All Terminology Flashcards
Abstract nouns
refer to ideas and concepts that only exist in the mind
Accent
the distinct pronunciation patterns of a group of people
Accommodation
where a speaker adapts to another speaker’s accent, dialect or sociolect
Acronomy
abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced as a single word. eg OPEC, NASA, RAM
Active voice
clause construction where the subject is also the actor (they are doing or have done something to somebody/something)
Adjacency pair
a pair of utterances in a conversation that go together (greeting and reply, question and answer, etc.)
Adjective
a word that modifies a noun (e.g. ‘the orange sky’
Adverb
a word that modifies a verb telling you how, where or when an action takes place; can also modify adjectives, telling you how much (e.g. ‘I am really delighted’)
Adverbial
words. phrases or clauses which act as adverbs and which
identify where, when and how when modifying the verb.
Affordance
linguistic and behavioural choices provided by technology
Agenda setting
where a speaker sets up the main topic of conversation
Analogical overextension
associating objects which are unrelated but which have one or more features in common (e.g. both being the same colour)
Anchored relationship
an online relationship where two participants know each other in the offline world
Article
a determiner such as ‘a’ or ‘the’
Asymmetrical power
an imbalance of power between people
Asynchronous:
unlike synchronous, there is a delay between utterance and response. Responses posted on a forum, which may occur
months or even years after the original post, are an example of discourse that is asynchronous
Audience
the person or people reading or hearing the text
Auxiliary verb
assists the main verb; primary auxiliary verbs do, have and be denote changes of tense
Avatar
an image used by a user that accompanies a username
Backchannelling
supportive terms such as ‘oh’ and ‘really’
Bald on-record
where a speaker is completely blunt and direct (e.g. ‘Sit down!’)
Bias
a form of prejudice in favour of or against an idea, person or group, expressed through language/images and so on. It can take obvious or implicit forms, or a mixture of the two, and
can arise from what is omitted as well as from what is stated or shown
Bidialectalism
a speaker’s ability to use two dialects of the same language
Categorical overextension
the most commonly occurring form of overextension in a child’s language, and relates to confusing a hypernym (broad category, e.g. fruit) with a hyponym (specific example)
Catenative
chain-like structure in a sentence (‘so we… and then… and then we…’)
Chaining
a speaker responds and sets up the other speaker’s next utterance in a chain that runs on past an adjacency pair
Child-directed speech (CDS)
speech patterns used by parents and carers when communicating with young children
Clause
a structural unit that contains at least one subject and one verb - it can include other features as well such as object, complement and adverbial.
Closer
spoken expressions which are designed to close
Codification
a process of standardizing a language
Cohesion
the many parts of a text that help to draw it together into a recognizable whole. (For example, the headline, picture and caption in a news article will all have words/images that link
together in terms of the meaning and subject matter of the article.)
Collocation
two or more words that are often found together in a group or phrase with a distinct meaning (e.g. ‘over the top’, ‘fish and chips’, ‘back to front’)
Comparative adjective
the form of an adjective that designates comparison between
two things, generally made by adding the suffix -er to its base
form (e.g. ‘this is a faster car’
Complement
a clause element that tells you more about the subject or the object
Complex sentence
has two or more clauses, one of which is a subordinate clause
Compound
a word formed from two other words (e.g. ‘dustbin’)
Compound sentence
has two or more clauses, usually joined to the main clause by the
conjunctions ‘and’ or ‘but’ and depends on the main clause to exist
Compound-complex sentence
a sentence that has three or more clauses, one of which will be a
subordinate clause and one of which will be a coordinate clause
Concrete nouns
refer to things we touch or can experience physically (e.g. snow,
butter)
Conditioning
the process by which humans (and animals) are taught or trained
to respond, and learn by positive reinforcement (e.g. praise from an adult) for whatever is deemed to be appropriate learning
within that specific context – for choosing the correct word or for
politeness for example
Conjunction
a word that joins clauses together
Connotation
the associated meanings we have with certain words, depending on the person reading or hearing the word, and on the context in which the word appears
Consonant clusters
groups of consonants (e.g. ‘str’ or ‘gl’) that demand more muscular
control than single consonants or vowels, so tend to appear later
in the baby’s utterances
Constraints
linguistic and behavioural restrictions provided by technology
Context
where, when and how a text is produced or received
Convergence
where a speaker moves towards another speaker’s accent, dialect
or sociolect
Cooing
sounds a baby will make like ‘goo’ and ‘ga-ga’, generally around the age of 6–8 weeks. It is believed that during this period the child is discovering their vocal chords.
