Note
Studied by 7 people
Unit 3&4 Metalanguage
Cohesion:
Lexical choice: role of content words in creating texts
synonymy: using pairs or groups of words that are equivalent or very similar in meaning
“choice, selection and preference” (all three words have a similar meaning so could be used within a text to create cohesion)
antonymy: the relationship of words that are opposite in meaning
“He’s always been hot and cold with me”
links conceptually in a sentence
hyponymy: a word that is a sub-type of a larger category called hypernym
builds a semantic domain
adds a consistent idea/concept
hypernymy: a larger category consisting of smaller categories called hyponyms
Animal (Hypernym) → Cat (hyponym of animal) (hyperhym of ragdoll) → ragdoll (hyponym of cat)
Collocation: words that typically appear next to or very near each other in texts. allows readers or listeners to predict the next word in a sentence or utterance.
“welcome to my humble abode”
adds an expectation of what comes next
Information flow: modification of the structure of a sentence or clause so that the elements that are important gains prominence
clefting: moving a phrase to another position within the sentence
It-cleft: ‘It’ is at the front moving the most important element to the front
Unmarked: “I washed the cat last night”
“ It was the cat that I washed last night”
Pseudo-cleft: Uses a relative pronoun to move the most important element to the back
Unmarked: “The cat stole the fish from the fridge”
“What was stolen from the fridge by the cat was the fish”
Unmarked sentence: Cecily read a poem at the recital last night.
“Where Cecily was last night when she read the poem was at the recital”
“Who read the poem last night at the recital was Cecily”
“When Cecily read the poem was last night at the recital”
front focus: moving a phrasal element out of its usual position and to the front of a sentence to give it prominence
info moved to the front already known in the context, if new acts as contrast/comparison
“We were watching the man down the street. To all of us he seemed to he acting suspiciously.”
end focus: allows for prominence to be placed on a particular phrasal element that normally appears elsewhere to the end of a sentence by moving it to the end
unmarked: “My cat dropped a dead mouse on the doorstep this morning.”
“My cat dropped a mouse on the doorstep this morning, dead!”
anaphoric reference: when an element or an entity has been introduced in a text (referent), a pronoun (anaphor) is used instead of the full phrase to refer back to it
“Miss Melrose woke up this morning on the left side of her bed. She usually wakes up on the right.”
cataphoric reference: uses substitution before the referent is introduced.
“As she felt a little cold, Mendy put on her coat”
adds suspense and tension or obfuscates
deictics: an expression used in relation to the speaker, listener or context of the communication. can signal people, places, objects, times or situations. the referent is not explicit in the text.
creates shared understanding between interlocutors
paralinguistic features: also can be deictic since it requires contextual knowledge (pointing)
repetition: using the same word throughout a text to reiterate an idea or topic
“Aleyna loved reading books. Without a doubt the appeal went beyond the stories within them, it was also the calming smell of the books’ paper. She embraced being bookish.”
substitution: replacing one element of a sentence with something else
“Will it be sunny tomorrow? I hope so” ← “I hope it will be sunny tomorrow”
“I like pie. I bet you do too.” ← “I bet you like pie too”
Nominal: uses ‘one’ or ‘ones’ to substitute the noun
“okay Jules, thanks for the meeting. Let’s start the next one”
Verbal: realised through aux verbs or substitute terms like ‘so’ or ‘the same’
“Thursday the sixth looks pretty good, and, so does Monday the tenth”
Clausal: ‘so’ and ‘not’ substitutes the previous clause
“do you think we’ll need an hour? If so, how bout the twenty sixth, three to four?”
ellipsis: the omission of words or phrases, particularly when they are already known due to contextual information or because they have been referred to previously
“Suzie took the first bite of matcha cheesecake while Yarys took the second
bite of matcha cheesecake.”
conjunctions and adverbials: can be used to improve the flow of writing by tying together phrases, clauses, sentences and paragraphs
adverbials can be used to signpost: “firstly…, immediately…, finally”
coordinating conjunctions allow for additions, comparisons and contrasts
subordinating conjunctions relate lexis by context of time and space, or cause and effect
Coherence:
· cohesion
Inference: A conclusion that is reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning
relies on a level of situational, cultural, regional and/or historical knowledge
logical ordering: Ensures that a text is structured in a way that is visually and textually appropriate for that text type
written: TEEL
spoken: formal greeting, intro, development, conclusion, final acknowledgement of audience
formatting: includes the font style, spacing, alignment, headings and subheadings, lists, text colours, graphics, margins and white space to give prominence to more important elements of a text.
