unit 3 & 4 metalanguage Flashcards
assimilation
when phonemes that are close to each other in a word change to sound more alike, often for ease of pronunciation
vowel reduction
when vowels in unstressed positions in words are reduced to a schwa
elision
when phonemes are removed from the pronunciation of a word
insertion
when additional phonemes are inserted into words
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
a set of symbols in which each symbol corresponds to a sound that humans can pronounce
pitch
how low or high a sound is. pitch is altered by changing the speed of the vibration of the vocal cords
intonation
the contrastive use of pitch in speech
tempo
the speed at which an utterance is spoken
stress
how loudly and how long different syllables are uttered
volume
the loudness of a speaker’s utterance. can be changed to convey emotion or according to the speaker’s surroundings
Phonological patterning
phonological patterning refers to stylistic features that relate to the sound of words
name the types of phonological patterning
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia
Rhythm
Rhyme
alliteration
The repetition of phonemes at the beginning of words in a phrase, clause or sentence.
assonance
The repetition of vowel phonemes across phrases, clauses or sentences.
consonance
The repetition of consonant phonemes, often as syllable final boundaries.
onomatopoeia
The process by which evocative words are created from the sounds they represent.
rhythm
Rhythm is created when the intonation of a set of words is repeated across two or more phrases, clauses or sentences.
rhyme
The repetition of similar phonemes at the end of two or more words. This entails the direct manipulation of consonance and assonance in word-final syllables.
affixation
the process of attaching an affix (either a prefix, suffix or infix) to a word
shortening
a shortening is a word formed from another word by dropping an ending (or sometimes a beginning)
compounding
the process of creating new words by putting two or more free morphemes together
blending
smooshing two words together and cutting out the middle to make a new word! tada!
backformation
A backformation is a word that appears to be the root of another word, but in actuality became a word after its longer form was popularised.
conversion of word class
when words operate as multiple word classes with no changes
initialism
initialisms stemmed from the first letters of other words and are pronounced as letters
acronym
acronyms are initialisms that have are now pronounced phonetically
contraction
contractions are when two words are put together with some of the middle letters dropped, and represented with an apostrophe
inflectional morpheme
an inflectional morpheme is a bound morpheme that does not change the meaning or class of the word it is attached to, but simply provides grammatical information such as plurality, possession or tense
derivational morpheme
a derivational morpheme is a bound morpheme that changes the meaning of words, creates new words or changes the word class
root
a root morpheme is the semantic base or centre of a word
bound morpheme
a bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand on its own; it must be attached to a free morpheme
free morpheme
a free morpheme is a morpheme that can exist as a word in its own right
word loss
the process in which a word falls out of usage. it happens for a variety of reasons, including taboo, or because the thing which the word describes doesn’t exist/isn’t relevant anymore. elevation/deterioration of a word’s semantic meaning is also a form of word loss.
archaism
a word that is no longer used
neologism
a brand new word, expression or usage. they can be words invented/created with no reference to pre-existing words, or words that have undergone other processes
commonisation
a specific term turned into a generalised term
borrowing
a word borrowed or adapted from another langauge
function word
a word that exists to perform a job, which is most commonly conveying grammatical relationships between words in a sentence
content word
a word in a sentence that carries real world meaning, words that provide content in sentences
semantic patterning
Stylistic features that relate to the meanings of words
name the types of semantic patterning
Figurative language
Irony
Metaphor
Oxymoron
Simile
Hyperbole
Personification
Animation
Puns
Lexical ambiguity
figurative language
a hypernym that refers to words or terms that are not meant to be taken literally
irony
Irony is when a text creator states one thing, but their intended meaning is the opposite of their statement.
metaphor
Metaphor involves calling a thing something that it literally is not. It is often used to help us understand things that we aren’t familiar with.
oxymoron
An oxymoron is an utterance that involves putting two seemingly contradictory ideas together.
simile
Similar to metaphors, but instead of saying something literally is something, they say it is ‘similar’ or ‘like’ another concept, idea, feeling, object, etc.
hyperbole
hyperbole is a fancy word for exaggeration
personification
personification is when human qualities are given to something that isn’t human
animation
animation involves giving animate qualities to things that are inanimate
puns
puns are plays on words that utilise different sounds or meanings of words
lexical ambiguity
Lexical ambiguity occurs when the context does not indicate which meaning should be applied to words
broadening
when the range of contexts in which a word can appear expands. basically, it becomes a more general term
narrowing
when the range of contexts in which a word can appear is reduced
elevation
elevation is a semantic shift in which words acquire positive connotations or lose negative connotations
deterioration
deterioration is a semantic shift in which words acquire negative connotations or lose positive connotations
shift
when semantic shift occurs, the meaning of words are altered significantly, if not entirely
noun
The name of a person, place or thing.
count noun
Count nouns are words like ‘student’ or ‘picture’ (to pluralise just add an ‘-s’.
mass noun
Mass nouns are words such as ‘wine’ or ‘bread’.
proper nouns
Proper nouns are names.
common nouns
Common nouns are all nouns that aren’t proper nouns.
concrete nouns
Concrete nouns are nouns that are real things that you could touch.
abstract nouns
Abstract nouns are nouns that talk about objects you couldn’t physically touch.
verbs
Most of the time, verbs are defined as doing words, all though this example excludes verbs such as ‘to be’.
syntactic patterning
Syntactic patterning involves the repetition of elements larger than single words
name the types of syntactic patterning
listing
parallelism
antithesis
antithesis
antithesis involves putting two opposing ideas in order to create juxtaposition
listing
listing is when a text creator needs to list three or more related items or concepts. it cuts down on repetition by ellipsing terms that would otherwise have to be repeated
