language levels Flashcards
what is phonetics, phonology, and prosodics?
how speech sounds and effects are articulated and analysed. Phonetics is the study of sounds. A phoneme is an individual sound. All sounds that a speaker makes can be transcribed using a phonemic alphabet.
what is lexis and semantics?
the vocabulary and the different phrases and expressions that help shape meanings.
what is a connotation?
the associations that we have for a word or phrase
what is a morpheme?
an element of meaning smaller than a word. e.g. in ‘talked’ the morpheme ‘ed’ indicates that the talk occurred in the past
what is a semantic field?
a group of terms from the same domain
what is a euphemism?
an indirect form of language that enables speakers to avoid mentioning something unpleasant or offensive
what is a dysphemism?
a direct form of language that doesn’t attempt to disguise sensitive or difficult topics
what is grammar?
grammar is about morphology- the idea that some words have a grammatical, rather than a lexical, function. It is also about word order and cohesion (the way sentences join together to form a whole text)
what is meant by adjacency pairs?
elements of an interaction follow on from one another. For example, greetings are usually reciprocal, questions are followed by answers.
what is pragmatics?
assumptions in language use - unspoken rules
what is discourse and graphology?
discourse refers to the whole text. graphology is about the textual design and layout of a text
