Glossary Flashcards
Unknown words from the glossary to help
Aesthetic
A sense of beauty or an appreciation of artistic expression
Analyse
Consider in detail for the purpose of finding meaning or relationships and identifying patterns, similarities and differences.
Appreciation
The act of discerning quality and value of literary texts
Context
The environment in which a text is responded to or created.
Evaluate
Evaluation of an issue or information that includes considering important factors and available evidence in making judgement that can be justified.
Idiom
A group of fixed words having a meaning not deducible from the individual word. Idioms are typically informal expressions used by particular social groups
Personification
The description of an inanimate object as though it were a person or living thing.
Attitudes
An outlook or a specific feeling about something. Our values underlie our attitudes. Attitudes can be expressed by what we say, do and wear.
Audience
The group of readers, listeners or viewers that the writer, designer, filmmaker or speaker is addressing. Audience includes students in the classroom, an individual, the wider community etc.
Author
The composer or originator of a work
Convention
An accepted practice that has developed over time and is generally used and understood.
Digital technologies
The use of digital resources to effectively find, analyse, create, communicate, and use information in a digital context and incorporates the hardware of
mobile phones, cameras, tablets, laptops and computers and the software to power these devices.
Digital texts
Audio, visual or multimodal texts produced through digital or electronic technology
Figurative language
Word groups/phrases used in a way that differs from the expected or everyday usage. They are used in a non‐literal way for particular effect
(for example, simile - ‘white as a sheet’; metaphor - ‘all the world’s a stage’; personification - ‘the wind grabbed at my clothes’).
Form; forms of text
The shape and structure of texts.
Genre
The categories into which texts are grouped. For example, detective fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy fiction, poetry, novels, biography, short stories).
Hybrid texts
Composite texts resulting from a mixing of elements from different sources or genres
Ideas
Has an open meaning and can be interpreted as understandings, thoughts, notions, opinions, views or beliefs. Usually a sentence long
Interpretation/reading
The process of making meaning of text.
Issues
Matters of personal or public concern that are in dispute; things which directly or indirectly affect a person or members of a society and are considered to be problems. These are raised in texts and it is for the reader/audience to identify these.
Language features
The aspects of language that support meaning. This helps define a type of text and shape its meaning. These choices vary according to the purpose of a text, its subject matter, audience, and mode or medium of production.
Language patterns
The arrangement of identifiable repeated or corresponding elements in a text.
Literacy texts
Past and present texts across a range of cultural contexts that are valued for their form and style and are recognised as having enduring or artistic value.
Media texts
Spoken, print, graphic or electronic communications with a public audience. They often involve numerous people in their construction and are usually shaped by the technology used in their production.
Medium
The means or channel of communication such as the spoken word, print, graphics, electronic/digital forms (for example, television, newspapers and radio).
Metalanguage
Language used to discuss language. For example mise‐en‐scène, symbolism, characterisation.
Mode
The various processes of communication: listening, speaking, reading/viewing and writing/creating.
Mood
The atmosphere or feeling in a particular text.
Multimodal text
Combination of two or more communication modes
Narrative
A story of events or experiences, real or imagined. In literary theory, this includes the story and the discourse.
Narrative point of view
The ways in which a narrator may be related to the story.
Perspective
A position from which things may be viewed or considered.
Point of view
The opinion or viewpoint expressed by an individual in a text, for example an author, a narrator, a character or an implied reader.
Prose
Ordinary language used in speaking or writing, distinguished from poetry by its lack of a marked metrical structure.
Readings
Particular interpretations of a text. The classification into alternative, resistant or dominant is quite arbitrary, depending on the ideology held by the reader.
Representation
Representation refers to the way people, events, issues or subjects are presented in a text. The term implies that texts are not mirrors of the real world; they are constructions of ‘reality’. These constructions are partially shaped through the writer’s use of conventions and techniques.
Rhetoric
The language of argument, using persuasive and forceful language.
Rhetorical devices
Language techniques used in argument to persuade audiences
(for example, rhetorical questions, repetition, propositions, figurative language).
Short answer response
Well‐developed paragraph or paragraphs in Standard Australian English which include supporting detail and typically ranging between 200‐300 words depending on time allocation. While not required to conform to the conventions of formal essay writing, short answer responses should be succinct and directly address the question.
Standard Australian English
The variety of spoken and written English language in Australia used in more formal settings such as for official or public purposes, and recorded in dictionaries, style guides and grammars. While it is always dynamic and evolving, it is recognised as the ‘common language’ of Australians.
Stylistic choices
The selection of stylistic features to achieve a particular effect.
Stylistic features
The ways in which aspects of texts (such as words, sentences, images) are arranged and how they affect meaning.
Synthesise
Combine elements (information/ideas/components) into a coherent whole.
Text structure
The ways in which information is organised in different types of texts (for example, chapter headings, subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries, overviews, introductory and concluding paragraphs, sequencing, topic sentences, taxonomies, cause and effect)
Theme
An idea, concern or argument developed in a text; a recurring element (for example, the subject of a text may be love, and its ______ could be how love involves sacrifice). A work may have more than one _______.
Tone
The way the ‘voice’ is delivered or the author’s attitude to their subject matter.
Analytical texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to identify, examine and draw conclusions about the elements or components that make up other texts. These texts develop an argument or consider or advance an interpretation.
Imaginative texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to entertain or provoke thought through their imaginative use of literary elements. They are recognised for their form, style and artistic or aesthetic value.
Interpretive texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to explain and interpret personalities, events, ideas, representations or concepts.
Persuasive texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to put forward a point of view and persuade a reader, viewer or listener. They form a significant part of modern communication in both print and digital environments.
Visual elements
Visual components of a text such as composition, framing, representation of action or reaction, shot size, social distance and camera angle.
Voice
The distinct personality of a piece of writing.
Style
The culmination of distinctive qualities that distinguish/characterise a text.
