Linguistic Glossaries

Below you will find a guide to some of the many terms used in the study of English Language and Linguistics. It pays to use these terms when describing linguistic features, as they enable us to be precise in our identification of features, and correct use of appropriate terminology can gain you marks in exams!

Terms are grouped by analytical framework ('area' of the subject) on the following topics:

GENERAL TERMS --- LEXIS --- SEMANTICS --- GRAMMAR --- PHONOLOGY --- GRAPHOLOGY --- DISCOURSE --- PRAGMATICS

GENERAL

CONTEXT

- The 'setting' of the language, i.e. the 'real world' factors which contribute to its nature and style. These factors include speaker/writer, audience, purpose, topic, location and method of communication.

IDIOLECT

- The slightly different 'version' of a language that each individual speaker uses. Idiolectal features include accent, words known, favourite expressions and grammatical structures used.

DIALECT

- The 'version' of a language used in a particular geographical region.

SOCIOLECT

- The 'version' of a language used by a particular social group.

LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

- A speaker/writer's language ability, including size of vocabulary, level of grammatical complexity a speaker/writer can use etc.

LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE

- A speaker/writer's real life use of language - never as good as linguistic competence (we all make mistakes!).

METALANGUAGE

- Words used to describe words! The set of technical terms used to define linguistic concepts (so this glossary is one whole list of linguistic metalanguage).

REGISTER

- The 'difficulty' or 'complexity' of language. Register is 'made up of' three further features:

1. TENOR

- the stylistic complexity of language, including level of formality and 'difficulty' of the words themselves.

2. MODE

- method of communication. At its mot simple, mode boils down to 'speech' or 'writing', but it is often useful to consider further particulars: is the speech face-to-face or on the telephone? Is the writing a typed letter or a text message?

3. FIELD

- the topic or subject matter of the language.

INTERTEXTUALITY

- One text's making reference to another, usually through the use of a phrase taken from, or similar to, one in that other text.

LEXIS

LEXEME

- a word

AFFIX

- a morpheme which is added to a word to add to or alter the meaning. Affixes come in three types:

PREFIX

- added to the beginning of a word e.g. pre-, anti-, un-, inter-

SUFFIX

- added to the end of the word e.g. -ness, -ly, -esque,

INFIX

- rare: added in the middle of a word e.g. absobloodylutely

NEOLOGISM

- a new word acquired through some word-formation process:

COINING

- simple making up of words 'out of thin air' e.g. Kleenex

BORROWING

- the taking of a word from another language and using it as a native word e.g. champagne, anorak, guerilla, lucrative (and thousands of others. Any good dictionary will tell you the ETYMOLOGY - origin - of words)

CALQUE

- 'loan-translation' - the taking of a word in another language and translating its parts or ideas into English, then borrowing it e.g. superman (from the German 'Ubermensch')

COMPOUNDING

- taking two words and putting them together to make a new one e.g. handbook

CLIPPING

- shortening a word e.g. bra (from 'brassiere'), bus (from 'omnibus')

BLENDING

- taking two or more words and using part of each to form a new word e.g. telethon (from 'television marathon')

ACRONYM

- taking the first letter of each of a string of words and using these 'initials' as a new word e.g. LASER (from Light Amplification by Stimulated Emision of Radiation)

BACK-FORMATION

- the formation of a word because it seems that it should exist, considering the behaviour of other words, e.g. because someone can be an editor, it was assumed that his/her job is to edit, so 'edit' has been back-formed (due to the assumption that the -or suffix denotes the person who performs the action contained in the main part of the word)

CONVERSION

- using a word as a different word class e.g. butter was originally a noun, but is now used as a verb denoting 'to spread butter on'

JARGON

- the formal language used by a particular group (usually professional or technical) and not generally understood by people who are not group members e.g. acute nasopharyngitis is the medical jargon for 'a cold'

COLLOQUIALISM

- an informal expression e.g. loo for 'toilet'

SLANG

- an extremely informal expression (so informal it is not used or understood by all social or age groups) e.g. bog for 'toilet'

EUPHEMISM

a word or phrase used in place of (and to avoid mention of) a taboo word e.g. passed away for 'died'

DYSPHEMISM

- a word or phrase used in place of a taboo word, to make light of it rather than to avoid the issue e.g. kicked the bucket for 'died'

TABOO

- a word which is considered 'rude' or 'inappropriate' or 'vulgar'. Swearwords are taboo, as are non-medical words for intimate body parts (and none are used here as their use on a school website would be considered highly inappropriate! Accepatability of usage depends heavily on context)

LEXICAL DENSITY

- a measure of the complexity of a text. Usually stated as a percentage: count the number of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs (content lexemes) as a percentage of the number of words in the text. Some people count pronouns and auxiliary verbs as content lexemes; others do not.

