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Definitions 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
hyperbole
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally
26
oxymoron
a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction
27
alliteration
the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
28
field
the topic area or concerns of a text
29
formality
the level of acceptability or respectability of language, often dependent on context
30
register
a variety of language associated with a particular situation of use
31
discourse (community)
- 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
phonology
production and description of the sounds of the language - includes phonetics and prosody
33
phonetic
relating to speech sounds
34
prosody
the patterns of stress and intonation in language
35
pragmatics
social conventions and implied meanings encoded in language
36
grammar
the structural patterns and shapes of language at sentence, clause and phrase level
37
synonym
two or more words with the same or similar meanings
38
antonym
two or more words with opposite meanings
39
collocation
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
connotation
an associated, symbolic meaning relying on culturally shared conventions
41
hypernym/subordinate
a word with a broad meaning constituting a category into which words with more specific words fall
42
hyponym
a word or more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it
43
meronym
a term that denotes part of something but is used to refer to the whole of it
44
holonym
the superordinate of a meronym
45
text producer
the person or people responsible for creating a text
46
modality
a system of meaning related to a speaker’s attitude to, confidence in, or perception about something in the world
47
deixis
words that are context-bound and whose meaning depends on who is using them, and when and where they are being used
48
cline
a continuum used in linguistics to indicate a range of a particular language feature, ie. formality, literariness, mode etc.
49
metalanguage
language about language
50
participant
the text producer(s) and text receiver(s) involved in a given discourse event
51
split discourse
where communicating participants are separated in time and/or space
52
social proximity
the influence of distance on social communication
53
actual writer
the true text producer
54
implied writer
the text producer that the audience is led to believe is creating the text
55
audience positioning
the way a media product addresses the audience to influence the way the audience will interpret the media product
56
text-world
a cognitive model of language processing which aims to explain how people construct meaning from language
57
polysemy
the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.
58
construal
the way a person understands the world or a particular situation, ie. interpretation
59
intertextuality
the relationship between texts, especially literary
60
auxiliary verb
minor verbs that support the sentence's main verb to communicate complex grammar concepts like aspects of time or modality
61
verb phrase
a verb, sometimes with another word or words indicating tense, mood, or person
62
noun phrase
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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