All Terminology Flashcards
(254 cards)
1
Q
Abstract nouns
A
refer to ideas and concepts that only exist in the mind
2
Q
Accent
A
the distinct pronunciation patterns of a group of people
3
Q
Accommodation
A
where a speaker adapts to another speaker’s accent, dialect or sociolect
4
Q
Acronomy
A
abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced as a single word. eg OPEC, NASA, RAM
5
Q
Active voice
A
clause construction where the subject is also the actor (they are doing or have done something to somebody/something)
6
Q
Adjacency pair
A
a pair of utterances in a conversation that go together (greeting and reply, question and answer, etc.)
7
Q
Adjective
A
a word that modifies a noun (e.g. ‘the orange sky’
8
Q
Adverb
A
a word that modifies a verb telling you how, where or when an action takes place; can also modify adjectives, telling you how much (e.g. ‘I am really delighted’)
9
Q
Adverbial
A
words. phrases or clauses which act as adverbs and which
identify where, when and how when modifying the verb.
10
Q
Affordance
A
linguistic and behavioural choices provided by technology
11
Q
Agenda setting
A
where a speaker sets up the main topic of conversation
12
Q
Analogical overextension
A
associating objects which are unrelated but which have one or more features in common (e.g. both being the same colour)
13
Q
Anchored relationship
A
an online relationship where two participants know each other in the offline world
14
Q
Article
A
a determiner such as ‘a’ or ‘the’
15
Q
Asymmetrical power
A
an imbalance of power between people
16
Q
Asynchronous:
A
unlike synchronous, there is a delay between utterance and response. Responses posted on a forum, which may occur
months or even years after the original post, are an example of discourse that is asynchronous
17
Q
Audience
A
the person or people reading or hearing the text
18
Q
Auxiliary verb
A
assists the main verb; primary auxiliary verbs do, have and be denote changes of tense
19
Q
Avatar
A
an image used by a user that accompanies a username
20
Q
Backchannelling
A
supportive terms such as ‘oh’ and ‘really’
21
Q
Bald on-record
A
where a speaker is completely blunt and direct (e.g. ‘Sit down!’)
22
Q
Bias
A
a form of prejudice in favour of or against an idea, person or group, expressed through language/images and so on. It can take obvious or implicit forms, or a mixture of the two, and
can arise from what is omitted as well as from what is stated or shown
23
Q
Bidialectalism
A
a speaker’s ability to use two dialects of the same language
24
Q
Categorical overextension
A
the most commonly occurring form of overextension in a child’s language, and relates to confusing a hypernym (broad category, e.g. fruit) with a hyponym (specific example)
25
Catenative
chain-like structure in a sentence (‘so we… and then… and then we…’)
26
Chaining
a speaker responds and sets up the other speaker’s next utterance in a chain that runs on past an adjacency pair
27
Child-directed speech (CDS)
speech patterns used by parents and carers when communicating with young children
28
Clause
a structural unit that contains at least one subject and one verb - it can include other features as well such as object, complement and adverbial.
29
Closer
spoken expressions which are designed to close
30
Codification
a process of standardizing a language
31
Cohesion
the many parts of a text that help to draw it together into a recognizable whole. (For example, the headline, picture and caption in a news article will all have words/images that link
together in terms of the meaning and subject matter of the article.)
