· Abstract Noun - A noun that refers to a concept, state, quality or emotion

· Accent - The distinctive way a speaker from a particular region pronounces words

· Acronym - A new word made from the initial letters of all the words in a name or phrase, e.g. NASA

· Active Voice - When the subject of the sentence is directly performing the verb e.g. Steve burst the bubble

· Adjective - A class of words that can appear before (attributive) or after (predicative)

· Adverb - A class of words that modify verbs according to time, place, manner, frequency, duration or degree. They can sometimes modify nouns and adjectives too

· Affixation - The process of adding an affix before (prefix) or after (suffix) an existing word to change either its meaning or grammatical function

· Alliteration - When two or more words close to each other in a phrase begin with the same sound, e.g. down in the dumps

· Anaphoric Reference - When a word, usually a pronoun, refers back to something or someone that has already been mentioned, e.g. Barry can't come because he's ill

· Antithesis - Type of rhetorical language where contrasting ideas or words are balanced against each other, e.g. it's just too good from Green, and just too bad for the goalkeeper

· Antonyms - Words with opposite meanings

· Article - A kind of determiner that shows if the reference to a noun is general (a / an) or specific (the)

· Aspect - A verb's aspect shows whether the action it refers to is already completed, or if it is still taking place

· Assimilation - When sounds next to each other in a spoken word or sentence are pronounced in a different way to normal to make them easier to say

· Assonance - When the main vowel sounds of two or more words that are close together in a text are similar or the same, e.g. low smoky holes

· Audience - A person or group of people that read, view or listen to a text. A writer or speaker can aim to reach a certain type of audience by using specific literary techniques and language choices

· Auxiliary Verb - Verbs used before the main verb in a sentence to give extra information about it, e.g. I have seen him

· Babbling - The production of short vowel / consonant combinations by a baby acquiring language

· Back Channeling - A kind of feedback in spoken language that supports the person speaking and shows that what is being said is understood

· Behaviorism - A theory of language acquisition that suggests children learn language through a process of imitation and reinforcement

· Blending - When parts of two words are combined to make a new one, e.g. netizen

· Buzz Words - Words that are fashionable in a particular occupational group

· Cataphora - A reference in a text to something that follows in later phrases or sentences, e.g. these are the directions...

· Characterization - The way that a writer conveys information about a character relating to their appearance, speech, etc.

· Child-Directed Speech - The way that caregivers talk to children - usually simplified and / or exaggerated language

· Clause - The simplest meaningful unit of a sentence

· Cliché - An expression that has lost its novelty value due to being overused

· Clipping - When a shortened version of a word becomes a word in its own right, e.g. demo, phone

· Cognitive Theory - A theory of language acquisition that suggests children need to have acquired certain mental abilities before they can acquire language

· Cohesion - The linking of ideas in texts to ensure the text makes sense

· Coining - The general term for creating new words

· Collective Noun - A noun that refers to a group f people, animals of things, e.g. team

· Collocation - Words that commonly appear together in order, in specific lexical units, e.g. done and dusted

· Common Noun - A noun that refers to a class of things or a concept. Every noun is a common noun except those that refer to unique things, e.g. the names of particular people or places

· Comparative - An adjective that makes a degree of comparison, normally by adding an -er suffix, e.g. faster

· Complement - A word or phrase that gives more information about the subject or object in a sentence, e.g. the boy is actually a cow (NOTE: not "Your dress is lovely")

· Compound - A new word created by combining two or more existing words, e.g. skyscraper

· Concrete Noun - A noun that refers to the things that you can physically touch or see, e.g. a chair

· Conjunction - A linking word that connects phrases and clauses to each other to form sentences, e.g. but

· Connotation - The associations that are made with a particular word

· Context - The circumstances that surround a word, phrase, or text, e.g. time and place produced, intended audience

· Conversion - When a word becomes part of a different word class in addition to its original sense

· Cooing - The earliest sounds that children are able to make as they experiment with moving their lips and tongue

· Coordinate Clause - An independent clause that's linked to another independent clause in the same sentence

· Count Noun - Nouns that can be preceded by a number and counted, e.g. one book, two books etc.

