M1 Terminology

Question 1

a text

Answer 1

a self-standing, continuous, functional stretch of language that is either spoken or written; e.g. a news article

Question 2

a phrase

Answer 2

a group of words that forms a meaningful unit; e.g. “a beautiful car”

Question 3

a word

Answer 3

the smallest language item that can occur on its own; e.g. “car”

Question 4

a morpheme

Answer 4

the smallest unit of meaning in a language which is the building blocks of words; e.g. “-ize”

Question 5

a phoneme

Answer 5

the smallest element of sound in a language which makes a difference in meaning; e.g. /p/

Question 6

discourse

Answer 6

the level of language analysis that deals with connected texts

Question 7

syntax

Answer 7

the system of rules that determine the order of words in sentences and their relation

Question 8

phonology

Answer 8

the system of the sounds of a language

Question 9

morphology

Answer 9

the system that describes the way that words are formed

Question 10

clause

Answer 10

a component of a sentence containing a verb; e.g. “I am alive”

Question 11

a grapheme

Answer 11

the smallest unit of written language that makes a difference in meaning; e.g. “g”

Question 12

orthography

Answer 12

the system of written language

Question 13

stress

Answer 13

the greater emphasis of some syllables or words over others during speech;
e.g. in ‘emergency’, the stress is on the second syllable

Question 14

intonation

Answer 14

the meaningful use of pitch change in speech; e.g. rising intonation can be used to indicate a question

Question 15

rhythm

Answer 15

the result of the regular repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables; e.g. “to be or not to be” has stress on every second syllable, giving it a regular rhythm

Question 16

vowel

Answer 16

a vocal sound made without the audible stopping of breath; e.g. /i:/

Question 17

consonant

Answer 17

a vocal sound made when the air flow is obstructed in some way; e.g. /s/

Question 18

consonant cluster

Answer 18

a sequence of two or more consonants at the beginning or end of a syllable; e.g. “straight” starts with the consonant cluster /str/

Question 19

connected speech

Answer 19

the way that speech sounds are produced as part of a continuous sequence rather than in isolation; e.g. liaison, intrusion, catenation, elision, assimilation, gemination, etc. [CHOOSE 1]

Question 20

pitch

Answer 20

the degree to which a sound in speech is high or low; e.g. use of a high pitch range typically indicates that a speaker feels highly involved in what they are talking about