Language and Texts Flashcards
Meanings
Messages that are communicated. Meanings are never fixed, but are negotiated between speakers and listeners, or writers and readers, and vary considerably according to context.
Multimodal
A multimodal text employs more than one mode of communication - for example, by using images as well as words, or by drawing on an aspect of speech as well as writing.
Salient
Most important, prominent, or noteworthy.
Audience Construction
In language study, texts are seen as constructing audiences, not just addressing them. This means that texts create an idea of who the audience is, by ‘speaking’ to them in a certain way.
Narratee
A fictional receiver; the person that the text appears to be aimed at.
Narrator
A fictional ‘teller’; the apparent voice behind the text as created by the author.
Affordances
Things that are made possible. For example. a website can be read by many people at the same time.
Computer-Mediated-Communication
Human communication that takes place via the medium of computers.
Hybrid
Hybrids are blends of two or more elements. For example, new forms of communication are often seen as having some of the characteristics of both spoken and written language.
Interlocutors
People engaged in a spoken interaction
Limitations
Things that are prevented or restricted. For example, an SMS has no way to convey the subtleties of non-verbal communication (hence the need for emoticons).
Literacy
Literacy refers primarily to reading and writing, including the new types of writing that occur in digital contexts.
Oracy
Speaking and listening, the skills required to communicate in spoken language.
Critical Discourse Analysis
A type of text analysis that tries to reveal the power structures that are maintained in society through the discourses used.
Face Theory
The idea that we all have a public self-image that we need to project and protect.
FTA
In Face Theory, something that threatens a person’s self-image.
Framing
The idea that speakers mark their understanding of the context they are in. For example, by smiling or laughing to show that they are being playful.
Negative Face Need
In Face Theory, the need not to be imposed on by another person.
Positive Face Need
In Face Theory, the need for positive reinforcement, a feeling that we are appreciated and liked by others.
Subject Position
The perspective taken on a topic, where some aspects are emphasized while others are downplayed.
Conversation Analysis
A field of analysis devised by the sociologist Harvey Sacks focusing on the routines that occur in spoken language.
Declarative
A clause or sentence that has a statement function.
Modal Verbs
Modal verbs accompany main verbs and are often used to express degrees of certainty, desirability or obligation.
Monostylistic
Having only one style of communication
Rhetorical question
A question that is posed for its persuasive effect and not because the speaker really expects an answer.
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the study of persuasive language, an area of study dating back to ancient Greece.
Possessive determiners
Determiners, as the name suggests, help to determine that a noun refers to - in this case, ownership (my, our).
Active Voice
This is when the person or thing doing the action specified by the verb is subject of the sentence ‘I ate a good dinner’, ‘I’ is the subject, doing the eating. ‘A good dinner’ is the object (person or thing affected by the action of the verb).
Disjunct
An adverb that expresses a writer’s or speaker’s attitude, such as ‘frankly’, ‘fortunately’.
Noun Phrase
A phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its main word (called the head word).
Passive Voice
Use of the passive voice turns elements around, so that the thing or person being acted upon goes at the front. so, when changing the active sentence ‘I ate a good dinner’ to a passive, it becomes ‘A good dinner was eaten (by me)’. The last part is brackets because it can be left out and the sentence still makes sense.
Complex Sentence
A sentence involving at least one main or independent clause and a subordinate clause. For example, in the sentence ‘When I came into the house, I saw the flood damage’, the first clause is subordinate and the second is the main clause.
Nominalisation
The process of turning different grammatical elements into nouns or noun phrases. For example, the TV show Feed My Funny, the adjective ‘funny’ as been turned into a noun.
Colloquial
Colloquial expressions are items of everyday language used in informal contexts
Compound Sentences
Two main clauses joined by a connective. For example ‘I came into the house and I saw the flood damage’.