32
Collocation
two or more words that are often found together in a group or phrase with a distinct meaning (e.g. ‘over the top’, ‘fish and chips’, ‘back to front’)
33
Comparative adjective
the form of an adjective that designates comparison between
two things, generally made by adding the suffix -er to its base
form (e.g. ‘this is a faster car’
34
Complement
a clause element that tells you more about the subject or the object
35
Complex sentence
has two or more clauses, one of which is a subordinate clause
36
Compound
a word formed from two other words (e.g. ‘dustbin’)
37
Compound sentence
has two or more clauses, usually joined to the main clause by the
conjunctions ‘and’ or ‘but’ and depends on the main clause to exist
38
Compound-complex sentence
a sentence that has three or more clauses, one of which will be a
subordinate clause and one of which will be a coordinate clause
39
Concrete nouns
refer to things we touch or can experience physically (e.g. snow,
butter)
40
Conditioning
the process by which humans (and animals) are taught or trained
to respond, and learn by positive reinforcement (e.g. praise from an adult) for whatever is deemed to be appropriate learning
within that specific context – for choosing the correct word or for
politeness for example
41
Conjunction
a word that joins clauses together
42
Connotation
the associated meanings we have with certain words, depending on the person reading or hearing the word, and on the context in which the word appears
43
Consonant clusters
groups of consonants (e.g. ‘str’ or ‘gl’) that demand more muscular
control than single consonants or vowels, so tend to appear later
in the baby’s utterances
44
Constraints
linguistic and behavioural restrictions provided by technology
45
Context
where, when and how a text is produced or received
46
Convergence
where a speaker moves towards another speaker’s accent, dialect
or sociolect
47
Cooing
sounds a baby will make like ‘goo’ and ‘ga-ga’, generally around the age of 6–8 weeks. It is believed that during this period the child is discovering their vocal chords.
48
Coordinate clause
a clause beginning with a coordinating conjunction and is
essentially a main clause joined to another main clause
49
Coordinating conjunctions
these signal the start of a coordinate clause
50
Copular verb
a verb that takes a complement (such as ‘seems’, ‘appears’ or a
form of the verb to be – ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘are’, etc.)
51
Corpus
a collection of written texts
52
Covert prestige
describes high social status through use of non-standard forms
53
Declarative
a statement – a type of sentence which gives information and where the subject typically comes in front of the verb (‘Two fish are in a tank.’)
54
Definite article
‘the’
55
Deixis
terms that point towards something and place the words in context
56
Denotation
the literal, generally accepted, dictionary definition of a word
57
Determiner
words determining the number or status of the noun
58
Diachronic change
refers to the study of historical language occurring over a period
59
Dialect
a non-standard variety of a language, including lexis and grammar, particular to a region
60
Digital technology
the technique of storing, transmitting and processing data used
for mobile phones and computers among others
61
Direct object
the part of the clause that is directly acted upon by the subject
62
Discourse
describes the structure of any text (or segment of text) that is longer than a single sentence
63
Discourse marker
marks a change in direction in an extended piece of written or spoken text (e.g. ‘nevertheless’, ‘to sum up’)
64
Discourse structure
the way a text is structured, according to the typical features of
the text’s genre
65
Dismissal formula
a device used to close a conversation
66
Dispreferred response
a response that is unexpected, although not necessarily rude
if phrased appropriately (e.g.: Speaker A: Dinner’s ready at 7. / Speaker B: Not dinner, I’ve only just had breakfast!)
67
Divergence
where a speaker actively distances himself/herself from another speaker by accentuating their own accent or dialect
68
Downward convergence
making your accent or lexis more informal
69
Empirical approach
gaining knowledge by direct and indirect observation or experience
70
Estuary English
a dialect of English that is perceived to have spread outwards from London along the South East of England. It has features of Received Pronunciation and London English
71
Etymology
the history of a word, including the language it came from, if appropriate, and when it began to be regularly used
72
Exophoric reference
a reference to something, often cultural, beyond the text
73
Extra-linguistic variables
factors that affect the way you speak (e.g. age, where you live, etc.)
74
Feral children
children who are raised without human intervention (‘feral’ means existing in a natural/wild state, as opposed to domesticated). There are examples of children having been raised by animals such as dogs.
75
Field
words used in a text which relate to the text’s subject matter (e.g. the field of medicine; the field of golf, etc.)
76
Flaming
making an offensive and insulting post in a chatroom
77
Flouts a maxim
where someone obviously does not obey the conversational maxims that have been suggested by Grice.
78
Formality
describes the degree to which texts stick to certain conventions
and to how impersonal they are. The more spoken features a text has the more informal it will tend to be.
79
Framing
controlling the agenda of a conversation (its direction and subject); or making utterances that encourage a child to fill in the blanks
80
French/Latinate lexis
words derived from French or Latin, or both that are more rarely used; often seen as having a higher status and/or being more specialist
81
Genre
the kind of text you have in front of you (advert, speech, song)
82
Gestural
a way of communicating that relates to movement and/or body language, either instead of words or (as would be likely in a multimodal media text) in addition to them
83
Glottal stops
the building blocks of sentences (words, phrases, clauses, etc.) and how they go together to mean something to the reader or listener
84
Grammarian
a scholar of grammar
85
Grapheme–phoneme relationship
the correspondence between the written shape of a letter and its sound
86
Head noun
the main noun at the centre of a noun phrase
87
High-frequency lexis
words that appear often in everyday speech
88
Holophrase
a single word representing a more complex thought generally created by a child. For example, the word ‘juice’ may be used to signify ‘I want some juice’ – in this context, ‘juice’ would be a holophrase. ‘Up’ is another commonly used holophrase, usually signifying ‘please lift me up’ or ‘I want to get up’
89
Hospitality token
a polite utterance relating to context designed to put speakers at their ease
90
Hyperlink
an electronic link embedded in a text that takes the reader to another website
91
Hypernyms
categories (e.g. pets, vehicles and sweets) are all hypernyms
92
Hyponyms
examples within categories (e.g. pony, truck and sherbet lemons) are all hyponyms
93
Idiom
a form of common non-literal expression (e.g. ‘I was dead on my feet")
94
Idiolect
your own individual way of speaking
95
Illocutionary act
implying something in what we say
96
Imperative
a command – a type of sentence where the subject is usually left out and the verb is in its bare form (‘Give the hat to me.’)
97
Indefinite article
‘a’ or ‘an’
98
Indirect object
receives the action
99
Inflection
an ending such as -ed, -s or -ing added to change a tense or number, or in the case of nouns to make a plural
100
Infographic
(also micro infographic) a graphical format which can also be animated to display information (e.g. in mini blogs)
101
Initialism
abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced separately. eg FBI, CIA, DVD
102
Interrogative
a question – a type of sentence indicated by the swapping round of subject and verb (‘Are you happy?’ rather than ‘You are happy.’), by the use of question words (who, what, where, when, how), or simply by the use of a question mark (‘You’re coming by train?’)
103
Intertextuality/intertextual reference
a subtle reference to another text that helps to create a sense of shared context and can operate on a pragmatic level, creating a sense of imagined closeness between writer/producer and reader/recipient
104
Intonation
the pitch (how high or low you are in your vocal range)
105
Irregular verbs
change their form when changing from present to past tense (e.g. ‘swim’/‘swam’)
106
Isogloss
the divisions that linguists draw between regions according to different dialects
107
Juxtaposition
the placement of two contrasting ideas or thing next to each other. This could operate within modes (e.g. words being used together, perhaps in an unexpected combination or for emphasis – ‘Babies in Drug Error’) or it could operate across modes within a multimodal text (e.g. a blogger including a distinctive personal avatar every time they post)
108
Labelling
the process of attaching words to objects; as the child learns more about the world their capacity to connect words with an increasing range of objects grows
109
Labov’s narrative categories
a way of breaking down the typical discourse structure of a spoken story
110
Language academies
bodies established by governments in countries such as France and Italy to prescribe the ‘correct’ form of the language
111
Language acquisition device (LAD)
a term coined by Chomsky to denote the inherent capacity of humans for learning language
112
Language acquisition support system (LASS)
the support provided by parents and other carers to the child’s language development
113
Left-branching sentence
has the subordinate clause or clauses before the main clause
114
Lexical field
identifies the main subject matter of a text (e.g. food in a recipe, money in an article on economics)
115
Lexicon
the vocabulary of a language
