English Language Vocabulary

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Archaism
an old word/phrase that is no longer in use.
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Allophones
any of the various phonetic realizations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated p (as in pin) and unaspirated p (as in spin ) are allophones of the consonant p.
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Ascender
the typographical feature where a portion of the letter goes above the usual height for letters in any font.
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Assimilation
the influence exercised by one sound over another, so the sounds become alike.
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Behaviourists
those who believe that language acquisition occurs through imitation and reinforcement.
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Bound Morpheme:
one that cannot be on its own, but must be attached to another morpheme.
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Child-Directed Speech
the way parents talk to their children
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Cognitive Theorists
hose who believe that language acquisition is part of a wider development
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Cohesion
the way in which a text appears logical and well constructed
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Consonant
a speech sound that is produced when the vocal tract is either blocked or so restricted that there is audible friction.
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Content Word
a type of word that has an independent dictionary meaning, also called a lexical word.
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Convergence
a process of linguistic change, in which people adjust their dialect, accent or speech style to that of others, often occurring to express solidarity and understanding.
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Covert Prestige
refers to the status speakers get when they choose to not use a dialect.
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Cueing
the strategies used to help decode written texts successfully
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Cursive handwriting
handwriting in which the characters are joined in rounded and flowing strokes.
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Deixis
lexical items that point towards something and place words in context
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Descender
where part of the letter goes below the usual baseline of a font.
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Digraph
a graphic unit in which two symbols combine, or any sequence of letters produced as a single sound ‘e.g.: sh’
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Diphthong
a vowel in which there is a perceptible change in quality during a syllable.
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Discourse
a stretch of communication
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Drift
a process of linguistic change over a certain period of time.
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Dummy Auxiliary
the verb 'do' which is used to form questions and negatives or to add emphasis in a statement.
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Dynamic Verbs
a type of verb that expresses activities and changes of state.
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Egocentric
the running discourse style of speech used by children where no listener is directly addressed and the talk is focused on the child’s activities.
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Emergent Writing
children’s early scribble writing, a stage of their literacy writing.
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Euphemism
where something offensive is phrased more pleasantly.
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Expansion
the development of a child’s utterance into a longer more meaningful form.
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Eye Dialect
a way of spelling words that implies a dialect or sociolect.
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Free Morpheme
one that can stand alone as an independent word
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Function Words
a word whose role is largely to express grammatical relationships.
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Grapheme
a written symbol, letter or combination of letters that is used to represent a phoneme.
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Holophrase
Holophrase
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Homophone
a lexical item that has the same pronunciation as another
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Hypernym
a superordinate: a word that is more generic (e.g.: dog)
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Hyponym
a more specific word that can be categorised under a hypernym (e.g.: Labradoodle)
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Hyponymy
the hierarchical structure that exists between lexical items
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Idiolect
an individual’s own linguistic fingerprint
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Idiom
a phrase, specific to a language, that cannot be given any sense according to its denotation, however has a specific connotation.
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Inflectional Morphology
the altercation of words to make new grammatical forms
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Influential Power
power used to influence or persuade
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Informalisation
how language is becoming increasingly less formal in all social situations.
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Instrumental Power
power used to maintain/enforce authority
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Lexicon
the vocabulary of a language.
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Lexis
the vocabulary of a language
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Mean Length Utterance
a measure of a child’s ability to produce stretches of language; the number of morphemes is divided by the total number of utterances.
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Miscue
errors made by children when reading
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Nativist
those who believe that humans have an inbuilt capacity to acquire language
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Negative Reinforcement
when an undesirable behaviour is unrewarded.
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Object Permanence
the awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible.
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Obsolete
no longer has any use
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Omission
the act of leaving out a phoneme in a group of phonemes
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Orthography
the study of the use of letters and the rules of spelling in a language
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Overextension
a feature of a child’s language where the word used to label something is ‘stretched’ to include things that aren’t normally part of the meaning of that word. For example, calling any four legged animal a ‘dog’.
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Overgeneralisation
a learner’s extension of a word meaning or grammatical rule beyond its normal use
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Overt Prestige
is used for referring to the status people get when using the most official form of a language (Standard English in English)
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Phonics
a system of teaching reading and spelling that stresses basic symbol-sound relationships and their use in decoding words; a system used especially in the early stages of reading.
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Phoneme
the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.
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Phonemic Contraction
the variety of sounds produced decreases to the sounds that the child’s main language will use.
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Phonemic Expansion
the variety of sounds produced increases
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Phonetics
the study of the sounds used in speech, including how they are produced.
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Phonology
the study of sound systems and how they communicate meaning.
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Political Correctness
words or phrases used to replace those that are seen to be offensive.
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Positive Reinforcement
when a behaviour is rewarded
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Pragmatics
the factors that influence the choices that speakers make in their use of language.
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Proto-word
an invented word that has consistent meaning
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Recast
the commenting on, extending and rephrasing of a child’s utterance.
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Register
a variety of language appropriate to a particular purpose and context
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Received Pronunciation
the "accent" of SE.
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Semantics
the study of meaning
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Scaffolding
the process of transferring a skill from adult to child and then withdrawing support once the skill has been mastered.
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Social Interactionists
those who believe that children acquire language through interaction with carers
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Sociolect
a defined use of language as a result of membership of a social group
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Stative Verbs
a verb that describes a state
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Synonyms
words with similar semantic value
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Syntax
the way words are arranged to make sentences
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Typography
the study of the graphic features of the printed page
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Underextension
a feature of a child’s language where the word used to label something is ‘reduced’ to include only a small part of the actual meaning.
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Universal Grammar
the explanation that all world languages share the principles of grammar despite surface differences in lexis and phonology
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Virtuous Error
syntactic errors made by young children in which the non-standard utterance reveals some understanding, though incomplete, of standard syntax
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Vocative
a form (usually a noun) used to address a person
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Vowel
a sound made without closure or audible friction
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

any of the various phonetic realizations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated p (as in pin) and unaspirated p (as in spin ) are allophones of the consonant p.

Back

Allophones

Card 3

Front

the typographical feature where a portion of the letter goes above the usual height for letters in any font.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

the influence exercised by one sound over another, so the sounds become alike.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

those who believe that language acquisition occurs through imitation and reinforcement.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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