English language Terminology

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Common noun
a naming word for a thing that is tangible, e.g. chair, penguin, man, arsonist, murderer, ghost, crumpet, trumpet.
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Abstract noun
a naming word for an idea, concept, state of being or belief, e.g. tidiness, sadness, antidisestablishmentarianism, love, politics, Marxism.
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Proper noun
a naming word for a specific example of a common noun (often are names of places or specific people), e.g. Bob, Eiffel Tower, Burnley, Wayne Rooney.
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Active verb
a word that represents a physical action, e.g. jump, run, kill, slap, kiss
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Stative verb
a word that represents a process that is often only mental, e.g. think, love, ponder, believe
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Auxiliary verb
a verb that has to be used with another verb in order to create present participles or the future tense, e.g. “DID you go?”; “I AM going”; you WILL go”.
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Modal verb
an auxiliary verb that express a degree of either possibility or necessity, e.g. might, could, must, should, may
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Adjective
a describing word that modifies a noun.
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Adverb
a describing word that modifies all types of word, excluding nouns
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Superlative
an adjective that displays the most extreme value of its quality, e.g. most, biggest, smallest, worst, furthest, farthest, quietest, zaniest. Most of the time superlatives end with ‘-est’.
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Comparative
an adjective that relates one thing in some way to another and usually ends in ‘er’: bigger, smaller, further, farther, quieter, zanier.
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Definite article
the
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Indefinite article
a or an
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Pronoun
a word that takes the place of a noun in a sentence, e.g. him, her, it, he, she, I, you, me (self-reflexive pronoun), they.
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First person pronoun
I, and the first person plural: we, our, us.
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Second person pronoun
you
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Third person pronoun
him, her, he, she, it, and the third person plural: them, those.
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Possessive pronoun
my, mine, our, your, his, hers, theirs.
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Demonstrative pronoun
this, that, those.
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Monosyllabic lexis
words of one syllable
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Polysyllabic lexis
words of two or more syllable.
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Imperative
when a sentence is issuing a command.
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Declarative
when a sentence is making a statement.
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Interrogative
when a sentence is asking a question
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Exclamative
when a sentence conveys a strong sense of emotion, sense of alarm or overly strong emphasis.
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Colloquialism
Informal language usage, e.g. bloke, fella, lass, bog (toilet), scram,
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Syntax
the way words form sentences (the ordering of them to create meaning)
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Parenthesis
an aside within a text created by sectioning off extra information between brackets, dashes or between two commas
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Hypophora
when a rhetorical question is immediately followed by an answer in a text, e.g. “Is this the best film ever? You bet it is!”
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Hyperbole
deliberate over-exaggeration of things for effect.
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Parallelism/patterning
the creation of patterns in a text, through repetition of words or phrases (phonological parallelism) or by balancing meanings (semantic parallelism) for deliberate effect.
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Tricolon/tripling
grouping in threes, either through repetition or through structures (either within a sentence or paragraph). This can be for emphasis or to add a sense of gathering momentum to a point being made.
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Pre-modification
a descriptive technique where the descriptive words come before the thing they are describing, e.g. the big, fat wad of cash spewed from his inadequate pocket.
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Post-modification
a descriptive technique where the descriptive words come after the thing they are describing, e.g. the wad of cash, big and fat, spewed from his pocket.
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Synecdoche
a metaphor that states that something is only a small constituent part of itself, even though we commonly understand otherwise, e.g. “a new set of wheels” (car) or “he’s behind bars” (prison)
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Analogy
explaining something in terms of something else.
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Pathetic Fallacy
when the environment or weather mirrors emotions.
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Extended metaphor
when a metaphor continues throughout a text with recurring references to the compared item.
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Symbolism
using figurative and metaphoric language, items or incident in a way that means that certain things represent other things, e.g. a colour could represent the sadness of a character or a volcano erupting could symbolise the political infighting of the
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Field specific lexis
the language of a certain area (be it vocation, activity or subject etc), e.g. field specific lexis for computing would include mouse, monitor, RAM, gigabyte etc; field specific lexis for English Language would include everything in this glossary.
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Semantics
the meaning of words
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Acronym
words created by the initials of other grouped words, e.g. the UN, NATO, RSPCA.
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Synonym
an alternative word choice that has the same or a very similar meaning, e.g. a synonym of horror is fright.
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Homophone
different words that sound exactly the same when said out loud (be very careful of these with regards to your spelling), e.g. they’re, their, there; new, knew, no, know; need, knead, kneed; led, lead
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Homonym
when one word has multiple meanings, e.g. great can mean both size and positivity; cool can mean both coldness and a ‘cool dude’; heavy can mean physical weight or the seriousness of a situation.
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Archaism
a word that, over time, has fallen out of common usage. Older ones include zounds, thus, betwixt etc
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Juxtaposition
the placing together of elements (whether text, image etc) for some conscious effect, whether that be complimentary or contrasting.
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Binary opposites
elements of a text that hold opposite ends of a notional scale e.g. hot/cold, big/small, loud/quiet.
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Oxymoron
The use of apparently contradictory words in a phrase, e.g. peaceful war, hot ice.
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Collocations
words that, through usage just naturally go together. We collectively understand they are inextricably linked, e.g. Laurel and Hardy, fish and chips, salt and vinegar,
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Consonance