116
Lexis
words and their origins
117
Linear
a text in which the discourse is organized into some sort of sequence (e.g. a narrative with a beginning, middle and an end). There may be an implied expectation that the reader will read the text in the order in which it appears
118
Loanword
an English word that has come into use having been ‘borrowed’ from another language
119
Locutionary act
saying something
120
Low-frequency lexis
words that appear more rarely, such as specialist terms from a field, e.g. medicine
121
Main clause
a clause that can stand on its own grammatically
122
Main verb
the verb that carries the main meaning or process in a verb phrase (and therefore in a clause/sentence)
123
Mainstream dialect
the dialect that spans the whole English nation
124
Manner
used to express how formal or informal a text is
125
Manner maxim
a co-operative principle relating to what you say so that you avoid being obscure or ambiguous and be orderly
126
Marked
refers to words that are ascribed less prestige than the standard or unmarked form
127
Metatalk
explicit talk about grammar and language
128
Minor sentence
a sentence that has some missing elements, such as the subject or the verb, making it technically ungrammatical
129
Mixed mode
features of speech and writing in the same text
130
Modal auxiliary verb
a sub-category of auxiliary verb that expresses degrees of possibility, probability, necessity or obligation
131
Mode
texts can be in spoken mode (e.g. spontaneous conversation between friends) or written mode (e.g. an English essay) or mixed mode (e.g. a political speech will be written but delivered as speech)
132
Modification
description in the form of words, phrases or whole clauses that alters our understanding of the thing described
133
Modifier
any word that describes a noun (can be an adjective, adverb or noun)
134
Morphological derivation
the process of creating a new word out of an old word or affix (e.g. the suffix -ly changes adjectives into adverbs – ‘nice’ becomes ‘nicely’)
135
Multimodal
a text that uses more than one mode; often used for texts that have a combination of text and images
136
Negative face
our desire to avoid doing something we don’t want to do, such as giving money to a stranger. This is part of Goffman’s ideas about face
137
Negative politeness
a more indirect, hedged approach, often using negative constructions (e.g. ‘You couldn’t take the bin out for me, could you?’) This is linked to theories of face’.
138
Neologism
a newly formed or coined word
139
Network building
having labelled objects, children start to identify connections between them, recognizing similarities and differences
140
Neutral comment
speaker makes a comment on something neutral in the surroundings like the weather
141
Nonce formation
a ‘nonsense’ new word that is created for a special occasion (e.g. just before lunch ‘feeling hungryish’ might be used)
142
Non-finite subordinate clause
clauses in which the verb is not ‘finished’ and the tense is therefore not shown (e.g. clauses with to- infinitives like ‘to buy some cheese’ or with an -ing form of the verb such as in ‘running down the road’)
143
Non-linear
a text with no expected sequence for reading – the cohesion may be less obvious and this may be reflected in the layout (e.g. more use may be made of features such as text boxes and hyperlinks than if the text was linear)
144
Noun phrase
a group of words with a noun at the centre of it
145
Nouns
words which name people, places, things, ideas and concepts
146
Number homophones
where numbers are used to replace all or part of a word whose sound they resemble, usually within the context of an electronic text (e.g. ‘2’ for ‘to’ or ‘gr8’ for ‘great’)
147
Object
this normally receives the action and comes after the verb
148
Object permanence
the ability of a baby to recognize that an object still exists even when the baby cannot actually see it, thus it requires the capacity to form a mental representation of the object
149
Off-record
in conversation where no threat is made to someone’s face (‘This room’s pretty messy, isn’t it?’)
150
Opener
expressions which open a conversation (‘so, what are you holiday plans this summer?)
151
Orthographical
the methodology for writing a language including features such as spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, etc.
152
Orthography
the spelling convention of a language
153
Other-related comment
speaker comments about another speaker (e.g. ‘You look like you need a drink’)
154
Overextension
widening the meaning of a word so that it extends to apply not just to the actual object but also to other objects with similar properties or functions.
