Text Key Terms

Question 1

What is metalanguage?

Answer 1

It is language about a language.

Question 2

What is an utterance?

Answer 2

It is a segment of speech.

Question 3

What is context?

Answer 3

It is the background against which a text conveys its meaning.

Question 4

What is a discourse event?

Answer 4

It is an act of communication occurring in a specific time and location involving writers/speakers and readers/listeners.

Question 5

What is a text producer?

Answer 5

The person or people responsible for creating a text.

Question 6

What is a text receiver?

Answer 6

The person or people interpreting (through reading or listening to) a text.

Question 7

What is a multi-purpose text?

Answer 7

It is a text that clearly has more than one purpose.

Question 8

What is a primary purpose?

Answer 8

The main and most easily recognisable purpose.

Question 9

What is a secondary purpose?

Answer 9

An addition and more subtle purpose.

Question 10

What is an implied reader?

Answer 10

It is a constructed image of an idealised reader.

Question 11

What is an actual reader?

Answer 11

It is any person or groups of people who engage with and interpret a text.

Question 12

What is an implied writer?

Answer 12

It is a constructed image of an idealised writer.

Question 13

What is an actual writer?

Answer 13

The real person or people responsible for text production.

Question 14

What is a discourse community?

Answer 14

It is a group of people with shared interests and belief systems who are likely to respond to texts in similar ways. E

Question 15

What is mode?

Answer 15

It is the physical channel of communication.

Either speech or writing.

Question 16

What is an oppositional view?

Answer 16

It is a way of defining the difference between modes by arguing that they have completely different features.

Question 17

What is a continuum?

Answer 17

It is a sequence In which elements that are next to each other are not noticeably different but elements at the opposite ends are very different from each other.

Question 18

What is blended mode?

Answer 18

It is a text which contains conventional elements of both speech and writing.

Question 19

What is genre?

Answer 19

It is a way of grouping texts based on expected shared conventions.

Question 20

What is intertextuality?

Answer 20

It is a process by which texts borrow from or refer to conventions of other texts for specific purpose and effect.

Question 21

What is variation?

Answer 21

It is the differences associated with particular instances of language use and between groups of language users?

Question 22

What is a register?

Answer 22

It is a variety of language that is associated with a particular situation of use.

Question 23

What is a situation of use?

Answer 23

It is a specific place, time and context in which communication takes place.

Question 24

What are situational characteristics?

Answer 24

It is a key characteristic of the time, place and contexts in which communication takes place.

Question 25

What is dialect?

Answer 25

It is a variation in words and structures associated with a particular geographical region.

Question 26

What is accent?

Answer 26

It is a variation in pronunciation associated with a particular geographical region.

Question 27

What is sociolect?

Answer 27

It is variation in language use associated with membership of a particular social group.

Question 28

What is idiolect?

Answer 28

It is variation in language use associated with an individuals personalised speech style.

Question 29

What is representation?

Answer 29

It is the portrayal of events, people and circumstances through language and other mean making resources (e.g. images and sounds) to create a way of seeing the world.