Coordinate clause
a clause beginning with a coordinating conjunction and is
essentially a main clause joined to another main clause
Coordinating conjunctions
these signal the start of a coordinate clause
Copular verb
a verb that takes a complement (such as ‘seems’, ‘appears’ or a
form of the verb to be – ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘are’, etc.)
Corpus
a collection of written texts
Covert prestige
describes high social status through use of non-standard forms
Declarative
a statement – a type of sentence which gives information and where the subject typically comes in front of the verb (‘Two fish are in a tank.’)
Definite article
‘the’
Deixis
terms that point towards something and place the words in context
Denotation
the literal, generally accepted, dictionary definition of a word
Determiner
words determining the number or status of the noun
Diachronic change
refers to the study of historical language occurring over a period
Dialect
a non-standard variety of a language, including lexis and grammar, particular to a region
Digital technology
the technique of storing, transmitting and processing data used
for mobile phones and computers among others
Direct object
the part of the clause that is directly acted upon by the subject
Discourse
describes the structure of any text (or segment of text) that is longer than a single sentence
Discourse marker
marks a change in direction in an extended piece of written or spoken text (e.g. ‘nevertheless’, ‘to sum up’)
Discourse structure
the way a text is structured, according to the typical features of
the text’s genre
Dismissal formula
a device used to close a conversation
Dispreferred response
a response that is unexpected, although not necessarily rude
if phrased appropriately (e.g.: Speaker A: Dinner’s ready at 7. / Speaker B: Not dinner, I’ve only just had breakfast!)
Divergence
where a speaker actively distances himself/herself from another speaker by accentuating their own accent or dialect
Downward convergence
making your accent or lexis more informal
Empirical approach
gaining knowledge by direct and indirect observation or experience
Estuary English
a dialect of English that is perceived to have spread outwards from London along the South East of England. It has features of Received Pronunciation and London English
Etymology
the history of a word, including the language it came from, if appropriate, and when it began to be regularly used
Exophoric reference
a reference to something, often cultural, beyond the text
Extra-linguistic variables
factors that affect the way you speak (e.g. age, where you live, etc.)
Feral children
children who are raised without human intervention (‘feral’ means existing in a natural/wild state, as opposed to domesticated). There are examples of children having been raised by animals such as dogs.
Field
words used in a text which relate to the text’s subject matter (e.g. the field of medicine; the field of golf, etc.)
Flaming
making an offensive and insulting post in a chatroom
Flouts a maxim
where someone obviously does not obey the conversational maxims that have been suggested by Grice.
Formality
describes the degree to which texts stick to certain conventions
and to how impersonal they are. The more spoken features a text has the more informal it will tend to be.
Framing
controlling the agenda of a conversation (its direction and subject); or making utterances that encourage a child to fill in the blanks
French/Latinate lexis
words derived from French or Latin, or both that are more rarely used; often seen as having a higher status and/or being more specialist
Genre
the kind of text you have in front of you (advert, speech, song)
Gestural
a way of communicating that relates to movement and/or body language, either instead of words or (as would be likely in a multimodal media text) in addition to them
Glottal stops
the building blocks of sentences (words, phrases, clauses, etc.) and how they go together to mean something to the reader or listener
Grammarian
a scholar of grammar
Grapheme–phoneme relationship
the correspondence between the written shape of a letter and its sound
Head noun
the main noun at the centre of a noun phrase
High-frequency lexis
words that appear often in everyday speech
Holophrase
a single word representing a more complex thought generally created by a child. For example, the word ‘juice’ may be used to signify ‘I want some juice’ – in this context, ‘juice’ would be a holophrase. ‘Up’ is another commonly used holophrase, usually signifying ‘please lift me up’ or ‘I want to get up’
Hospitality token
a polite utterance relating to context designed to put speakers at their ease
Hyperlink
an electronic link embedded in a text that takes the reader to another website
Hypernyms
categories (e.g. pets, vehicles and sweets) are all hypernyms
Hyponyms
examples within categories (e.g. pony, truck and sherbet lemons) are all hyponyms
Idiom
a form of common non-literal expression (e.g. ‘I was dead on my feet”)
Idiolect
your own individual way of speaking
Illocutionary act
implying something in what we say
Imperative
a command – a type of sentence where the subject is usually left out and the verb is in its bare form (‘Give the hat to me.’)
