transition defnitions Flashcards
Phoneme
Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.
Accent
The way in which people in a particular area, country, or social group pronounce words.
Geographical
Relating to geography, or to the geography of a particular area or place.
Amelioration
make (something bad or unsatisfactory) better.
Inflection
1) A change in the form of a word (typically the ending) to express a grammatical function or attribute such as tense, mood, person, number, case, and gender.
2) The modulation of intonation or pitch in the voice.
Demonstrative
(of a determiner or pronoun) indicating the person or thing referred to (e.g. this, that, those ).
Tense
A set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time (and sometimes also the continuance or completeness) of the action in relation to the time of the utterance.
Inference
A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.
Adjacency pairs
In linguistics, an adjacency pair is an example of conversational turn-taking. An adjacency pair is composed of two utterances by two speakers, one after the other. The speaking of the first utterance (the first-pair part, or the first turn) provokes a responding utterance (the second-pair part, or the second turn).
Cataphoric reference
Cataphoric reference occurs when a word or phrase refers to something mentioned later in the discourse. Here are some examples of cataphoric reference: Although I phone HER every week, my mother still complains that I don’t keep in touch often enough.
Syllable
A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word.
Lexis
The total stock of words in a language. The level of language consisting of vocabulary, as opposed to grammar or syntax.
Register
In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation.
Sociolect
The dialect of a particular social class.
Active voice
A form or set of forms of a verb in which the subject is typically the person or thing performing the action and which can take a direct object (e.g. she loved him as opposed to the passive form he was loved ).