consistency and conventions:
Coherent texts adhere to the conventions of the text type
e.g. a recipe requires a list of ingredients and a method, as well as the number of suggested servings, and perhaps a picture of the finished dish
Consistency can be achieved by using lexical choices from the same semantic field and/or using dominant sentence types
e.g. a recipe would include lexemes from the semantic field of cooking, and the dominant sentence type would be imperatives
Features of spoken discourse:
Openings and Closings
Opening: to start a conversation (phatic talk) = formulaic utterances
Salutation
“Hi, g’day, hey, sigma”
Vocatives (addressing someone)
“Ladies and gentlemen, (name), Mr, Miss”
phatic question/comment
“How are you?, it’s great to see you”
Closing: close a conversation
“Thank you, see ya”
Adjacency Pairs (AP)
aids natural progression of the conversation
structures convo
provides co-operation
opening + closing
phatic comment + response
apology + acceptance
thank you + response
compliment + acknowledgement
question + answer
Minimal responses/Backchannels
responses that show encouragement and support for the speaker
indicates listeners engagement
“mm”, “yeah”, “wow”, “damn”
laughter
echoing
facial expressions
Overlapping Speech: one person overlaps another speaker
reasons why:
to get the other to stop talking
to seize the floor
agreement
excitement
shows:
informality
support or animosity
spontaneity
Discourse markers/Particles: fillers we insert into our speech for a particular purpose
‘yeah-no’, ‘like’, ‘i think’, ‘well’, ‘sort of’, ‘you know’
Hedging expressions/hedges: expressions that reduce the force of what we’re saying to express modesty, uncertainty creating a friendly, less authoritative utterance
‘sort of’, ‘just’, ‘like’
eg. I think it’s kind of like a tiger
Non-fluency Features (NFF)
reflective or spontaneous speech
does not change nature of convo
occurs when speakers formulate ideas/words while speaking and reach grammatical boundaries
Pauses
formulating ideas
emphasis
hesitation
word searching
Filled pauses/voiced hesitations
hesitation, uncertainty, word searching
‘um’, ‘er’, ‘like’, ‘uh’, ‘hmm’, ‘mm’
False starts
demonstrates spontaneity
gives more time to construct grammatically correct sentences
occurs anywhere
starting with a different word → changing to start with another word
Repetition: unintentional mention of repeated words
hesitation, self-correction
‘I’, ‘I dont know’
Repairs: correction of utterance that may have occurred due to errors, miscommunication
need for clarification
“I have, I mean I don’t have”
Strategies in spoken discourse:
· management of repair sequences
· code switching as a marker of group membership and belonging
Topic Management (1 or more people): ways to manage a topic within a conversation or monologue
Topic initiation: starting a topic through a statement or question
Topic development: further elaboration and extending the initial discussion through expansion on points
Topic shift: topic is changed from one to another
deliberate or unintentional
Topic loop: returning to a previously discussed topic
Topic termination: reaching the end of a convo
Turn taking (2 or more ppl): ways to organise turns
Taking the floor
speaking during silence or interrupting
Hold the floor
voice hesitation (umm, hmm, uhh)
conjunctions (and)
rising intonation
pauses
Passing the floor
explicitly: interrogative sentence
implicitly: silence, falling intonation
Politeness strategies
Positive and negative face
Face: the aspect of the listener being acknowledged through the politeness strategy
Positive face: concerns the desire for favourable social interactions and maintaining a positive self-image
Negative face: concerns the desire to maintain one's sense of individuality and personal space
Positive and negative face threatening acts
Face-threatening act: communication that can pose a threat to an individual's positive or negative face, leading to consequences such as embarrassment, loss of face, offence or conflict.
eg. making requests, giving directives, complaining, disagreeing, interrupting and delivering bad news
Positive and negative politeness
Positive politeness: strategies we use to create and maintain social harmony by demonstrating empathy and building rapport
Negative politeness: reducing the imposition placed on the listener
Lexical meaning, especially sense relations:
synonymy: using pairs or groups of words that are equivalent or very similar in meaning
“choice, selection and preference” (all three words have a similar meaning so could be used within a text to create cohesion)
adds variety and helps engagement with text
antonymy: the relationship of words that are opposite in meaning
“He’s always been hot and cold with me”
antonyms are linked conceptually
hyponymy: a word that is a sub-type of a larger category called hypernym
builds a semantic domain
establishes a consistent idea/concept
hypernymy: a larger category consisting of smaller categories called hyponyms
Animal (Hypernym) → Cat (hyponym of animal) (hyperhym of ragdoll) → ragdoll (hyponym of cat)
idiom: commonly used phrases which have a non-literal meaning. These may be integrated within a language, or more specific to individual social groups.
denotation: the literal meaning of a word, as found in the dictionary.
connotation: the set of associations and values that are attributed to a word overtime.
Euphemism: words or phrases that are used in place of a particularly blunt or taboo word or phrase, to reduce the impact of the statement
obfuscates the meaning of the word
Dysphemism: words or phrases that are used to magnify a particularly blunt or taboo word or phrase, to increase the impact of the statement.
Paralinguistic features: non-vocal signals beyond the basic speech
vocal effects: all other sounds made in spoken communication except prosodic features
whispers:
laughter: can signal amusement, enjoyment, solidarity, entertainment, sarcasm, close social distance
non-verbal communication:
gestures, facial expressions, eye contact
creakiness: low and scratchy sound
breathiness: dry/sigh like sound
Active and passive voice, including agentless passives
Agent: who performs the action
Patient: thing that is effected by the action of the agent
Active voice
The agent is at the subject position and the patient is at the object position
Tiffany hit the ball
Passive voice
the agent is at the object position, the patient is at the subject position
agent is normally preceded by the preposition ‘by’
The ball was hit by Tiffany
Hypocoristic use of suffixes
A word turns into a form denoting affection or familiarity
Usually into a monosyllable and suffixed with ‘-y’, ‘-ie’, ‘-o’
expensive → ‘exy’, afternoon → ‘arvo’