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English Terminology
English Literature and Language terminology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Context of reception | The situations in which a text is read and the factors that may influence the reader's interpretation. |
| Context of production | The situation in which a text is produced and factors that may influence its writing. |
| Hybrid text | A text with more than one purpose |
| Idiolect | An individual's style of speaking |
| Sociolect | A use of language as a result of membership to a particular social group |
| Dialect | The language variety of a geographical region or social background |
| Colloquialsim | Established set of terms used in everyday language e.g. 'grub' |
| Slang | Colloquial language particular to individuals or groups e.g. 'innit' |
| Amerlioration | To improve the meaning of a word e.g. 'nice' used to mean 'silly' |
| Pejoration | To reduce a word to a lower/less respectable meaning e.g. 'bitch' |
| Narrowing | To restrict the meaning of a word e.g. accident |
| Broadening | To widen the meaning of a word e.g. call |
| Borrowing | The process by which another word is absorbed into another language e.g. 'cuisine' |
| Blending | A word made by putting two words together e.g. brunch |
| Compounding | Joining two words together with exactly the same letters e.g. loudspeaker |
| Diachronic variation | Language changing over time |
| Synchronic variation | The variation in language at any given point e.g. sick now means both 'good' and 'ill' |
| Etymolgy | The origins of a word |
| Personification | Giving human characteristics to an inanimate object |
| Hyperbole | An exaggeration |
| Anthropomorphism | Giving animal characteristics to a human |
| Meiosis | The process of reducing something to appear lesser than it is |
| Bathos | Taking something very extreme and making it seem like an everyday thing |
| Lexis | Vocabulary/words |
| Semantics | Meaning and how the meaning of a word changes |
| Noun | Names of objects, feelings, attitudes, people and places e.g. 'Cottage', 'England' or 'Love' |
| Verb | Shows actions, events or states of being, feeling or thinking e.g. 'run' or 'seems' |
| Adjective | Adds detail to noun 'bleak' |
| Adverb | Adds detail to verbs e.g. 'extraordinarily' |
| Determiners | Positioned in front of nouns to detail or to clarify e.g. 'the' or 'a' |
| Conjunction | Links words, phrases and clauses together 'and' 'but' 'or' 'however' |
| Preposition | Shows relation in terms of time or place e.g. 'in' 'at' 'by' 'on' |
| Pronoun | Replaces nouns e.g. 'I' 'Me' 'You' 'His' 'Her' |
| Personal pronoun | 'I', 'you', 'she', 'they' |
| Possessive pronoun | 'My', 'his' 'our' 'their' |
| Reflexive pronoun | 'Myself', 'himself' |
| Demonstrative pronoun | 'Those', 'this', 'these', 'that' |
| Relative pronoun | 'Who' 'Whom' 'Which' |
| Proper noun | Refers to names of people or places |
| Abstract noun | Refers to states, feelings and concepts that do not physically exist |
| Concrete noun | Refers to objects that do have a physical existence e.g. 'table' |
| Material verb | Describes actions or events e.g. 'hit' 'run' 'eat' |
| Relational verb | Describes states of being or used to identify e.g. 'be' 'appear' 'seem' |
| Mental verb | Describes perception, thought or speech e.g. 'think', 'speak', 'believe' |
| Dynamic verb | Processes where there is a change in state over time e.g. 'paint', 'remove' |
| Stative verb | Processes where the state remains constant e.g. 'Love', 'Hold' |
| Superlative | Adjectives using 'est' e.g. 'greatest' |
| Ellipsis | The missing out of a word or words in a sentence |
| Denotation | The strict meaning of a word |
| Connotation | An associated or symbolic meaning |
| Euphemism | A socially acceptable word or phrase to avoid talking about something distasteful |
| Dysphemism | A harsh, 'to the point' and perhaps taboo term used for dark humorous effect |
| Antonym | Words with opposite semantic value |
| Subordinate | A word considered 'lower' in the word hierachy, a more specific lexical item |
| Superordinate | A word considered 'higher' in the word hierarchy, a more general lexical term |
| Coinage | A new/made up word |
| Monosyllabic | Only one syllable in a word |
| Polysyllabic | More than one syllable in a word |
| Statutory language | Legal language |
| Phatic talk | Small talk |
| Antithesis | Words or phrases that directly contrast with eachother |
| Metaphor | Use of a term to describe something that it does not denote |
| Simile | A comparison of one thing to another using 'like' or 'as' |
| Noun phrase | A group of words centered around a head noun e.g. "The Times", "(determiner) The (adjective) noisy (noun) party" |