155
Over-generalization
the over application of rules about the formation of words
156
Overt prestige
refers to a dialect used by a culturally powerful group
157
Pace
the speed at which you talk
158
Packaging
in trying to ascertain the boundaries of the label the child sometimes confuses hypernyms and hyponyms, giving rise to over- and under extensions
159
Passive voice
clause construction where the subject is not the actor (they have had or are having something done to them)
160
Periodic sentence
a complex sentence in which the main clause is saved until the
end (e.g. ‘The Minister, who was usually late in the mornings, except on those occasions when she had been working all night, was already at her desk.’)
161
Perlocutionary act
what happens in response to what is said (i.e. what is understood)
162
Phatic talk
speech which is really just designed to maintain social relationships and does not carry significant meaning, often used to start a conversation (e.g. ‘hi there (.) how are you?’)
163
Phonemic contraction
the sounds a child can make are reduced so that they can only make the sounds of their own language
164
Phonemic expansion
an increase in the variety of sounds a child can produce
165
Phonetics
the study of how we produce particular sounds (e.g. ‘t’ and ‘d’ are stop consonants, produced by stopping the flow of air at the alveolar ridge, just behind the top teeth)
166
Phonology
the study of the sound system in the language and the effects of its particular features (i.e. looking at consonants, vowels, rhythms, stresses, pace)
167
Polysemic
describes a word with more than one meaning (e.g. ‘set’ can refer to ‘a set of cutlery’, ‘a tennis set’, what happens to jelly and so on)
168
Polysemy
many meanings in a word
169
Positive face
our need to maintain self-esteem. Positive is threatened when we are criticised in any way
170
Positive reinforcement
when a behaviour is rewarded and therefore encouraged to be repeated
171
Possessive determiner
determiner which shows who the noun belongs to (e.g. my book)
172
Positive politeness
an informal approach that assumes the other party will agree (‘I think that just about wraps it up, don’t you?’) This is linked to theories of face’.
173
Post-modified
the modification that comes after the head noun (or after a phrase or clause)
174
Post-telegraphic stage
in the post-telegraphic stage, the child’s early reliance on lexical (content) words gradually expands to include auxiliaries, prepositions and articles, e.g. ‘Mummy car’ evolves into ‘Mummy is in the car’. Timing of this shift varies, but 30 months (approximately) is likely
175
Pragmatic failure
where the meaning that is implied is not the meaning that is understood by the listener
176
Pragmatics
what we really mean by what we say or write in a given context OR can refer to the contextual aspects of language use
177
Predicate overextension
conveying meaning that relates to absence (e.g. making the utterance ‘cat’ when looking at the cat’s empty basket)
178
Pre-modified
modification that comes before the head noun (or before a phrase or clause)
179
Preposition
a word which shows how elements in a sentence or clause relate to each other in time or space
180
Pre-start
a word or phrase made to clear the air before a turn begins (e.g. ‘Well…’)
181
Primary verbs
be, have, do
182
Privation
the absence of social relationships
183
Productive vocabulary
the term used to describe the words a person (not necessarily a child) is able to use, either in speech or writing
184
Pronoun
a word which stands in place of a noun or noun phrase (usually used to avoid repetition of the noun)
185
Proper nouns
words for specific people or places (e.g. Swindon)
186
Prosodics
how we use rhythm, stress, intonation and pace in speech to create particular effects
187
Proto-words
clusters of sounds (e.g. ‘da’) that represent the baby’s attempt to articulate specific words when their motor coordination is still in early stages of development
188
Pun
a play on words, often using the multiple meanings of words for effect (e.g. ‘A man walks into a bar. “Ouch!”’)
