Key Terms Flashcards
Slang
A very broad term for any language which isn’t considered ‘proper’ or standard English but which may be fairly well spread
Non-standard English
Words/Grammatical constructions which are not considered to be ‘good’ or ‘correct’ English and which are confined to specific regions of the country
Colloquialism
A loose term which literally means ‘language as it is spoken’; it tends to apply to more well-established examples of informal phrases
Standard English
Words/grammatical constructions which are generally accepted as ‘correct English’
Taboo Language
Language which is deeply offensive such as swear words (often called expletives)
Vulgarism
Language which is coarse and which is not usually used in polite society
Transactional Talk
Conversation where one party wants something from the other
Turn-taking
Taking turns within a conversation
Status
How two parties in a conversation relate to each other
Overt/Implied Purpose
What the conversation is apparently about
Audience
Who the conversation is aimed at
Register
Formality and informality
Ellipsis
Parts of words/sentences being missed out
Lexis
Vocabulary/word choice
Active Listening
Phrases that encourage the speaker
Conversational markers
Phrases that draw in the listener by asking for approval
Linear
Conversation that flows between A and B seamlessly without hesitation; rare in genuine conversation
Anaphoric reference
Refers back to something in a previous sentence, without which the 2nd sentence cannot be understood
Pragmatics
What the speaker means rather than what they outright say
Deixis
Demonstrative reference, such as ‘that’ and ‘there
Feedback
A reply to what is being said
Utterance
Something someone says
Prosodic features
Stress and intonation
Paralinguistics
Body language
Grice’s Maxim of Quality
Not saying that which you believe to be false; not saying that for which you lack evidence
Grice’s Maxim of Quantity?
Making your contribution as informative as required, yet no more informative than is required
Grice’s Maxim of Manner
Being perspicuous, avoiding obscurity of expression, being brief and being orderly
Grice’s Maxim of Relevance
Saying that which is relevant to the conversation
Opting-out
Choosing to opt out of a relation rather than violating it
Cataphoric Reference
Referencing forwards to an as yet undisclosed item
Accent
The specific way words are pronounced according to geographical region
Acronymy
Abbreviations that use the first letter of a group of words and is pronounced as a single word
Actor
The individual/entity responsible for the action of a verb process
Actual Reader
Any reader who actually engages with the text
Actual writer
The ‘real’ person behind the text
Adjacency Pair
Two utterances by different speakers that have a natural and logical link (two turns)
Adjectival Phrase
A phrase with the adjective as its head
Affected
The person/entity affected by a material action process
Agency
The responsibility for/cause of an action
Antonymy
Words with opposite value
Alliteration
A sequence of words beginning with the same sound
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds for effect
Asynchronous discourse
Discourse in which there is delays between turns that participants take
Auxiliary verb
A verb that supports another; shows tense or modality
Base form
The simple form of an adjective (serves to modify)
Boosting device
Linguistic device used to intensify the force of an expression for either emphasis or power
Cantenative Verb
verb that can attach to another (forming a ‘chain’)
Clause
a group of lexical items formed around a verb phrase
Clause Patterns
Patterns produced by writers using certain types of clauses for impact and effect
Cohesion
A measure of how well a text fits together as a whole
Comparative
The form for comparing two items (adjectives with -er)
Complementary
Truly opposite antonyms
Complex Sentence
Sentence with a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses
Compound Sentence
Sentence with two or more main clauses, connected by conjunctions or punctuation
Compound-Complex Sentence
Sentence with at least two main clauses and at least one subordinate clause
Conceptual metaphor
The way in which abstract terms are mapped onto physical entities through an underlying conceptual structure
Connective
A word that connects words, phrases, clauses, sentences or paragraphs
Connotation
An associated, symbolic meaning relying on culturally shared conventions
Consonance
The repetition of consonant sounds for effect
Constraints
The way in which powerful participants may block or control the contributions of less powerful participants
Context of production
The situation in which a text is produced and those factors that might influence its writing
Context of reception
The situations in which a text is produced and those factors that might influence its writing
Convention