· Declarative Sentence - A sentence that makes a statement to give information, e.g. she enjoyed her scampi

· Deixis - A reference to something that is outside the text or conversation (e.g. location, time) that can't be understood unless you know the context

· Demonstratives - Words that refer to specific objects that only those in the discourse can see. They can be pronouns, e.g. I like this, or adjectives, e.g. I like this bike

· Denotation - The literal meaning of a word

· Determiner - A word that goes before a noun to give information about it, e.g. to show possession or number (his, two)

· Dialect - The distinctive lexis, grammar and pronunciation of a persons spoken English, usually affected by the region they're from and their social background

· Dialogue - Any exchange between two or more characters or speakers

· Difference Model - Tannen's (1990) theory about gender and conversation which states that men and women have different objectives when they interact

· Discourse - An extended piece of written or spoken language

· Dominance Model - Zimmerman and West's (1975) theory of gender differences in conversation are due to male dominance in society

· Double Negative - When negatives are used twice in a phrase, e.g. I didn't do nothing

· Egocentric - The early mental state of a child in which they can only understand things existing in relation to themselves, i.e. things they can see or touch

· Elision - When sounds or syllables are slurred together in speech to make pronunciation easier and quicker

· Ellipsis - When part of a grammatical structure is left out of the sentence without effecting the meaning

· Estuary English - An accent that was originally from the Thames Estuary area in London but is not heard outside the area and may be replacing RP as the country's most widespread form.

· Euphemism - A word or phrase that is used as a substitute for harsher or more unpleasant sounding words or concepts

· Exclamative - A sentence that has an expressive function and ends with an exclamation mark

· Exospheric Reference - Referring to something outside a text, e.g. that tree over there

· Feedback - Verbal or non-verbal sings that a person is listening to a speaker

· Figurative Language - Language that is used in a non-literal way to create images and form comparisons, e.g. metaphor

· Filler - A sound produced by speakers to keep up a conversation going avoid silence, e.g. mmm

· Genre - A group of texts with a particular form or purpose, e.g. letters, poems, adverts

· Grammar - The system of rules that govern how words, clauses and sentences are put together

· Grapheme - The smallest unit of writing that can create contrasts in meaning, e.g. individual letters or symbol

· Graphology - The study of the appearance of a text, how it looks on the page and how the layout helps get the meaning across

· Head Word - A word that has the same grammatical function as the phrase that has been built around it, e.g., in a noun phrase, the head word is a noun

· Hedging - Word choices that show uncertainty in conversations, e.g. maybe, probably

· Holophrases - In language acquisition, single words that express a complete idea, e.g. ball, which could mean the child wants it, or has found it, etc.… Caregivers need contextual clues to interpret them

· Hyperbole - When exaggeration is used for effect

· Hypernym - A word that refers to a specific type of a hypernym, e.g. car, bus, lorry are all hyponyms for vehicle

· Hyponym - A general word that is a term for many hyponyms, e.g. vehicle is a hyponym of car, bus, lorry etc.

· Ideology - A set of ideas and beliefs

· Imagery - Describing something in a way that creates a picture of it in the audience's mind

· Imperative - A sentence that gives orders, advice or directions. It starts with a main verb and doesn't have a subject

· Implication - When a meaning is suggested, rather than explicitly described

· Infinitive - The base form of a verb, preceded by to

· Inflection - An affix that is attached to a base word and gives extra information about it

· Internalization - When a child learning language starts to apply one of the language's roles consistently, even to words they've never seen before

· Interrogative - A sentence or utterance that asks a question

· Intertexuality - When a text makes a reference to another existing text or effect

· Intonation - The pitch of a speaker's voice, e.g. rising intonation shows it's a question

· Jargon - Specialist words that are used by a particular social or occupational group that may not be understood by a non-member

· Juxtaposition - Positioning words, ideas or images next to each other in a text to create certain effects

· Language Acquisition Device (LAD) - The innate ability of children acquiring language to take in and use the grammatical rules of the language they can hear where the live, according to Chomsky (1965)

· Lexical Field - A group of words that relate to the same topic, e.g. hotel and destination are in the lexical field of travel

· Lexis - A general term for the words of a language

· Liaison - When a consonant is pronounced between words or syllables to make the run together

· Loan Words - Words that are taken from other languages

· Main Verbs - Words that identify the action of a sentence

· Management Speak - A way of communicating in the workplace designed to sound up-to-date and formal, but usually overly complex

· Mass Noun - A noun that can't be counted and doesn't have a plural, e.g. information

· Metaphor - Words or phrases that describe something as f it actually was something else, e.g. the heart of the matter

· Metonym - Using a part of something, or one of its attributes to describe the whole thing, e.g. the press to refer to journalists in the news industry

· Modal Auxiliary Verbs - Verbs that give more information about the main verb but can't occur as main verbs themselves, e.g. can, will

· Mode - A way of classifying texts (e.g. written or spoken or a combination of different media.)