SEMANTICS

REFERENCE

- The object, action or idea a word refers to.

SENSE

- The meaning(s) which can be taken from a word.

DENOTATION

- the literal, 'dictionary definition' meaning of a word.

CONNOTATION

- the 'associated meanings' of a word - ideas connected to a word which are commonly generated when it is used.

SEMANTIC PROPERTIES

- The inherent meanings carried by a word, e.g. 'man' has the semantic properties [+human], [+male], and [+adult].

SEMANTIC ROLES

- the roles which noun phrases can take in a piece of language:

Agent

- someone who performs an action

Theme

- someone/something who/which is acted upon

Instrument

- The means by which an action is performed

Source

- the place from which something moves

Goal

- the place to which something moves

Location

- the place an action occurs

Experiencer

- someone who feels or experiences something

Causative

- a person or force that causes an action or a change

Possessor

- a person or thing who/which owns something

Time

- the time an event occurs

AMBIGUITY

- A word's having a double (or multiple) meaning. Often used for humorous or ironic effect.

SYNONYM

- a word which is said to be identical to another in meaning (although it can be argued that, due to subtleties of nuance, no two words are exactly synonymous).

ANTONYM

- A word which is opposite in reference or sense to another. Not all words have antonyms.

HYPONYM

- A word which is identical in spelling and pronunciation to another, but which differs in meaning.

METONYMY

- a non-literal sense-relation where one word is used to represent another, e.g. I bought some chocolates and I ate the whole box is intended to mean that all the chocolates were eaten, not the box itself.

POLYSEMY

- a non-literal sense-relation in which a word is used due to its having some semantic properties which help expression of meaning, e.g. the foot of a mountain uses the word 'foot' metaphorically, 'borrowing' the sense of 'at the bottom of the whole thing' which is conventionally conveyed by the word 'foot'.

IMPLICATION

- a non-literal meaning conveyed, below the 'surface-level' meaning of the words, by a speaker.

INFERENCE

- a non-literal meaning extracted from an utterance by a listener (NB - if communication is successful, wht a speaker implies and what a listener infers will be the same).

COLLOCATION

- the habitual appearance of a word in company of others; the expectation that where one word is found, another will also be there, e.g. commit a _______ - the word commonly found in that gap is 'crime', so it is said to collocate with 'commit'.

DEIXIS

- context-dependency: the use of words whose full reference or sense can be recovered only with knowledge of the conversational, social or physical context, e.g. 'he' will always refer to one animate and sentient entity which is male, but only with knowledge of what has passed before in a conversation, or who is present, can a listener determine precicely whom or what it refers to.

IDIOM

- a phrase the literal meaning of which does not help to recover its conventional, metaphorical meaning, and which is unalterable in form, e.g. raining cats and dogs - this could never be changed to raining mice and rabbits and retain its meaning.

IRONY

- Strictly speaking 'verbal irony', this involves attempting to communicate a meaning by making an utterance which literally states the opposite of the intended meaning.

SEMANIC ANOMALY

- A phrase or sentence which is grammatically correct, but which does not mean anything (or at least not anything possible in the real world).

GRAMMAR

MORPHEME

- the smallest grammatical unit - often refers to parts of words such as prefixes and suffixes, although any word which cannot be broken down into constituent parts is said to contain only one free (independent) morpheme, e.g. unthinkable consists of three morphemes: the prefix 'un', the free morpheme 'think' and the suffix 'able'.

LEXEME

the next largest grammatical unit - may consist of only one morpheme, or several.

WORD CLASS

- the grammatical 'category' words fit into (see Word Classes Page).

PHRASE

- the next largest grammatical unit - may consist of only one lexeme, or several. There are a number of types of phrase:

1. Noun Phrase (NP) - consists of a head noun and any modifiers it may have. A noun can be modified by any number of adjectives, although the number of determiners is limited. Often the structure of a noun phrase is [Det/pn + Aj + N], although they can be significantly more complex.
2. Verb Phrase (VP) - consists of a Main Verb and any Auxiliary Verbs it may use. The order of elements is usually [MAuxV + AuxV + MV]. A Verb Phrase can contain only one Modal Auxiliary verb, and up to three Primary Auxiliaries.
3. Prepositional Phrase (PP) - consists of a head preposition followed by a noun phrase [P + NP]. There may be a great deal of embedding (one phrase within another) if the noun phrase contains a further prepositional phrase etc.
4. Adjective Phrase (AjP) - consists of a head adjective and any modifying adverbs it may have. Adverbs always premodify the adjective, so the structure is [(Av) + Aj]. There is no limit to the number of adverb that an adjective may have.
5. Adverb Phrase (AvP) - consists of a head adverb and any modifying adverbs it may have. There are a limted number of adverbs which can modify other adverbs, so adverb phrases are usually limited to just the head adverb or, the head and one modifier (although more are possible, they tend to sound awkward).