Indefinite article
‘a’ or ‘an’
Indirect object
receives the action
Inflection
an ending such as -ed, -s or -ing added to change a tense or number, or in the case of nouns to make a plural
Infographic
(also micro infographic) a graphical format which can also be animated to display information (e.g. in mini blogs)
Initialism
abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced separately. eg FBI, CIA, DVD
Interrogative
a question – a type of sentence indicated by the swapping round of subject and verb (‘Are you happy?’ rather than ‘You are happy.’), by the use of question words (who, what, where, when, how), or simply by the use of a question mark (‘You’re coming by train?’)
Intertextuality/intertextual reference
a subtle reference to another text that helps to create a sense of shared context and can operate on a pragmatic level, creating a sense of imagined closeness between writer/producer and reader/recipient
Intonation
the pitch (how high or low you are in your vocal range)
Irregular verbs
change their form when changing from present to past tense (e.g. ‘swim’/‘swam’)
Isogloss
the divisions that linguists draw between regions according to different dialects
Juxtaposition
the placement of two contrasting ideas or thing next to each other. This could operate within modes (e.g. words being used together, perhaps in an unexpected combination or for emphasis – ‘Babies in Drug Error’) or it could operate across modes within a multimodal text (e.g. a blogger including a distinctive personal avatar every time they post)
Labelling
the process of attaching words to objects; as the child learns more about the world their capacity to connect words with an increasing range of objects grows
Labov’s narrative categories
a way of breaking down the typical discourse structure of a spoken story
Language academies
bodies established by governments in countries such as France and Italy to prescribe the ‘correct’ form of the language
Language acquisition device (LAD)
a term coined by Chomsky to denote the inherent capacity of humans for learning language
Language acquisition support system (LASS)
the support provided by parents and other carers to the child’s language development
Left-branching sentence
has the subordinate clause or clauses before the main clause
Lexical field
identifies the main subject matter of a text (e.g. food in a recipe, money in an article on economics)
Lexicon
the vocabulary of a language
Lexis
words and their origins
Linear
a text in which the discourse is organized into some sort of sequence (e.g. a narrative with a beginning, middle and an end). There may be an implied expectation that the reader will read the text in the order in which it appears
Loanword
an English word that has come into use having been ‘borrowed’ from another language
Locutionary act
saying something
Low-frequency lexis
words that appear more rarely, such as specialist terms from a field, e.g. medicine
Main clause
a clause that can stand on its own grammatically
Main verb
the verb that carries the main meaning or process in a verb phrase (and therefore in a clause/sentence)
Mainstream dialect
the dialect that spans the whole English nation
Manner
used to express how formal or informal a text is
Manner maxim
a co-operative principle relating to what you say so that you avoid being obscure or ambiguous and be orderly
Marked
refers to words that are ascribed less prestige than the standard or unmarked form
Metatalk
explicit talk about grammar and language
Minor sentence
a sentence that has some missing elements, such as the subject or the verb, making it technically ungrammatical
Mixed mode
features of speech and writing in the same text
Modal auxiliary verb
a sub-category of auxiliary verb that expresses degrees of possibility, probability, necessity or obligation
Mode
texts can be in spoken mode (e.g. spontaneous conversation between friends) or written mode (e.g. an English essay) or mixed mode (e.g. a political speech will be written but delivered as speech)
Modification
description in the form of words, phrases or whole clauses that alters our understanding of the thing described
Modifier
any word that describes a noun (can be an adjective, adverb or noun)
Morphological derivation
the process of creating a new word out of an old word or affix (e.g. the suffix -ly changes adjectives into adverbs – ‘nice’ becomes ‘nicely’)
Multimodal
a text that uses more than one mode; often used for texts that have a combination of text and images
Negative face
our desire to avoid doing something we don’t want to do, such as giving money to a stranger. This is part of Goffman’s ideas about face
Negative politeness
a more indirect, hedged approach, often using negative constructions (e.g. ‘You couldn’t take the bin out for me, could you?’) This is linked to theories of face’.
