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English Language > Definitions > Flashcards

Definitions Flashcards

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Proverbs and Idioms flashcards
1
Q

euphemism

A

a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something embarrassing or unpleasant

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2
Q

dyspehemism

A

a derogatory or unpleasant term used instead of a pleasant or neutral one

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3
Q

genre

A

a style or category of literature

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4
Q

representation

A

the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way

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5
Q

audience/text reciever

A

the (actual or implied) readership of a text

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6
Q

(blended) mode

A

a way or manner in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed, or done (ie. written, electronic, or spoken); the mode may also contain conventional elements of both speech and writing

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7
Q

purpose

A

the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists

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8
Q

graphology

A

the study of written and printed symbols and of writing systems

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9
Q

morphology

A

the study of the forms of words, in particular inflected forms

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10
Q

lexeme

A

a basic lexical unit of a language consisting of one word or several words, the elements of which do not separately convey the meaning of the whole

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11
Q

lexicon

A

the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge

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12
Q

semantic (field)

A
  • the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning
  • groups of words that relate to a set of meanings for a particular topic
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13
Q

blend

A

a word made up of parts of two other words and combining their meanings

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14
Q

compound

A

a lexeme that consists of more than one stem

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15
Q

acronym

A

an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word

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16
Q

initialism

A

an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately

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17
Q

clipping

A

word formation by removing some segments of an existing word to create a synonym

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18
Q

idiolect

A

the speech habits specific to a particular person

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19
Q

dialect

A

a particular form of a language which is specific to a particular region or social group

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20
Q

sociolect

A

the dialect of a particular social class

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21
Q

figurative language

A

the use of non-literal phrases or words to create further meaning

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22
Q

metaphor

A

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

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23
Q

simile

A

a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid

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24
Q

personification

A

the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form

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25
Q

hyperbole

A

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

26
Q

oxymoron

A

a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

27
Q

alliteration

A

the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

28
Q

field

A

the topic area or concerns of a text

29
Q

formality

A

the level of acceptability or respectability of language, often dependent on context

30
Q

register

A

a variety of language associated with a particular situation of use

31
Q

discourse (community)

A
  • extended stretch of communiation; one complete text, with structure and cohesion
  • a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic or issue, that typically share values and ways of using language
32
Q

phonology

A

production and description of the sounds of the language - includes phonetics and prosody

33
Q

phonetic

A

relating to speech sounds

34
Q

prosody

A

the patterns of stress and intonation in language

35
Q

pragmatics

A

social conventions and implied meanings encoded in language

36
Q

grammar

A

the structural patterns and shapes of language at sentence, clause and phrase level

37
Q

synonym

A

two or more words with the same or similar meanings

38
Q

antonym

A

two or more words with opposite meanings

39
Q

collocation

A

the idea of certain words being likely to appear alongside certain other words; the habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance

40
Q

connotation

A

an associated, symbolic meaning relying on culturally shared conventions

41
Q

hypernym/subordinate

A

a word with a broad meaning constituting a category into which words with more specific words fall

42
Q

hyponym

A

a word or more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it

43
Q

meronym

A

a term that denotes part of something but is used to refer to the whole of it

44
Q

holonym

A

the superordinate of a meronym

45
Q

text producer

A

the person or people responsible for creating a text

46
Q

modality

A

a system of meaning related to a speaker’s attitude to, confidence in, or perception about something in the world

47
Q

deixis

A

words that are context-bound and whose meaning depends on who is using them, and when and where they are being used

48
Q

cline

A

a continuum used in linguistics to indicate a range of a particular language feature, ie. formality, literariness, mode etc.

49
Q

metalanguage

A

language about language

50
Q

participant

A

the text producer(s) and text receiver(s) involved in a given discourse event

51
Q

split discourse

A

where communicating participants are separated in time and/or space

52
Q

social proximity

A

the influence of distance on social communication

53
Q

actual writer

A

the true text producer

54
Q

implied writer

A

the text producer that the audience is led to believe is creating the text

55
Q

audience positioning

A

the way a media product addresses the audience to influence the way the audience will interpret the media product

56
Q

text-world

A

a cognitive model of language processing which aims to explain how people construct meaning from language

57
Q

polysemy

A

the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.

58
Q

construal

A

the way a person understands the world or a particular situation, ie. interpretation

59
Q

intertextuality

A

the relationship between texts, especially literary

60
Q

auxiliary verb

A

minor verbs that support the sentence’s main verb to communicate complex grammar concepts like aspects of time or modality

61
Q

verb phrase

A

a verb, sometimes with another word or words indicating tense, mood, or person

62
Q

noun phrase

A

a word or group of words containing a noun and functioning in a sentence as subject, object, or prepositional object

English Language (2 decks)

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