HEAD

- the obligatory element of a phrase, which the optional elements serve to modify.

MODIFIER

- optional elements in a phrase which qualify, limit or add detail to the meaning of the head lexeme. There are two types of modification:

1. Premodification - structure in which a modifier precedes the head.
2. Postmodification - structure in which the modifier follows the head.

CLAUSE

- the next largest grammatical unit. A clause must contain one complete verb phrase.

MAJOR SENTENCE

- the largest grammatical unit. A major sentence must contain at least one clause. Major sentences can be analysed in terms of their internal structure, and split up into their constituent clauses and clause elements.

CLAUSE ELEMENT

- parts of clauses, categorised according to their function within the clause (see Clause Elements Page)

MINOR SENTENCE

- A sentence which has no internal structure - it does not, when analysed, break down into smaller units, e.g. "Happy Birthday", "Nice day", "Hello".

DECLARATIVE

- A sentence form which is usually used to make a statement, and uses SVO word order.

INTERROGATIVE

- A sentence which is usually used to ask a question, and has VSO word order.

IMPERATIVE

- A sentence which is usually used to give an order, and uses VO order (NB - interrogatives do not have subjects: any proper noun or pronoun indicating whom the order is aimed at is called a VOCATIVE).

EXCLAMATION

- A sentence which is used to make a comment (not a statement), which begins with a 'wh-' word and then uses OSV word order.

PERSON

- A grammatical concept applied to pronouns and verbs. 'First person' refers to 'I', 'me', 'we', 'us' etc; 'Second person' refers to 'you'; 'Third person' refers to 'he', 'she', 'it', 'they' etc.

NUMBER

- A grammatical concept applied to pronouns and verbs, giving information on how many people are being referred to. SINGULAR pronouns and verbs refer to only one person; PLURAL refer to more than one.

GENDER

- A grammatical concept applied to pronouns, giving information of the gender of participants (only third person singular pronouns reflect gender).

CASE

- A grammatical concept applied to pronouns, giving information on whether a pronoun is used as the subject of a sentence, the object of a sentence, or to show possession.

COMPARATIVE

- An adjective ending in '-er', or premodified by 'more'.

SUPERLATIVE

- An adjective ending in '-est', or premodified by 'most'.

PARENTHESIS

- Brackets, dashes or commas used to enclose optional parts of a sentence or additional information.

More information on grammar can be found at English Online

PHONOLOGY

PHONE

- The smallest unit of sound; a single sound.

DIPHTHONG

- A vowel sound consisting of one vowel phone after another.

TRIPHTHONG

- A vowel sound consisting of three vowel phones pronounced consecutively.

ONOMATOPOEIA

- Words th sound of which suggests their meaning, e.g. 'roar'.

SIBILANCE

- Repeated use of [s] sounds.

SYLLABLE

- A unit of sound consisting of at least a vowel sound, and its preceding and following consonants or consonant clusters.

HOMOPHONE

- A word which sounds identical to another, but is spelled differently.

CO-ARTICULATION EFFECTS

- effects on the way we pronounce words caused by ease of articulation - the desire to make as little effort as possible:

Assimilation

- one sound's being altered to take on the properties of a following sound.

Elision

- a sound being missed out.

Juncture

- a glottal stop being inserted between two consecutive vowel sounds (at the end of one word and the beginning of the next) to keep the words from running together.

Liaison

- a linking sound being inserted between two consecutive vowel sounds (at the end of one word and the beginning of the next) to allow the speaker to move fluently between one word and the next.

PHONAESTHETICS

- The inherent pleasantness or unpleasantness of sounds.

PHONOTACTICS

- the permissible sound combinations of a language.

PROSODY (PROSODIC FEATURES)

- The use of pitch, tone of voice and volume to help signal meaning in speech.

RHYME

- A (largely poetic) feature in which every sound following the last stressed vowel sound in one word is identical with the same section of another word.

GRAPHOLOGY

GRAPH

- the smallest unit of writing - a single symbol / letter.

WRITING SYSTEMS

- Method for recording meaning and/or language in a static, visual form. There are a number of different writing systems which have been used by different cultures through the ages, and some are still in use in various different ways today.

PICTOGRAPHIC

- A writing system which involves drawing a depiction of objects, actions and concepts.

IDEOGRAPHIC

- A writing system which involves drawing a symbolic representation of objects, actions and concepts.

HIEROGLYPHIC

- An ancient Egyptian writing system which involved a mixture of pictographic, logographic and alphabetic/syllabic symbols.

CUNEIFORM

- An ancient Middle Eastern script which was formed by making imprints with a wedge-shaped stylus into clay. It began as a pictographic system, and eventually became logographic.

