affected by the action of the subject. Objects can be direct or indirect.

Direct Object

Receives the action of the verb directly. ‘She reads a book’. A book is the direct object. I

Indirect Object

Indirectly affected by the action and typically represents to whom or for whom the action is done - ‘She gives him a book’, ‘him’ is an indirect object.

Complements

A word or group of words that completes the meaning of a predicate.

Subject Complements

Describe or identify the subject. ‘The sky is blue’.

Object Complements

Follow and modify or refer to the object. ‘They elected her captain’.

Adverbials

A word (typically an adverb), phrase or clause that provides extra information about a verb. It provides additional optional information about how, when, where, in what manner or to what extent something happens.

Combining Clauses

Varies sentence structure, provides appropriate amounts of information and reduces repetition.

Sentences

A set of words that expresses a complete thought. It consists of a subject and a predicate.

Sentence Types

Help define a sentence’s primary purpose.

Declarative Sentence

Makes a statement.

Interrogative Sentence

Asks a question

Imperative Sentence

Gives a command or request

Exclamative Sentence

Expresses strong emotion.

Sentence Structures

Determined by whether the sentence comprises a complete clause, how many clauses, and the conjunctions that join them.

Simple sentence.

Contains one independent clause.

Compound Sentence

Consists of two or more independent clauses connected by a coordinator.

Complex Sentence

Includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause connected by a subordinator.

Compound-Complex Sentence

Contains at least two independent clauses joined together by a coordinator, and at least one dependent clause joined by a subordinator.

Fragment Sentence

An incomplete sentence, missing either the subject or the predicate, however, still makes sense within the text as a whole.

Paralinguistic Features

Elements of communication that are outside of the actual words used, but are essential in conveying meaning and emotion in spoken language. Includes vocal qualities, non-verbal signals, and other aspects of speech.

Vocal Effects

Variations in voice quality that conveys information or emotion. Used to emphasize a point, express emotion or create a particular atmosphere in conversation. Whispers and laughter.

Non-verbal Communication

Aspects of body language that contribute meaning in communication. These include gestures, facial expressions and eye contact.

Creakiness

Also known as vocal fry, low vibration of the vocal cords. Occurs at low pitch and can signal the end of an utterance or be used stylistically in speech.

Breathiness

Refers to a quality of voice where there is a noticeable presence of breath in the sound. Conveys softness or intimacy.

The Signifier

The physical form of the sign.

The Signified

The concept that the signifier represents.

Semantic Domain

A specific area of meaning and the set of words and expressions that have related meanings or cover the relevant subject matter.

Inference

The process of drawing a logical conclusion from one or more statements or facts, using existing knowledge.

Root

A single morpheme that contains the primary meaning of the word.

Morpheme

A part of a word that cannot be broken down any further, like ‘un-’.

Stem

Can be broken down more.

Free Morphemes

Indivisible and can stand alone as a word. ‘Cat’ and ‘break’ are both free morphemes because they can stand alone as a word.

Bound Morpheme

Rely on a root or stem to be used in a word. ‘-s’ and ‘un-’ are all bound morphemes.

Affixes

Bound morphemes are referred to as affixes. How they attach to a root or stem. P

Prefix

Attaches to the front of a root or stem.

Suffix

Attaches to the end.

Infix

Placed inside a root or stem. Used in informal English.

Inflectional Affix

A bound morpheme that attaches grammatical properties to a word, such as tense, number, or possession. Does not affect the fundamental meaning of the root word.

Derivational Affix

Creates or derives a new word from the root or stem that it is attached to. It adds to or changes the meaning or form of the existing word so that it no longer performs the same role.

Open Word Class

New words can be added as they become necessary, helping adaption to societal changes. These can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns.

Closed Word Classes

New words are very rarely added to these classes. Can be prepositions, determiners, and conjunctions.

Content Words

Open word classes can also be called content words, as they have easily definable meanings and contain most of the semantic substance in sentences.

Function Words

In the closed classes, as they serve structural purposes in a sentence.

Concrete Nouns

Physically observed nouns.