Glossary Flashcards
Aboriginal Australian Englishes
A continuum ranging from language use very close to Standard Australian Englis to something closer to a creole.
What are the features of Aboriginal Australian Englishes?
Elements of non-standard Englishes, features from first contact and colonial language, and features of many of the First Nations languages in Australia
Accent
Broad, General, Cultivated
Represent various sounds made by speakers of Standard Australian English
Regional, age related and social differences
Acronym
An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of the words in a phrase and said as a word
eg. Goat, Anzac, UNESCO
Active Voice
A grammatical construction in which the subject is the ‘actor’ of the verb in a clause.
e.g. The prime minister spoke with his cabinet
Adjacency Pairs
Pairs of utterances that require turn-taking where the first utterance prompts a response
Adjective
A word that describes or modifies a noun
Adverb
A word that describes/intensifies/ modifies the action of a verb or meaning of an adjective, or another adverb.
Adverbial
A lexeme or phrase that modifies a verb phrase. Relates to time, manner or place
Affixation
A morpheme that is attached to stems. Can be a prefix, suffix or infix
Agentless Passive
A passive voice construction where the agent Noun Phrase is ellipted. There is no “by” revealing the agent.
Alliteration
The repetition of the same consonant sound in the initial position of nearby words
eg. reduce, reuse, recycle
Anaphor
A form of referencing in which a pronoun or noun phrase points backwards to something mentioned earlier in the discourse
eg. Ben said he was there
Animation
A semantic feature that gives life or movement to inanimate objects, ideas or places. Animate qualities that are transferred are not specifically human and can be associated with other living things. Eg. the sand-filled wind clawed and snarled.
Antithesis
Juxtaposition of words and ideas within parallel phrases or clauses to create balance or contrast. e.g. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Antonymy
Words that are opposite or contrasting (and therefore connected) in meaning.
Archaism
A form of word loss whereby a word becomes considered old-fashioned or outdated
e.g. whereby, whilst
Article
A word that determines whether a noun is definite (the) or indefinite (a/an)
Assimilation
The way in which sounds of one word can change/modify the sounds within it and of neighbouring words to ease place or manner of articulation
Assonance
Repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds
e.g. The stream meandered easily along
Audience
The (group of) people that a text is aimed at, targeting or reaching out to
Auxiliary
The verb that precedes the participle (lexical) verb in a verb phrase. All modal verbs act as auxiliaries
Backchanneling
AKA minimal response
Blend
A word composed of the parts of more than one word e.g. guesstimate, blog
Borrowing
A word from one language is adapted for use in another
e.g. focaccia, salsa
Bound morpheme
A morpheme that cannot stand alone
Cataphor
A form of referencing in which a pronoun or noun phrase points forward to something mentioned later in the discourse.
e.g. It was lovely, a day to remember
Clause
A syntactic phrase made up of at least a subject (NP) and a predicate (VP)
Clefting
Splitting a single clause idea into two connected clauses, each with its own verb.
Closings
The deliberate ending of a spoken discourse, often related to conventions
e.g. Catch you later, Thank you, Goodbye
Code-switching
The practice of moving back and forth between languages in a single interaction is a normal and natural feature of the conversations between speakers who know the same two (or more languages)
Codification
The process of developing a norm for a language can involve developing a writing system and official rules of orthography, pronunciation, syntax and vocabulary
