English Glossary Flashcards
Abbreviation
Shortening
Accommodation
Process of modifying one’s mental processes in order to meet the demands of one’s environment (NB this is Jean Piaget’s definition which is broader than the exclusively linguistic definition coined by Howard Giles and his team)
Acronym
Initialism which can be sounded as a word
Advanced stage (writing)
Stage of writing in which the child will comprehend families of words and the ways inflections work and be able to deploy a varied vocabulary, generally appropriately spelled, and a range of sophisticated punctuation including paragraphing
Affected RP
Traditional, clipped accent and intonation of the upper classes in England
Affixation
Morphological process where (a) prefix(es) or suffix(es) are added to words to create new ones
Affricative
Of a consonant, pronounced using a combination of a plosive and a fricative sound as in ch, dge
Amelioration
Semantic change whereby a word gains a more positive meaning
Analogical overextension
Overextension in which a term is applied to a person/object/setting/idea which is perceived to be similar because of the role it plays in the speaker’s experience
Analytical phonics
System of phonics where a child will break down words into the smallest elements. See phonics
Angle
Particular slant on a news story
Anglo-Saxons
Collection of peoples, from what are now parts of northern Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, who settled in England after the Romans left
Answering
One of John Dore’s taxonomy of functions or primitive speech acts: where language is used to give a direct response to an utterance from another speaker
Anthropomorphism
Writing about animals as if they were human
Antiphrasis
Figurative technique whereby an idea or object is referred to in
terms which are contradictory to its actual meaning
Antonym
Word which is opposite of another word
Approximate
Of a consonant, voiced like a vowel as in r, j, w
Archaic
Fallen out of use. See obsolete
Assimilation
Experience of physical objects which Jean Piaget believed was necessary before children could modify their mental processes in order to meet the demands of their environment
Auto-antonymy
Word which can be understood in two completely different ways
Babbling
Repetitions of similar sounds by about 7 months (see reduplications); here the child appears to have some awareness of the purpose of speech and to be intending to make meaning
Back formation
Imagined process by which supposed affixes have been removed from word (usually nouns) to create (usually) verbs
Backronym
Word assumed to be acronyms – often false etymologies
Behaviourism
School of psychology which believes that everything which a person does, even thinking, should be described as a behaviour which can be changed
Blend
Word composed of a free morpheme and a part of another free morpheme or of parts of two free morphemes. Also known as portmanteau word
Borrowing
Loan word
Bound morpheme
Morpheme which cannot stand on its own
Breaking news
News which is just being brought into the public domain
Break the fourth wall
Of acting, to destroy the illusion that the world on stage is self-contained by speaking directly to the audience
Broadening
Process of semantic change whereby a word gains in scope or acquires more meanings
Burbling
Crying and burbling
Calling
One of John Dore’s taxonomy of functions or primitive speech acts:
where language is used to attract attention by raising the voice
Categorical overextension
Overextension in which a term is used to denote a person/object/ setting/idea is used to refer to others in the same category
Chancery Standard
Standard of English based on the English spoken and written in the political, religious, academic and commercial triangle linking London, Oxford and Cambridge; imposed in the fifteenth century
Child directed speech
Very specific ways in which adults speak to the children whom they encounter or who are in their care
Clausal analysis
Division of a sentence into main and subordinate clauses
Clipping
Process by which a word is shortened by cutting off its last letters. Also
known as end clipping
Cognitivism
Set of theories about the ways children learn
Coin
Of a word, to create
Coinage
Word which is completely new and which bears no relation to any existing word; often used as a synonym for neologism
Complex word
Word made up of more than one morpheme, for instance a base word and an affix
Compounding
Morphological process where existing words are joined together to make new words
Concrete operational stage
Period, specified by Jean Piaget, from ages 2–7, in which, although children have begun to think logically, they tend to do so in very concrete rather than abstract terms
Conditioning
Type of psychological learning whereby the learner changes his/her behaviour by associating the behaviour with a particular stimulus
Confirmation and fluency
Stage two of Jeanne Chall’s reading development where the child becomes a more fluent reader and begins to grapple with the meanings of texts – 7–8 years
Contraction
Shortening, often by removing letters from inside a word
Consolidation
B M Kroll’s second stage of writing where the child writes as s/he
speaks – 7–8 years
Construction and reconstruction
Stage five of Jeanne Chall’s reading development where the young person becomes a fully independent reader – 18+
Conventional stage
Stage of writing in which the child writes fluently, spelling most words correctly though opting for phonic spelling for difficult or unknown words and sometimes muddling homophones
