Linguistics Vocabulary

Someone who studies linguistics might conduct a study to see how the English language is changing among U.S. urban youth.

A teacher is having her students listen for the different beginning sounds in the words cat, bat, and sat. The teacher is conducting a lesson in...

A professor is teaching her students about how the system of speech sounds creates a basis for language. Her students are learning about what aspect of language?

A second grade class is learning how to make compound words. They are studying morphology.

In an ESL class a teacher asks his students to correct the sentence, "A flower I saw." The class is learning about correct...

A literature class was discussing the meaning of a particular phrase in a poem. This class was studying...

A comedian was telling a joke which made use of the humor in the difference in meaning when the same statement was used in two different social situations. This is an example of...

A researcher was studying how the same words are used in different ways among different social groups within a society. Her project was involved with sociolinguistics.

An ELL student didn't know a specific English word so instead she used other words she did know to get her point across. This is an example of...

The two year old knew over 500 words. She had a small lexicon.

The teacher told his students to write how people actually speak. This is an example of descriptive grammar.

A teacher marked a student's story incorrect, because it contained the sentence, "We is going to the store." The teacher was grading the story according to...

A teacher reminds her students to use the Blue Book for Grammar and Punctuation to self-edit their writing before turning it in. This teacher is requiring her students to write in Standard English.

When I was little I spoke a form of German that was only spoken in the part of Germany called Swabia. I was speaking a(n)...

The teenager spoke very differently when speaking to her friends than when she was speaking to her teachers. This is an example of register.

AAVE is not "improper English," but rather a dialect spoken by many people in the United States.

Students in a class were practicing how to make sounds with their mouth open, their tongue in the middle of their mouth and with no blockage of breath. They were practicing how to make...

Students were practicing making sounds where they either partially or completely stopped the air flow through their mouths. They were practicing making...

I had a stuffed up nose, so it was hard for me to produce words with nasals.

A teacher had his students touch their throat as they said the letters p and b. He was teaching his students about what two types of sounds: