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| Question | Answer |
| HEGOMONY | How one social group can use language to get other people to accept it's way of seeing the world as natural |
| PEJORATIVE TERM | A judgemental term that usually implies disapproval or criticism |
| METALANGUAGE | Language about language i.e. a metajoke is a joke about jokes or 'word' 'phrase' |
| UTTERANCE | A segment of speech |
| CONTEXT | The background against which a text convey it's meanings |
| FILLER | A non-verbal sound that acts like a pause - either to signal uncertainty or simply as a 'breathing space' for the speaker i.e. Er, erm |
| FALSE START | When a speaker begins to speak, stops and then starts again i.e. Well I was (1) well I was going to the shops |
| REPAIR | When a speaker corrects some aspect of what they have said-the error might be a grammatical one or the use of a wrong word, either by accident or mentioning something that is inappropriate i.e. We was (.) were going out |
| SKIP-CONNECTOR | A word or phrase that returns the conversation to a previous topic i.e. Anyway, coming back to our original discussion |
| ELLIPSIS | The omission of words for economical reasons and/or because the context means that the person listening understands the shortened utterance i.e. A: What do you want for lunch? B: ham sandwich ('I would like' is ellipted) |
| SPEAKER SUPPORT | Words or phrases (both verbal and non-verbal) that show attention or agreement, and encourage a speaker to carry on talking i.e. Mmm, yeah, Ok |
| ACCENT | The ways in which words are pronounced. Accent can vary according to the region or social class of a speaker |
| ADJACENCY PAIRS | Parallel expressions used across the boundaries of individual speaking turns. They are usually ritualistic and formulaic socially i.e. 'How are you?' / 'Fine thanks; |
| BACK-CHANNEL | Words, phrases and non-verbal utterances [e.g. 'I see', 'Oh', 'uh huh', 'really'] used by a listener to give feedback to a speaker that the message is being followed and understood. |
| CONTRACTION | A reduced form often marked by an apostrophe in writing - e.g. can't = cannot; she'll = she will. See also ELISION |
| DEIXIS / DEICTICS | Words such as 'this', 'that', 'here', 'there' which refer backwards or forwards or outside a text - a sort of verbal pointing. Very much a context dependent feature of talk |
| DIALECT | The distinctive grammar and vocabulary which is associated with a regional or social use of a language. |
| DISCOURSE MARKER | Words and phrases which are used to signal the relationships and connections between utterances and to signpost that what is said can be followed by the listener or reader e.g. 'first', 'on the other hand', 'now', 'what's more', 'so anyway' etc. |
| ELISION | The omission or slurring [eliding] of one or more sounds or syllables - e.g. gonna = going to; wannabe = want to be; wassup = what is up |
| ELLIPSIS | The omission of a part of a grammatical structure. For example, in the dialogue: 'You going to the party?' / 'Might be.' - the verb 'are' and the pronoun 'I' are missed out. The resulting ellipsis conveys a more causal and informal tone. |
| FALSE START | This is when the speaker begins an utterance, then stops and either repeats or reformulates it. Sometimes called self-correction. See also REPAIRS. |
| GRICE'S MAXIMS | Grice proposed four basic conversational 'rules' [maxims] as criteria for successful conversation: quantity [don't say too much or too little]; relevance [keep to the point]; manner [speak in a clear, coherent and orderly way]; quality [be truthful] |
| HEDGE | Words and phrases which soften or weaken the force with which something is said - e.g. 'perhaps', 'maybe', 'sort of'. 'possibly', 'I think'. |
| IDIOLECT | An individually distinct style of speaking |
| COMMON NOUN | The name of any person, place or thing. Common nouns do not have capital letters. |
| PROPER NOUN | The name of a particular person, place or thing |
| COLLECTIVE NOUN | The name of a group of people or things all of one kind e.g. goverment |
| ABSTRACT NOUN | The name of something you cannot touch or see e.g. honesty, love, humour |
| PHONEME | The basic unit of sound |
| DIPHTHONG | A vowel sound that is the combination of two separate sounds, where a speaker glides from one to another. |
| VOICING | The act of the vocal cords either vibrating (voiced) or not vibrating (unvoiced) in the product of a constant sound. |
| PLACE OF ARTICULATION | The position in the mouth where a consonant sound is produced |
| MANNER OF ARTICULATION | The extent to which airflow is interrupted by the parts of the mouth in the production of consonant sounds. |
| SYLLABLE | A sound unit with a vowel at its centre. |
| ACCOMODATION | The ways that individuals adjust their speech patterns to match others. |
| SOUND ICONICITY | The use of the sound system to mirror form or meaning. |
| INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (IPA) | An internationally recognised system of phonetic transcription. |
| DENOTATIVE AND CONNOTATIVE MEANINGS | The literal (denotative) and associated (connotative) meanings of words |
| FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE | Language used in a non-literal way in order to describe something in another's terms i.e. simile, metaphor |
| SEMANTIC FIELDS | Groups of words connected by a shared field of reference e.g. medicine, art |
| SYNONYMS | Words that have equivalent meanings |
| ANTONYMS | Words that have contrasting meanings. |
| HYPERNYMS | Words that label categories e.g. animal (this category includes for example dog, cat and rabbit) |
| HYPONYMS | Words that can be included in a larger, more general category (e.g. the hyponyms car, bus, aeroplane as a form of the hypernym transport) |
| LEVELS OF FORMALITY | Vocabulary styles including slang, colloquialisms, taboo, formal and fixed levels |
| OCCUPATIONAL REGISTER | A technical vocabulary associated with a particular occupation or activity |
| SOCIOLECT | A language style associated with a particular social group |
| NEOLOGY | The process of a new word formation, including the following blends, compounds, acronyms, initialisms, eponyms |
| SEMANTIC CHANGE | The process of words changing meaning, including the following: narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejoration, semantic reclamation. |
| MORPHEME | The smallest grammatical unit |
| FREE MORPHEME | A morpheme that can stand on its own as a word |
| AFFIX (OR BOUND MORPHEME) | A morpheme that cannot stand on its own as a word, but combines with others to create a new word |
| PHRASE | A group of words centred around a head word |
| HEAD WORD | The central word in a phrase which gives the phrase its name (e.g. noun phrase, adjective phrase) and may be modified by other words. |
| MODIFICATION | The adding of additional words to provide more detail to a head word in a phrase either before it (pre-modification) or after it (post-modification) |
| CLAUSE | A group of words centred around a verb, which may be either grammatically complete (main clause) or incomplete (subordinate clause) |
| ACTIVE VOICE | A clause where the agent (doer) of an action is the subject. |
| PASSIVE VOICE | A clause where the patient (the entity effected by an action) is in the subject position, and the agent either follows or is left out. |
| TENSE | How the time of an event is marked 9usally through verb inflection): past, present & future)* |
| ASPECT | Another element of marking the time of an event, by specifying whether they are progressive (ongoing) or perfective (completed) |
| COORDINATION | The joining of two or more independent clauses via coordination conjunctions. Single words and longer phrases can also be co-ordinated. |
| SUBORDINATION | The joining of two or more clauses where only one is independent (the main clause) and the others dependent (subordinate clause/clauses) |
| SENTENCE | A larger unit of meaning, which may be formed of a single clause (simple sentence) or several clauses (compound or complex sentences). Minor sentences are sentences without a verb. |
| SENTENCE FUNCTION | The purpose of a sentence fulfils in communication: as a statement, question, command or exclamation. These are also referred in many grammar books as (respectively): declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives and exclamatives. |
| WORD CLASS | The grammatical category into which words can be placed, including noun, adjective, verb, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction. |
| IMPLICATURE | An implied meaning that has to be referred as a result of a conversational maxim being broken |
| INFERENCE | The process of deriving implied meanings. |
| IRONY | Using language to signal an attitude other than what has been literally expressed. |
| SPEECH ACTS | Communicative acts that carry meaning beyond the words and phrases used within them, for example, apologies and promises. |
| POLITENESS | The awareness of others' needs to be approved of and liked (positive politeness) and/or given freedom to express their own identity and choices (negative politeness). |
| FACE | The concept of how all communication relies on presenting a 'face' to listeners and audiences, and how the management of positive and negative face needs to contribute to the interaction. |
| COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES | In conversation: how interaction is thought to be based upon various kinds of cooperative behaviour between speakers. |
| ADJUNCTS | Non-essential elements of clauses (usually adverbials) that can be omitted (e.g. 'I'll see you in the morning') |
| DISJUNCTS | Sentence adverbs that work to express an attitude or stance towards material that follows (e.g. 'FRANKLY, I'm appalled at what she said' or 'SADLY, not one of them survived'). |
| NARRATIVE STRUCTURES | How events, actions and processes are sequenced when recounting a story. |