| Verb phrase | Group of words centered around a main verb e.g. "Prime Minister (main verb) takes big lead" |
| Modal auxiliary verb | A verb which never appears on its own and is used to express possibility, probability or certainty e.g. 'Must', 'Will', 'Would', 'Shall', 'Must' |
| Primary auxiliary verb | Used to denote tense changes e.g. 'do', 'be', 'have' |
| Adjectival phrase | A phrase with an adjective as its head e.g. "He is (adjective) very intelligent" |
| Adverbial phrase | A phrase with an adverb as its head e.g. "He fought (adverb) bravely" |
| Monotransitive verb | A verb that only requires one object e.g. "put" |
| Simple sentence | A sentence consisting of a single main clause e.g. "He (clause) kicked the ball" |
| Compound sentence | A sentence consisting of one main clause with one or more subordinate clauses often connected with a co-ordinating conjunction or just punctuation e.g. "Although he was tired. he kicked the ball" |
| Complex sentence | A sentence consisting of one main clause with one of more subordinate clauses, often connected with a subordinate conjunction e.g. "Although he was tired, he kicked the ball" |
| Main clause | Can stand independently and on its own |
| Subordinated clause | A clause dependent on another to complete the full meaning of a sentence |
| Subordinated conjunction | 'Because' 'while' 'although' |
| Declarative sentence | Telling |
| Interrogative sentence | Asking |
| Imperative sentence | Demanding |
| Onomateopoeia | Words that sound like the noises they make |
| Alliteration | A sequence of words beginning with the same sound |
| Assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds for effect |
| Consonance | Repetition of consonant sounds for effect |
| Sibilance | Repetition of the 's' sound |
| Grice's Maxims: Quantity | Only as informative as necessary |
| Grice's Maxims: Quality | Not knowingly misleading |
| Grice's Maxims: Relevance | Keeping to the relevant topic |
| Grice's Maxims: Manner | Avoiding ambiguity and vagueness |
| Spatial dexis | 'Here' 'There' 'Left' 'Right' |
| Temporal dexis | 'Now' 'then' 'today' |
| Typography | Font size, type, color, italicizing etc. |
| Iconic sign | A direct picture of the thing it represents e.g. 'Salty Dog' |
| Parenthesis | Adding in additional information through the use of brackets |
| Discourse structure | The method that explains how texts are put together e.g. recipe, list, analysis or narrative |
| Transactional speech | There is a purpose to the conversation e.g. giving an order at a restaurant |
| Interactional speech | Just people talking/small talk |
| Adjacency pair | Two utterances by different speakers which have a natural and logical link e.g. "How are you?" "Fine thank you" |
| Turn taking | The sharing of speaking roles co-operatively |
| Powerful participants | Those who hold some degree of status in a conversation and can to some extent control its direction |
| Juxtaposition | Placing to or more things together to make a contrast |
| Rapport | A friendly relationship between people |
| Anecdote | A short, personal reference to a story/memory |
| First person | Discourse that uses 'I' 'We' |
| Second person | Discourse that uses 'you' 'he' 'her' |
| Third person | Discourse that uses 'She' or 'they' ect |
| Back channeling | A feature of speaker support/non verbal utterances e.g. 'mmmm', 'yeah', 'ok' |
| Discourse marker | Signal shift in a conversation and topic areas e.g. 'right then' 'so', 'but' |
| Fillers | Non verbal sounds which act as pauses in speech 'Er', 'Um' |
| Hedging | A strategy used to avoid directness or to minimize a potentially face threatening act e.g. 'kind of' |
| False starts/repairs | When a speaker begins to speak, pauses then recommences |
| Skip connectors | A return to a previous topic of converasation |
| Fixed expression | 'As a matter of fact' |
| Vague expression | 'Anything' 'Something' |
| Tag question | Consist of an auxiliary verb, a negative particle and a pronoun e.g. "you did really well, didn't you?" |
| Non fluency features | Non verbal occurances e.g. pauses, hesitations |
| Caesurae | Mid line pauses used to break up the flow of a poem |
| Metre | The pattern of rhythm, can be even or uneven to create different effects |
| Half rhyme | An imperfect rhyme |
| Enjambment | The continuation of one like of poetry into the next without a pause or a break |
| Iambic pentameter | Sounds like flowing spoken English in rhythm |
| End stopped stanza | When a stanza ends in a full stop |
| Anaphora | Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of two or more sentences |
| Epiphora | Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of two or more sentences |
| Homophone | A word that sounds the same as another word e.g. 'win/wine' |
Created by:
Emma_Schofield
Popular English Vocabulary sets