Neologism
a newly formed or coined word
Network building
having labelled objects, children start to identify connections between them, recognizing similarities and differences
Neutral comment
speaker makes a comment on something neutral in the surroundings like the weather
Nonce formation
a ‘nonsense’ new word that is created for a special occasion (e.g. just before lunch ‘feeling hungryish’ might be used)
Non-finite subordinate clause
clauses in which the verb is not ‘finished’ and the tense is therefore not shown (e.g. clauses with to- infinitives like ‘to buy some cheese’ or with an -ing form of the verb such as in ‘running down the road’)
Non-linear
a text with no expected sequence for reading – the cohesion may be less obvious and this may be reflected in the layout (e.g. more use may be made of features such as text boxes and hyperlinks than if the text was linear)
Noun phrase
a group of words with a noun at the centre of it
Nouns
words which name people, places, things, ideas and concepts
Number homophones
where numbers are used to replace all or part of a word whose sound they resemble, usually within the context of an electronic text (e.g. ‘2’ for ‘to’ or ‘gr8’ for ‘great’)
Object
this normally receives the action and comes after the verb
Object permanence
the ability of a baby to recognize that an object still exists even when the baby cannot actually see it, thus it requires the capacity to form a mental representation of the object
Off-record
in conversation where no threat is made to someone’s face (‘This room’s pretty messy, isn’t it?’)
Opener
expressions which open a conversation (‘so, what are you holiday plans this summer?)
Orthographical
the methodology for writing a language including features such as spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, etc.
Orthography
the spelling convention of a language
Other-related comment
speaker comments about another speaker (e.g. ‘You look like you need a drink’)
Overextension
widening the meaning of a word so that it extends to apply not just to the actual object but also to other objects with similar properties or functions.
Over-generalization
the over application of rules about the formation of words
Overt prestige
refers to a dialect used by a culturally powerful group
Pace
the speed at which you talk
Packaging
in trying to ascertain the boundaries of the label the child sometimes confuses hypernyms and hyponyms, giving rise to over- and under extensions
Passive voice
clause construction where the subject is not the actor (they have had or are having something done to them)
Periodic sentence
a complex sentence in which the main clause is saved until the
end (e.g. ‘The Minister, who was usually late in the mornings, except on those occasions when she had been working all night, was already at her desk.’)
Perlocutionary act
what happens in response to what is said (i.e. what is understood)
Phatic talk
speech which is really just designed to maintain social relationships and does not carry significant meaning, often used to start a conversation (e.g. ‘hi there (.) how are you?’)
Phonemic contraction
the sounds a child can make are reduced so that they can only make the sounds of their own language
Phonemic expansion
an increase in the variety of sounds a child can produce
Phonetics
the study of how we produce particular sounds (e.g. ‘t’ and ‘d’ are stop consonants, produced by stopping the flow of air at the alveolar ridge, just behind the top teeth)
Phonology
the study of the sound system in the language and the effects of its particular features (i.e. looking at consonants, vowels, rhythms, stresses, pace)
Polysemic
describes a word with more than one meaning (e.g. ‘set’ can refer to ‘a set of cutlery’, ‘a tennis set’, what happens to jelly and so on)
Polysemy
many meanings in a word
Positive face
our need to maintain self-esteem. Positive is threatened when we are criticised in any way
Positive reinforcement
when a behaviour is rewarded and therefore encouraged to be repeated
Possessive determiner
determiner which shows who the noun belongs to (e.g. my book)
Positive politeness
an informal approach that assumes the other party will agree (‘I think that just about wraps it up, don’t you?’) This is linked to theories of face’.