| ANAPHORIC REFERENCE | Making reference back to something previously identified in a text (often using pronouns to refer to an already established reference point e.g. 'The woman stood by the door. SHE made detailed notes of what SHE could see'). |
| CATOPHORIC REFERENCE | Making reference forwards to something as yet unidentified in a text e.g. 'It was warm. It was living, It was a rabbit' |
| EXOPHORIC REFERENCE | Making reference to things beyond the language of a text itself (as opposed to endophoric, which is within the language of the text), perhaps within a speaker's immediate physical context e.g. 'Look at that' |
| INTERDISCURSIVITY (OR INTERTEXTUALITY) | The use of discourses from one field as part of another (e.g. the use of science discourses in the selling of beauty products, or the use of commercial discourses in education). |
| CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS | The use of linguistic analysis to explore and challenge the ideologies, positions and values of texts and their producers. |
| LAYOUT | The way in which a text is physically structured |
| TYPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES | The features of fonts used in texts such as font type, size and colour |
| ORTHOGRAPHICAL FEATURES | The features of the writing system such as spelling, capitalisation and punctuation. |
| MULTIMODAL TEXTS | Texts that rely on the interplay of different modes (e.g. images, writing and sound) to help shape meaning) see definition of MODE |
| AUDIENCE | The receivers or intended receivers of a text (written, spoken, multimodal). The concept of an ideal audience/reader/narratee is often found in critical discourse. Texts might also have multiple audiences. |
| DISCOURSES | Used in many different ways in language study. Can be used to refer to a mode of language (e.g. spoken or written discourse), a register (e.g. medical or legal discourse), a way of thinking about and presenting something (e.g. representing language using a discourse of decay). |
| FOREGROUNDING | The ways in which the texts emphasise key events or ideas through the use of attention-seeking (in terms of lexis, semantics, phonology or grammar) that either repeat content (parallelism) or break established patterns (deviation) |
| DEVIATION | External: breaking from the normal conversation of language use, for example in the use of nonsense words or ungrammatical constructions. Internal: Breaking from a pattern that has previously been set up in the text for a striking effect. |
| GENRE | The way of categorising and classifying different types of texts according to their features or expected shared conventions or functions. Genres come into being as the result of people agreeing about perceived similar characteristics in terms of content and style. Genres are fluid and dynamic and new genres continually evolve as a result of new technologies and cultural practices. |
| LITERARINESS | The degree to which a text displays qualities that mean the people see it as literary and as literature. However, since so many so called 'non-literary' texts display aspects of creative language use that is often seen as a marker of being literary, it is best to think of literariness as a continuum rather than viewing texts as absolutely 'literary' or 'non-literary' |
| MODE | The way in which language is communicated between text producer and text receiver e.g. as an image, in writing, in speech or as a logo. The term mode (from semiotics and linguistics) is related to the term medium (from media studies) which is how messages are mediated (e.g. paper or digital texts) and also to the term channel (from communication studies) which is the physical means of transmission (e.g. auditory, visual or olfactory). Mode also encompasses ideas around planning and spontaneity, distance between text producer and receiver, how transitory or long-lasting a text is. Mode is more than a binary opposition, is sometimes visualised as a continuum and is constantly changing as new communication technologies blur the lines between older forms. |
| NARRATIVE | A type of text or discourse that functions to tell a series of events. A narrative is the organisation of experiences told by a narrator to any number of narrates. |
| NARRATIVE DISCOURSE | The particular shaping of those building blocks into something worth telling through specific choices in language and structure. |
| POETIC VOICE | The way in which a sense of identity is projected through language choices so as to give the impression of a distinct persona with a personal history and a set of beliefs and values. |
| REGISTER | A variety of language that is associated with a particular field of reference e.g. occupational discourse. Register may be either written, spoken or multimodal. |
| STYLE | The level of formality in a text. This can be seen as distinct from its register (e.g. an occupational register can exist on different levels of formality) |
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