189
Purpose
describes why the text was produced or uttered (to entertain, to persuade, to inform, to advise and so on)
190
Quality maxim
a co-operative principle that requires that you do not say what you believe to be false
191
Quantity maxim
a co-operative principle that requires you are careful in what you say, be just as informative as is needed and no more
192
Recasting
the rephrasing and extending of a child’s utterance
193
Received Pronunciation (RP)
a prestige form of English pronunciation
194
Receptive vocabulary
relates to the words a person recognizes/understands and is likely to be larger than their productive vocabulary
195
Reduplicated monosyllable
the repetition of a sound such as ‘ba ba’
196
Register
the type or variety of language that the writer or speaker has chosen to use (e.g. formal register, informal register, medical register, academic register, etc.)
197
Regular verbs
take a regular -ed inflection when changing from present to past tense (e.g. ‘walk/walked’)
198
Relation maxim
a co-operative principle that requires that you make what you say relevant to the last speaker’s turn
199
Representation
language used to present an impression of ourselves, or of an event, company or institution (like your school or college) to the wider world
200
Scaffolding
a form of linguistic support whereby adults, through their interactions, provide the child with conversational material and patterning (e.g. the parent may say ‘What did we buy at the shop today? Did we buy apples?’, thus providing the child with some key lexis and grammar structures, supporting them in continuing the conversation)
201
Self-related comment
speaker makes a comment about himself/herself (e.g. ‘I’m run off my feet’)
202
Semantic field
a pattern of words with similar meanings found across a text or texts (e.g. ‘bolt’, ‘trap’, ‘cage’)
203
Semantic shift
the change in a meaning of a word
204
Semantics
meanings of words, both on their own and in relation to other words in the text
205
Semiotics
the study of signs and symbols; considering not only the ways in which words work and how they are used, but also by considering images, sounds, music, and patterns
206
Sex/gender
before analysing gender discourses, it is important to determine the difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to biological differences between males and females while gender refers to behaviours which are constructed through early socialization and continues throughout life. This distinction is significant as the analysis of gender and language is informed by issues of power that may arise from people, schools, government and the media
207
Simple sentence
has only one clause
208
Sociolect
a variety of language that is characteristic of the social background or status of its user
209
Stages of CLA
phases that have been identified by linguists, during which particular significant characteristics can be identified
210
Standardization
the process of forming a uniform language codified in dictionaries, educational and government texts that demands conformity by all variant language forms
211
Stress
where volume is raised to place emphasis on a particular syllable
212
Subject
this normally performs the action of the sentence or clause and can be a single word or phrase
213
Subordinate clause
depends on the main clause to exist
214
Subordinating conjunctions
these signal the start of a subordinate clause
215
Superlative adjective
expresses the highest level of the quality represented by the adjective, generally made by adding -est to its base form (‘the fastest car’)
216
Synchronicity
events that occur simultaneously, such as communication
217
Synchronous
at the same time; a face-to-face conversation would be an example of a synchronous discourse
218
Synonym
a word that has a similar meaning to another word (e.g. ‘malady’ and ‘illness’)
219
Syntax
the order of the elements in a clause or sentence (subject, verb, object, etc.)
220
Tag question
an interrogative clause added to the end of a declarative to make it into a question (e.g. ‘We’re meeting for lunch today, aren’t we?’)