An agreed or shared feature
Cooperative principe
The principle that suggests that all communication is essentially a cooperative act
Coordinating Conjunctions
Words such as “and”, “but” and “or” that link clauses to form compound sentences
Covert Prestige
A form of high status given to non-standard forms
Denotation
Literal or semantic meaning of a lexical term
Deontic modality
Constructions that express degrees of necessity and obligation (eg. “may”; “must”)
Dialect
The language variety of a geographical region or social background
Direct Object
Object directly affected by a verb process, for example in “I gave him the pen”, the pen is the direct object
Discourse
A continuous stretch of language that is longer than a sentence
Discourse Marker
A word or phrase that indicates a change in topic or return to a previous topic
Ditransitive Verb
A verb that requires two objects to form a double-object construction, such as “give”, “grant” or “tell”
Dynamic Verbs
Verbs where the situation described by the verb process changes over time
Dysphemism
A harsh and often taboo term sometimes used for a dark/humorous effect
Elision
The missing out of sounds or parts of words in speech or written language
Ellipses
The missing out of a word or words in a sentence
Epistemic Modality
Constructions that express degrees of possibility, probability or certainty (such as “shall” and “will”)
Euphemism
A socially acceptable word or phrase used to avoid talking about something potentially distasteful
Exchange Structure
A series of turns between speakers
Explicative evaluation
Explaining reasons for narrative events
External evaluation
An evaluative comment outside the narrative sequence
Face
A person’s self-esteem or emotional needs
Face-threatening Act
A communicative act that threatens someone’s positive or negative face needs
Flaming
The act of posting aggressive threats or responses to threads
Folklinguistics
Attitudes and assumptions about language that have no real evidence to support them
Formulation
The rewording of another’s contribution by a powerful participant to impose a certain meaning/understanding
Functional Words
Words that have less explicit meaning and serve to highlight relationships between other words (“then”, “as”, “if”, “he”, “she”, “the”, “a”)
Gender
The differences in behaviour and roles that are a result of societal expectations
Gradable
Antonyms that are not exact opposites but can be considered in terms of degree of quality
Greetings sequence
A series of turns designed to initiate a shared social space
Hedging Device
A linguistic device used to express uncertainty
Homophone
A word that sounds the same as another word or words
‘How are you’ sequences
Examples of phatic talk that maintain the social relationship before the main business of a call/conversation
Hyponymy
The term for the hierarchical structure that exists between lexical items
Idiolect
An individual style of speaking or ‘linguistic fingerprint’
Implied reader
The kind of reader a text producer has in mind when writing a text
Implied Writer
A constructed image of the writer a reader may have in mind
Indirect object
An object indirectly affected by a verb process (eg. “I gave him the pen”; “him” is the indirect object)
Influential Power
Power used to influence/persuade others
Initialism
An abbreviation that uses the first letter of a group of words and is pronounced as individual letters
Initiation-Response-Feedback
A triadic structure in speech that allows the first speaker to feedback on the response of the second speaker
Instrumental Power
Power used to maintain and enforce authority
Intransitive Verb
A verb process such as ‘yawned’ or ‘slept’ that has no object
Jargon
Particularly specialist terminology that may exclude others
Less powerful participants
Those with less status in a given context who are subject to constraints imposed by more powerful participants
Lexical accomodation
The way in which speakers mirror each other’s lexical choices as a sign of community membership
Lexical (semantic) field
Lexical items that are similar in range of meaning and properties
Lexical Onomatopoeia
Actual lexical items that rely on a similarity between sound and meaning (eg. “crash” and “bang”)
Lexical word
words that carry explicit meanings and represent the word classes that are open to new additions and derivations
Main clause
A clause that can stand on its own and make sense independent of anything else
Main verb
The verb that details the main process in a verb phrase
Marked form
That which stands out as different from a norm
Material processes
Describing actions or evenets
Members’ Resources
The vast amount of background knowledge and information that readers use in order to interpret texts and which may be explicitly drawn upon by text produces
Metalanguage
A set of technical terms used to describe how language operates
Metatalk