the repetition of double consonants in the middle of words, e.g. I’d better buy more butter before I go out and post these letters.
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Assonance
the repetition of vowel sounds, e.g. you should wear a hood while you chop the wood good. Assonance can create rhyme.
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Anthropomorphism
when an animal takes on the characteristics of a human being, e.g. wearing clothes, buying cakes and talking.
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Satire
a piece of writing or art that pokes fun at the societal establishment
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Neologism
a newly invented word.
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Portmanteau
a newly invented word, created by merging two words together, for example snozcumber (from schnoz and cucumber) or chillax (from ‘chill out’ and ‘relax’).
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Clipping
colloquial omission of parts of words to create a more casual alternative, e.g. ‘cause,
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Taboo language
words that are considered socially unacceptable to say in polite, civilised society, e.g. swear words or words that are politically incorrect.
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Connotation
the associations that can be gleaned from words
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Denotation
the literal meaning of the words
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Euphemism
the polite way to say something not normally considered socially appropriate, usually to refer to going to the toilet, death etc.
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Dysphemism
an unnecessarily extreme way of saying something, not normally socially appropriate. It could incorporate taboo language or contain too much information than necessary. You’re husband had his head blown off and there was blood everywhere.
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Journalese
the sensationalised language that is particular to tabloid newspapers, e.g. slam, probe, spat (as in fight), shocker.
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Multiple modifiers
doubling and trebling up of adjectives is used frequently in tabloid newspapers and also other genres of text.
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Idiom
a saying, often a cliché where the words that make up the saying do not have the same meaning as the overall semantic effect, e.g. I’m over the moon; you’re taking the Mickey
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Paralinguistic features
literally ‘beyond language’. The things that aid communication but don’t literally constitute language, e.g. body language, facial expressions, laughter, sighs, whispering.
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Prosodic features
the ‘sound effects’ of spoken language. Things like stress, intonation and pitch.
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Intonation
the rise and fall of an individual’s natural speaking voice or the variation or ‘tune’ to keep listeners interested. These naturally differ from nation to nation as different languages have different intonation qualities
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Turn taking
co-ordinated and rule governed co-operation between two or more participants of a conversation.
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Adjacency pair
a moment in turn taking where one utterance constrains the response in some way, e.g. a question leads to an answer; a suggestion leads to an acceptance or declination.
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Back channelling
the process of giving feedback through encouraging noises and positive comments when a speaker is talking to encourage them.
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Repair
the process of socially organising a conversation if two people find that they have been talking simultaneously.
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False starts
The speaker realises the beginning of an utterance isn’t working and so effectively re-starts by rephrasing.
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Fillers
the insertion of words, phrases or noises into a speaker’s discourse, e.g. like, y’know, sort of, right.
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Overlaps
when one speaker speaks over another.
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Non-fluency features
any feature which would indicate that the speaker is not speaking with fluency for whatever reason, e.g. someone might stammer if they are under severe pressure, or a foreign speaker may invert syntax or elide certain words from their utterances.
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Tag question
a question tagged onto the end of an statement, e.g ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’
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Elision
the omission of a vowel or syllable in the pronunciation of a word... OR the omission of a vowel at the end of a word when the subsequent word begins with a vowel (as apparent in northern pronunciation), e.g. “it’s either one or t’other.”
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Code switching
the ability of a speaker to alter the register or clarity of their speech to suit a different social situation.
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Received Pronunciation
the typical pronunciation associated with the social elite of Britain. The Queen’s English etc.
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formulaic phrase
“by the way…” and “incidentally…” or clauses like “that reminds me…” and “to change the subject…” may be used to bring one topic to an end & establish a new one
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supportive minimal vocalisations
where a second speaker utters minimal responses like mmm or yeah, often the function of the utterances is to support rather than challenge
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maxim of quality
speakers should tell the truth. They should not say what they think is false, or make statements for which they lack evidence
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maxim of quantity
a contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation to proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much. (It is not clear how one can decide what quantity of information satisfies the maxim in a given case.)
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maxim of relevance
speakers’ contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.
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hedge
to soften expressions that might otherwise appear too direct, abrupt or unduly authoritative or assertive – any word or phrase used to “beat about the bush” and avoid a direct attack on someone’s sense of self-worth
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self-related comment
whether a comment is related to the speaker herself or to the listener can be very significant and is often worth pointing out. If there are a preponderance of self-related comments then the speaker might be seen as unduly careless of her listener’s
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positive politeness
pay attention, seek agreement, presuppose common ground, avoid disagreement, make jokes, etc.
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negative politeness
be indirect, question, hedge, give deference, be apologetic
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

a naming word for an idea, concept, state of being or belief, e.g. tidiness, sadness, antidisestablishmentarianism, love, politics, Marxism.

Back

Abstract noun

Card 3

Front

a naming word for a specific example of a common noun (often are names of places or specific people), e.g. Bob, Eiffel Tower, Burnley, Wayne Rooney.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

a word that represents a physical action, e.g. jump, run, kill, slap, kiss

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

a word that represents a process that is often only mental, e.g. think, love, ponder, believe

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

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