· Monologue - The utterances of one speaker or performer to an audience

· Monosyllabic - Words with only one syllable

· Morpheme - The individual meaningful units that make up words (although they don’t always make sense on their own)

· Morphology - The study of the internal structure of words

· Multimodal Text - A text that involves elements of different modes, e.g. text messages are a mixture of written and spoken language

· Narrative Voice - The point of view a text is written from, e.g. a first person narrator tells the story from their personal point of view

· Neologisms - New words that enter a language

· Non-Verbal Communication - Using gestures, expressions and body language to communicate instead of or as well as words

· Noun - A word used as the name or a person, place, thing or concept

· Object - The part of the sentence that the verb acts upon, e.g. in I broke a plate, the plate is the object and ends up broken

· Onomatopoeia - A word that sounds like the noise it's describing

· Overextension - When a child acquiring language uses a word too generally to refer to different but related things, e.g. calling everything with four legs a dog

· Oxymoron - A phrase that brings two conflicting ideas together, e.g. bittersweet

· Parallelism - The repetition of structural features in a sentence or throughout a text, e.g. repeated use of the past tense in a sentence - he came home, ran upstairs and jumped in the bathe

· Parody - Subverting traditional expectations of a text's features to produce humor or satire

· Passive Voice - When the object of the verb is described first, rather than the subject (e.g. the bubble was burst by Steve)

· Personification - When an object, concept or situation is given human qualities

· Phatic Language - Expressions that have a sociable function rather than expressing serious meaning

· Phoneme - The smallest unit of language built around a head word

· Phonology - The study of sound systems of languages, particular the patterns of sounds

· Phrase - A meaningful unit of language built around a head word

· Polysyllabic - Words with more than one syllable

· Post-Modifier - Words that come after the head word in a phrase that tell you something about it

· Pragmatics - The study of how language functions in social situations

· Pre modifier - Words that are used before the head word of a phrase (often determiner + adjective) that tell you something about it

· Prefix - An affix that comes before the base form, e.g. unfortunate

· Preposition - A word that defines the relationship between words in terms of time, space or direction, e.g. the toy was in the box, he was behind you

· Primary Auxiliary Verbs - Auxiliary verbs that can also occur as main verbs (do, be and have)

· Pronoun - A word that can take the place of a noun, e.g. he, she, it

· Proper Noun - A noun that is the name of a specific person, place or brand

· Prosody - Non-verbal aspects of speech like pace, stress, pitch, intonation, volume and pauses

· Proto-Word - Pun

· Received Pronunciation - An accent traditionally associated with educated people and the upper class. It’s characterized by lots of long vowels and the pronunciation of /h/ and /t/ in words where people with regional accents might leave them out

· Referential Language - Spoken language that gives information by referring to objects or concepts. It usually only makes sense if the listener understands the context, e.g. the vase is over there

· Register - A type of language that's appropriate for a particular audience or situation e.g. formal language is appropriate for a political speech

· Rhetorical Language - Language with phonological or structural features used to provide extra effects or meanings

· Semantics - The study of how the meanings of words are created and interpreted

· Sentence - An independent grammatical unit made up of one or more clauses

· Similes - Comparisons that use the words like or as

· Simplifications - When a child learning to speak drops consonants or consonant clusters to make words easier to pronounce or swaps the consonants for others that are easier to pronounce

· Slang - Informal, non-standard vocabulary usually used in casual speech

· Sociolect - A variety of language used by a particular social group

· Standard English - A dialect of English considered 'correct' and 'normal', because it has distinctive and standardized features of spelling, vocabulary and syntax. It's the form of English usually used in formal writing

· Sun-Genre - A group of similar texts that create a complete genre, e.g. tragedy and comedy are types of drama

· Subject - The focus of a sentence - the person or thing that performs the action described by the verb, e.g. Billy ate a sandwich

· Subordinate Clause - A clause that gives extra information about the main clause, but can't stand alone and still make sense

· Subtext - The implied meaning behind what's actually being said or described

· Suffix - An affix that comes after the base form, e.g. sadness

· Superlative - And adjective that states the noun it's describing is beyond comparison, usually by adding -est, e.g. fastest

· Syllables - A word's individual units of pronunciation

· Symbolism - When a word or phrase represents something other than its literal meaning

· Synonyms - Words that have similar meanings

· Syntax - The order and structure of sentences

· Tag Question - A question added to the end of a statement to encourage a response, e.g. don't you think so?

· Telegraphic Stage - The stage of language acquisition at which children begin to create three or four word utterances containing mainly subjects, verbs, objects and complements

· Tense - Grammatical inflections on verbs that show the time and action took place, e.g. in the past or present

· Transactional Language - Spoken exchange aimed at making some sort of deal

· Turn-Taking - A feature of orderly conversations when the chance to speak switches back and forth between participants

· Underextension - When a child uses words in a very restricted way, e.g. using one word like hat to refer only to the one the child is wearing

· Verb - A class of words that describe the action or state that a sentence refers to

· Word-Classes - How words are categorized according to the function they can perform in a sentence

	Created by Becky Holland about 11 years ago

AS Level English Language Note on AS English Language, created by Becky Holland on 19/11/2013.