Conversion
Process in language change where a word is used in a word class different from the one where it has previously been seen
Cooing
Specific soft, birdlike sounds at about 2 months. See vocal play
Critical period
Period somewhere between 7 and 13 years after which non-
speaking children may never acquire language successfully
Crying and burbling
Pre-lexical articulations at 0 to 4 months, probably not true language since although it is communicative, the infant in unlikely to be aware that its sounds have specific meanings
Cursive
Of handwriting, joined up
Dead metaphor
Metaphor which is so familiar that users are scarcely aware that
it is not literal
Deformation
Spelling of a word in a different way by transposing or substituting letters in it, often in order to avoid giving offence
Derivational morphology
Change in the meaning of words due to the addition of non-inflectional suffixes
Descriptive analysis
Analysis which merely outlines what is obvious
Didactic
Of a text, intended to teach
Differentiation
B M Kroll’s third stage of writing where the child is conscious of the differences between writing and speech - 9 – 10 years
Digraph
Pair of letters used to articulate one discrete sound
Dipthong
Sound made up of more than one clear vowel sound
Dysphemism
Term which makes an idea or object seem worse than it actually is. Often used humorously
Early emergent stage
Stage of writing in which the child becomes more competent at wielding and manipulating a writing implement though writing doesn’t yet represent actual letters
Early Modern English
The English spoken and written in Britain from about 1450 to about 1700
Early multi-word stage
Telegraphic stage
Egocentric
Seeing the world (or able to see the world) from one’s own perspective only
Egocentric speech
Talking to oneself, often in order to make sense of the world. According to Lev Vygotsky, this leads to the inner speech of thought; according to Jean Piaget, it dies out
Egocentrism
Child’s tendency to talk to him/herself as s/he attempts to make sense of his/her environment; also, according to Jean Piaget, child’s tendency to be more preoccupied with constructing his/her own understanding of the world than in engaging socially with others
Elaboration
Paragraphs immediately after the intro which tell readers of a news story more about what occurred
Elision
Process by which letters on the middle of words are omitted or two words are collapsed into one
Emergent stage
Stage of writing in which the child can write letter strings, sometimes as long as a line, often using real letters learned from her/his own name
Enactive stage
Action-based stage of development, up to 3 years, proposed by Jerome Bruner, where the child learns about its environment by seeing, touching , moving
End clipping
Clipping
Environmental print
Examples of the printed word which appear in the
environment
Epistemologist
Academic who studies epistemology or the study of the nature of knowledge
Eponym
Word for an object or idea which is derived from a person
Estuary English
Language and accent used by ordinary people living on and around the Thames estuary
Etymology
History and background of words
Euphemism
Way of expressing an idea which makes it seem more pleasant than it actually is
Euphemism treadmill, the
Way that the need for new euphemisms arises as old ones become semantically pejorated
Expressive
Of early language, using a greater proportion of action and social words than of naming words. See referential OR First stage of James Britton’s early writing genres where children write in the first person, articulating personal preferences
Extrapolate
Infer or imply something unknown from something known
Falling out of use
In the process of becoming obsolete
False etymology
Process whereby a word, or part of a word, is accorded a meaning or derivation to which it is not entitled
Families of fonts
Fonts which are variations of each other
Feature article
Article whose scope, though newsworthy, is not restricted to very recent events and which is topic- rather than news-focused
Feedback
Fourth stage of Bruner’s set of carer-child interactions in the pre- reading phase: getting the child to look at a picture: responding to the child’s utterance(s)
Formal operation stage
Period, specified by Jean Piaget, from ages 11 and 16 onwards, when abstract reasoning develops
Framework for Teaching
2006 initiative which continues to advocate the daily teaching of literacy though, increasingly, encouraging a greater variety of approaches and extending this teaching across the curriculum rather than focusing on texts traditionally studied in English lessons
Free morpheme
Morpheme which can stand on its own
Fricative
Of a consonant, pronounced so that the air stream is partially blocked
so that some air moves through the lips as in f, h, s, sh, th, v, z
Full alphabetic writing
Phase 3 of J Richard Gentry’s writing stages where the child writes simple stories with beginning-middle-end and some grasp of genre
Gaining attention
Initial aspect of Bruner’s set of carer-child interactions in the pre-reading phase: getting the child to look at a picture
Gestalt word
Term made up of two or three words which is heard by a child as one word. See pivot word
Great Vowel Shift, the
Change in the pronunciation of words which occurred between about 1400 and about 1650
Greeting
One of John Dore’s taxonomy of functions or primitive speech acts: where the child speaks or shouts to welcome or start conversation