Glossary

Question 1

AWL

Answer 1

A list of some of the most wide-ranging and frequently used English words in academic contexts. Students can use the AWL to find the most useful academic words that they need to know when they study at an English-speaking university.

Question 2

Achievement test

Answer 2

An assessment form that tests what someone has learnt and shows them what they have achieved on a course or during a specific period of time.

Question 3

Antonym

Answer 3

A word that has the opposite meaning to another.

Question 4

Clause

Answer 4

A group of words including a subject and a finite verb that form part of a sentence. A main clause can form a sentence on its own, but a dependent clause needs to have a main clause with it to form a sentence.

Question 5

Cohesion

Answer 5

Cohesion is the way that words and ideas are linked together in a text. It includes repetition of words and the use of synonyms, referencing words such as pronouns and the use of different word classes.

Question 6

Collocation

Answer 6

The way that certain words are habitually used together, e.g fish and ships, but not ships and fish.

Question 7

Complement

Answer 7

A word or phrase that follows the verb to complete a sentence. The complement describes the subject of the sentence, e.g., John is highly qualified (adj.).

Question 8

Corpus

Answer 8

A large collection of language (written texts or spoken recordings) that can be used for linguistic analysis.

Question 9

(dictionary) entry

Answer 9

The section of a dictionary that gives a definition and information about a word.

Question 10

General Service List (GSL)

Answer 10

A list off over 2,000 word families that are used frequently in a wide variety of general and academic texts.

Question 11

Gerund

Answer 11

A word ending in -ing that acts as a noun but is formed from a verb.

Question 12

Headword

Answer 12

In a dictionary, the headword is usually in large or bold type so that it is easy to locate.

Question 13

Homonym

Answer 13

Two (or more) words that are spelt and pronounced the same way but have different, unrelated meanings.

Question 14

Intransitive verb

Answer 14

A verb that either cannot or does not need to take an object, e.g., rain

Question 15

Monolingual dictionary

Answer 15

A dictionary that only uses the same language for the word and its definition.

Question 16

Multi-meaning words

Answer 16

Words that have two or more meanings. These may be polysemes with related meanings; they can also be homonyms with unrelated meanings.

Question 17

Non-detachable word parts

Answer 17

Word parts that cannot be separated from a word and form another complete word, e.g., dis-

Question 18

Noun phrase

Answer 18

A phrase in which a noun (or pronoun) is the headword. e.g., a chemical substance.

Question 19

Passive

Answer 19

The passive (passive voice) is a way of constructing a sentence so that the emphasis is not on the agent of an action or process, but on the thing or person that has been affected or acted upon.

Question 20

Phrase

Answer 20

A group of words that function together as a unit. A phrase does not contain both a subject and a verb form, so cannot form a full clause or sentence.

Question 21

Polyseme

Answer 21

A word or phrase that has several meanings that may be related to each other. In a dictionary, a polysemous word will have all its different forms and meanings listed under the same headword.

Question 22

Prefix

Answer 22

A letter or group of letters that can be added to the start of a word to change its meaning.

Question 23

Root (of a word)

Answer 23

The source or origin of a word. Other words develop from the root using prefixes and suffixes.

Question 24

Stress

Answer 24

Word stress is the way that one syllable is given more force in a word. Stressed syllables or words are louder and longer than unstressed syllables. English places stresses on key words or new information in a sentence, so it is important to learn to recognise stressed words.

Question 25

Suffix

Answer 25

A letter or group of letters that can be added to the end of the word to change its meaning word class or grammatical function.

Question 26

Syllable

Answer 26

A unit of sound in a word. Each syllable has a vowel at its centre and consonants ‘surround’ the vowel. It is also possible to havve a syllable with just a vowel.

Question 27

Synonym

Answer 27

A word that has the same or a similar meaning to another word.

Question 28

Terminology

Answer 28

Vocabulary (or terms) used in a particular field, topic or area of study. These may be technical words or terms to describe complex concepts that are specific to that topic.

Question 29

Transitive verb

Answer 29

A verb that needs to take an object, e.g., send.

Question 30

Word class

Answer 30

Word classes are used to categorize words in terms of which parts of speech they are.

Question 31

Word family

Answer 31

A group of words that are closely related to each other because they share a common root or because they have related meanings.

Question 32

Word grammar

Answer 32

The way that individual words are used in sentences and how they connect with other words, or with other parts of the sentence.