Talk that brings attention to the act of talking itself
Minor sentence
A grammatically incomplete sentence
Mixed-mode features
Features expected in printed text combined with features expected in conversation
Modal auxiliary verb
Verbs that never appear on their own and are used to express probability, possibility, certainty, necessity or obligation
Mode
The medium of communication
Modifier
A word, usually an adjective or a noun used attributively, that qualifies the sense of a noun
Monotransitive verb
A verb that only requires one object
Morpheme
The smallest unit of grammatical meaning; can be words in their own right or combine with other morphemes to form lexical units
Multimodal texts
Those that combine word, image and sound to produce meaning
Negating particle
A small item used to show negation
Negative face
The need to have freedom of thought and action and not feel imposed on
Non-lexical onomatopoeia
Non-words that work in the same way as lexical onomatopoeia
Noun phrases
A group of words centred around a noun
Object pronoun
A pronoun that usually appears as being affected by a verb process (eg. “him” and “them”)
Oppressive discourse strategy
Linguistic behaviour that is open in its exercising of power and control
Over-specificity
The giving of a too specific answer
Overt marking
Marking that takes place through affixation or modification
Parallelism
The repetition of a pattern or structure in related words, phrases or clauses
Personal power
Power held by individuals as a result of their roles in organisations
Personification
A figure of speech where an animal or inanimate object is given human characteristics
Phatic speech acts
Turns designed to maintain a sense of cooperation or respect for the other speaker
Positive and negative politeness strategies
Redressive strategies that a speaker might use to avoid or mitigate face-threatening acts
Positive face
The need to feel wanted, liked and appreciated
Possessive pronoun
A pronoun that demonstrates ownership
Post-modification
A modifying phrase or lexical item that occurs after the head noun in a noun phrase
Power asymmetry
A marked difference in the power status of individuals involved in discourse
Powerful Participant
A speaker with a higher status in a given context, who is therefore able to impose a degree of power
Pre-closing sequences
Signals that one or both speakers wish to end the conversation
Pre-modification
Modifying that occurs before the head noun
Prepositional phrase
A phrase consisting of a preposition and an added noun phrase
Primary auxiliary
Used to donate tense changes (“do”, “be”, “have”)
Prosodic features
Paralinguistic vocal elements of spoken language used to provide emphasis or other effects
Qualifier
Further information to complete the phrase
Semantic derogation
The sense of negative meaning or connotation that some lexical items have attached to them
Semantic deterioration
The process by which negative connotations become attached to lexical items
Semantics
The method that deals with meaning and how that is generated within texts
Semi-auxiliary
A combination of a primary auxiliary and another verb part
Simple sentence
A sentence consisting of a single main clause
Small talk
Talk that is primarily interactional in orientation and is geared towards establishing relationships
Social group power
Power held as a result of being a member of a dominant social group
Socailisation
A process by which individuals’ behaviours are conditioned and shaped
Sociolect
A defined use of language as a result of membership of a social group
Specialist register
A set of lexical items and grammatical constructions particular to an institution or occupational group
Standard English
A universally accepted dialect of English that carries a degree of prestige
Stative verb
A verb that describes a state of affairs rather than an action
Subject pronoun
A pronoun that usually occurs as the actor in the verbal process
Subordinate
A ‘lower’ word in the hyponymic chain; a more specific lexical item
Superlative
Adjectives inflected with “est” or combined with “most” are superlatives
Synchronous discourse
Discourse that takes place in real time
Synonymy
Words with very similar semantic value
Synthetic personalisation
The way in which advertising and other forms of communication use personalised language such as the second person
Tag question
A group of words that turn a declarative into an interrogative
Topic management
The control of the conversation in terms of speaking and topic
Transition relevance point
A point at which it is natural for another speaker to take a turn
Turn-taking
The sharing of speaking roles, usually cooperatively
Under-specificity
Inappropriately vague answer to a question
Unequal encounter
An alternative term for asymmetrical which highlights that one speaker has power over the other
Unmarked form
The measured norm
Utterance
A group of spoken words