Post-modified
the modification that comes after the head noun (or after a phrase or clause)
Post-telegraphic stage
in the post-telegraphic stage, the child’s early reliance on lexical (content) words gradually expands to include auxiliaries, prepositions and articles, e.g. ‘Mummy car’ evolves into ‘Mummy is in the car’. Timing of this shift varies, but 30 months (approximately) is likely
Pragmatic failure
where the meaning that is implied is not the meaning that is understood by the listener
Pragmatics
what we really mean by what we say or write in a given context OR can refer to the contextual aspects of language use
Predicate overextension
conveying meaning that relates to absence (e.g. making the utterance ‘cat’ when looking at the cat’s empty basket)
Pre-modified
modification that comes before the head noun (or before a phrase or clause)
Preposition
a word which shows how elements in a sentence or clause relate to each other in time or space
Pre-start
a word or phrase made to clear the air before a turn begins (e.g. ‘Well…’)
Primary verbs
be, have, do
Privation
the absence of social relationships
Productive vocabulary
the term used to describe the words a person (not necessarily a child) is able to use, either in speech or writing
Pronoun
a word which stands in place of a noun or noun phrase (usually used to avoid repetition of the noun)
Proper nouns
words for specific people or places (e.g. Swindon)
Prosodics
how we use rhythm, stress, intonation and pace in speech to create particular effects
Proto-words
clusters of sounds (e.g. ‘da’) that represent the baby’s attempt to articulate specific words when their motor coordination is still in early stages of development
Pun
a play on words, often using the multiple meanings of words for effect (e.g. ‘A man walks into a bar. “Ouch!”’)
Purpose
describes why the text was produced or uttered (to entertain, to persuade, to inform, to advise and so on)
Quality maxim
a co-operative principle that requires that you do not say what you believe to be false
Quantity maxim
a co-operative principle that requires you are careful in what you say, be just as informative as is needed and no more
Recasting
the rephrasing and extending of a child’s utterance
Received Pronunciation (RP)
a prestige form of English pronunciation
Receptive vocabulary
relates to the words a person recognizes/understands and is likely to be larger than their productive vocabulary
Reduplicated monosyllable
the repetition of a sound such as ‘ba ba’
Register
the type or variety of language that the writer or speaker has chosen to use (e.g. formal register, informal register, medical register, academic register, etc.)
Regular verbs
take a regular -ed inflection when changing from present to past tense (e.g. ‘walk/walked’)
Relation maxim
a co-operative principle that requires that you make what you say relevant to the last speaker’s turn
Representation
language used to present an impression of ourselves, or of an event, company or institution (like your school or college) to the wider world
Scaffolding
a form of linguistic support whereby adults, through their interactions, provide the child with conversational material and patterning (e.g. the parent may say ‘What did we buy at the shop today? Did we buy apples?’, thus providing the child with some key lexis and grammar structures, supporting them in continuing the conversation)
Self-related comment
speaker makes a comment about himself/herself (e.g. ‘I’m run off my feet’)
Semantic field
a pattern of words with similar meanings found across a text or texts (e.g. ‘bolt’, ‘trap’, ‘cage’)
Semantic shift
the change in a meaning of a word
Semantics
meanings of words, both on their own and in relation to other words in the text
Semiotics
the study of signs and symbols; considering not only the ways in which words work and how they are used, but also by considering images, sounds, music, and patterns
Sex/gender
before analysing gender discourses, it is important to determine the difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to biological differences between males and females while gender refers to behaviours which are constructed through early socialization and continues throughout life. This distinction is significant as the analysis of gender and language is informed by issues of power that may arise from people, schools, government and the media
Simple sentence
has only one clause
Sociolect
a variety of language that is characteristic of the social background or status of its user
Stages of CLA
phases that have been identified by linguists, during which particular significant characteristics can be identified
Standardization
the process of forming a uniform language codified in dictionaries, educational and government texts that demands conformity by all variant language forms
Stress
where volume is raised to place emphasis on a particular syllable
Subject
this normally performs the action of the sentence or clause and can be a single word or phrase
Subordinate clause
depends on the main clause to exist
Subordinating conjunctions
these signal the start of a subordinate clause
Superlative adjective
expresses the highest level of the quality represented by the adjective, generally made by adding -est to its base form (‘the fastest car’)
Synchronicity
events that occur simultaneously, such as communication
Synchronous
at the same time; a face-to-face conversation would be an example of a synchronous discourse
Synonym
a word that has a similar meaning to another word (e.g. ‘malady’ and ‘illness’)
Syntax
the order of the elements in a clause or sentence (subject, verb, object, etc.)
Tag question
an interrogative clause added to the end of a declarative to make it into a question (e.g. ‘We’re meeting for lunch today, aren’t we?’)