221
Telegraphic stage
usually associated with language development in infants of approximately 24–36 months, this term refers to speech that resembles an old-fashioned telegram, generally characterized by the omission of auxiliary verbs and determiners and with a focus on lexical essentials (e.g. ‘daddy get milk’ or ‘Ben feed ducks’)
222
Telephony
the working or use of telephones
223
Topic management
the way topics in a conversation are organised or handed from speaker to speaker - can also be known as agenda setting
224
Transition relevance place (TRP)
the point at which one turn is ending and another turn is signalled
225
Turn construction unit (TCU)
a fundamental segment of speech in conversation analysis
226
Turn-taking
the process of taking turns in a conversation, where only one speaker speaks at a time
227
Two-word stage
usually occurs around the age of 18 months to two years and refers to the child’s ability to start producing utterances which use words in combination. This will often take the form of subject + verb (e.g. ‘doggie gone’), but variation of syntax is possible, as the child begins to shape meaning – sometimes using intonation as well – (e.g. ‘mummy come’ (statement), ‘mummy come?’ (question) and ‘come mummy’ (command))
228
Underextension
when the meaning ascribed to a word used by a child which is narrower than the meaning it has in adult language; using a hyponym instead of a hypernym (e.g. a child may use the word ‘cat’ instead of ‘pet’)
229
Upward convergence
changing your accent or lexical choices to something you perceive as more prestigious
230
Valediction
expression of farewell
231
Verb
the action or state in the sentence or clause (can be a single word or verb phrase)
232
Vernacular
everyday regional language spoken by people
233
Vernacular writing
informal, non-standard writing
234
Violates a maxim
subtle failure of someone to observe a maxim (e.g. going on a bit too long on a topic)
235
Vocative
directly addressing someone via’ to someone in conversation by their name
236
Behaviourism
a theory of language acquisition developed by psychologists (most prominently B.F. Skinner), which suggests that language learning was based on mimicry and reinforcement
237
Cognitive theory
a major proponent of this theory was Piaget, who was interested in children’s cognitive development; that is, the way their thought processes change and progressed. Piaget believed that children’s linguistic development was linked to their growing understanding of concepts
238
Construction model
the construction model of language development is a usage-based model proposing that children acquire blocks of language rather than single words and have an innate facility for intention-reading and pattern-finding
239
Critical period
Eric Lenneberg proposed the idea that children up until approximately age five could develop their language naturally, responding to their genetic predisposition to do so. After this period has passed, language development, it was thought, becomes a great deal harder
240
Descriptivism attitude
an attitude to language that describes what is there, explaining it, without judgement
241
Dialect levelling
the merging of different dialects to form one uniform dialect, reducing the range of dialects
242
Difference approach
this approach to language suggests that men and women use language differently. Deborah Tannen is an exponent of this approach (e.g. she claims that men use language to build status, whereas women use language to build networks of connections)
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Dominance approach
this suggests that in mixed gender conversations men dominate the discourse. Men interrupt, and speak more than women, due to the cultural construction of gender within society
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Face
the way a speaker deals with potential threat to self-esteem. The term was introduced by the sociologist Goffman and then developed further by Brown and Levinson
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Functional basis of language
a theory of language acquisition based on the idea that children are motivated to develop language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. Michael Halliday became a major proponent of this theory
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Grice’s conversational maxims
Grice came up with the term ‘cooperative principle’ and developed a number of conversation maxims which he suggested shape the way we converse.
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Ideational metafunction
Halliday identified a concept he termed the ideational metafunction, which relates to the ways in which we represent the world around us using language in our spoken and written discourse
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Nativism
Nativists believe that babies are born with an inbuilt capacity to learn language. Noam Chomsky, a prominent nativist, thought that the capacity to develop speech was ‘programmed’ into the human brain
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Prescriptivism attitude
an attitude to language that suggests that some forms of language are more valuable than others – this approach prescribes what is correct and what is not
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Social interaction
Jerome Bruner was a major figure in developing this theory, which emphasized the environment within which the child lives, especially the social environment (e.g. the family), in supporting linguistic development
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Standard English
the form of English often considered by prescriptivists to be the ‘correct’ form
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Synthetic personalization
a concept attributed to Norman Fairclough who used it to describe the way that texts relate to an imagined reader. Often this imagined reader has particular values and attitudes; the assumption that these are shared can be a way of imposing a particular ideology, or set of beliefs
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Technological determination
this theory asserts that technology determines the ways in which language is used and developed. Technological advances shape the ways in which human beings communicate rather than human beings manipulating technology to suit their communicative needs
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Universal Grammar
a theory, attributed to Chomsky, which proposes that there are properties and rules shared by all human languages that are ‘hardwired’ into the brain, i.e. they exist innately rather than being taught