LOGOGRAPHIC

- A writing system which involves the use of symbols to represent whole words and morphemes.

ALPHABETIC

- A writing system in which graphemes represent sounds, and rules exist for using and combining graphemes to represent all the sounds in a language.

SYLLABIC

- A writing system in which single graphemes represent (usually consonant-vowel) syllables.

ORTHOGRAPHY

- Spelling.

LINEATION

- The use and placement of line breaks in text.

DISCOURSE

PARALINGUISTIC FEATURES

- Features of communicative interaction which cannot be analysed as 'language', such as prosodic features or non-verbal communication (NVC).

PHATIC COMMUNION

- Utterances or conversational exchanges which have no inherent or linguistic meaning, but which are used as social tools, e.g. "Hello" and "How are you?"

ANAPHORA

- The use of a pronoun to meake reference to a noun (phrase) already used earlier in the sentence or conversation.

CATAPHORA

- The use of a pronoun to make reference to a noun (phrase) which will be used later in the sentence or conversation.

COHESION

- The 'connectedness' or unity of a piece / conversation. Cohesive features usually help to show a text is one piece of language or that an utterance is adding to the whole conversation.

ELLIPSIS

- Omission of words, whose meaning is inferred as a result of the preceding utterance. Ellipsis often leads to the use of minor sentences: In the exchange "Where's Dad?" "In the garden.", the second utterance is considered a minor sentence.

CONVERSATIONAL MOVE

- A speaking turn which serves a particular purpose in an exchange, e.g. opening the conversation, soliciting information, closing the conversation.

FILLER

- A sound (or a word - known as a lexical filler) used to gain 'thinking time' in an utterance, e.g. 'er', 'ahhh', 'um' etc.

HEDGE

- A word, phrase or minor sentence used to express uncertainty or desire to be less aggressive in conversation, e.g. 'like', 'sort of', 'you know'.

INTERRUPTION

- A speaker's beginning an utterance before another speaker has finished.

OVERLAPPING

- More than one person speaking at once (often a result of interruption).

TURN-TAKING

- The accepted structure of a conversational exchange, in which participants take it in turns to speak.

ADJACENCY PAIR

- A pair of consecutive utterances, by two different speakers, where the second utterance complements the first, for example a question-answer exchange, or an exchange such as "How are you?" "Fine thanks" or "Your new shoes are lovely!" "Thankyou."

POLITENESS

- The phenomenon which leads us to use a variety of speech strategies and features to avoid offending, intimidating or imposing on others in conversation.

TAG-QUESTION

- A question-structure 'tagged on' at the end of a sentence, often to lessen its absolute decalarative nature, or to signal the passing of the speaking turn from one person to another, e.g. "The soup was delicious, wasn't it?" In English, tag questions must use a negated form of the verb used earlier in the sentence (so 'wasn't' is used to refer back to 'was' in the above example, and 'have' is used here: "You have not seen it, have you?"). Other languages, however, use more idiomatic forms - French uses n'est-ce pas (literally 'is it not?') and German uses nicht wahr (literally 'not true?'), both of which remain unaltered, whatever has been said before. The only comparable form in English is the non-Standard English form 'innit', which does not have to refer back to the verb 'is', but can be used as a 'universal' tag question.

REPAIR

- The correction of a previous mistake. Speakers correcting themselves engage in self-repair, and speakers correcting other conversational participants engage in other-repair

PRAGMATICS

APPROPRIACY

- The acceptability, politeness or 'rightness' of an utterance, lexeme or form of expression for a certain situation.

INDETERMINACY

- An utterance's being 'under-defined' and therefore open to interpretation.

INDIRECTNESS

- A way of speaking which may involve using implication or prosody in order to signal meaning throughnon-literal means.

PRAGMATIC MISFIRE

- A failure of communication due to a speaker's miscalculation of some aspect(s) of the context.

CO-OPERATIVE PRINCPLE

- The principle (formulated by H Paul Grice, 1975), which states that participants co-operate in conversation in order to communicate successfully. Grice theorised that participants adhere to four Maxims (which can be summarised as):

Quality - say neither too much nor too little.

Quantity - don't say things which are untrue or unproven

Relation - be relevant

Manner - speak in a way which is appropriate to the context

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

- The inferred meanings which can be recovered from conversations even if one (or more) of the maxims are broken.

EXPLICATURE

- The literal or conventional meaning of the words used.

DEIXIS - see SEMANTICS

IMPLICATED PREMISE

- The idea or belief on which an utterance rests.

IMPLICATED CONCLUSION

- The conclusion derived from interpreting an utterance based on an implicated premise.

PROCESSING OPPORTUNITY

- The time and attention available to consider possible meanings of an utterance.

GARDEN PATH UTTERANCES

- Utterances which deliberately mislead a listener by ending in a way which was not suggested by the beginning.