Telegraphic stage
usually associated with language development in infants of approximately 24–36 months, this term refers to speech that resembles an old-fashioned telegram, generally characterized by the omission of auxiliary verbs and determiners and with a focus on lexical essentials (e.g. ‘daddy get milk’ or ‘Ben feed ducks’)
Telephony
the working or use of telephones
Topic management
the way topics in a conversation are organised or handed from speaker to speaker - can also be known as agenda setting
Transition relevance place (TRP)
the point at which one turn is ending and another turn is signalled
Turn construction unit (TCU)
a fundamental segment of speech in conversation analysis
Turn-taking
the process of taking turns in a conversation, where only one speaker speaks at a time
Two-word stage
usually occurs around the age of 18 months to two years and refers to the child’s ability to start producing utterances which use words in combination. This will often take the form of subject + verb (e.g. ‘doggie gone’), but variation of syntax is possible, as the child begins to shape meaning – sometimes using intonation as well – (e.g. ‘mummy come’ (statement), ‘mummy come?’ (question) and ‘come mummy’ (command))
Underextension
when the meaning ascribed to a word used by a child which is narrower than the meaning it has in adult language; using a hyponym instead of a hypernym (e.g. a child may use the word ‘cat’ instead of ‘pet’)
Upward convergence
changing your accent or lexical choices to something you perceive as more prestigious
Valediction
expression of farewell
Verb
the action or state in the sentence or clause (can be a single word or verb phrase)
Vernacular
everyday regional language spoken by people
Vernacular writing
informal, non-standard writing
Violates a maxim
subtle failure of someone to observe a maxim (e.g. going on a bit too long on a topic)
Vocative
directly addressing someone via’ to someone in conversation by their name
Behaviourism
a theory of language acquisition developed by psychologists (most prominently B.F. Skinner), which suggests that language learning was based on mimicry and reinforcement
Cognitive theory
a major proponent of this theory was Piaget, who was interested in children’s cognitive development; that is, the way their thought processes change and progressed. Piaget believed that children’s linguistic development was linked to their growing understanding of concepts
Construction model
the construction model of language development is a usage-based model proposing that children acquire blocks of language rather than single words and have an innate facility for intention-reading and pattern-finding
Critical period
Eric Lenneberg proposed the idea that children up until approximately age five could develop their language naturally, responding to their genetic predisposition to do so. After this period has passed, language development, it was thought, becomes a great deal harder
Descriptivism attitude
an attitude to language that describes what is there, explaining it, without judgement
Dialect levelling
the merging of different dialects to form one uniform dialect, reducing the range of dialects
Difference approach
this approach to language suggests that men and women use language differently. Deborah Tannen is an exponent of this approach (e.g. she claims that men use language to build status, whereas women use language to build networks of connections)
Dominance approach
this suggests that in mixed gender conversations men dominate the discourse. Men interrupt, and speak more than women, due to the cultural construction of gender within society
Face
the way a speaker deals with potential threat to self-esteem. The term was introduced by the sociologist Goffman and then developed further by Brown and Levinson
Functional basis of language
a theory of language acquisition based on the idea that children are motivated to develop language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. Michael Halliday became a major proponent of this theory
Grice’s conversational maxims
Grice came up with the term ‘cooperative principle’ and developed a number of conversation maxims which he suggested shape the way we converse.
Ideational metafunction
Halliday identified a concept he termed the ideational metafunction, which relates to the ways in which we represent the world around us using language in our spoken and written discourse
Nativism
Nativists believe that babies are born with an inbuilt capacity to learn language. Noam Chomsky, a prominent nativist, thought that the capacity to develop speech was ‘programmed’ into the human brain
Prescriptivism attitude
an attitude to language that suggests that some forms of language are more valuable than others – this approach prescribes what is correct and what is not
Social interaction
Jerome Bruner was a major figure in developing this theory, which emphasized the environment within which the child lives, especially the social environment (e.g. the family), in supporting linguistic development
Standard English
the form of English often considered by prescriptivists to be the ‘correct’ form
Synthetic personalization
a concept attributed to Norman Fairclough who used it to describe the way that texts relate to an imagined reader. Often this imagined reader has particular values and attitudes; the assumption that these are shared can be a way of imposing a particular ideology, or set of beliefs
Technological determination
this theory asserts that technology determines the ways in which language is used and developed. Technological advances shape the ways in which human beings communicate rather than human beings manipulating technology to suit their communicative needs
Universal Grammar
a theory, attributed to Chomsky, which proposes that there are properties and rules shared by all human languages that are ‘hardwired’ into the brain, i.e. they exist innately rather than being taught
