As English Language Key Terms

Front 1

Common noun

Back 1

A naming word for a thing that's tangible.

Front 2

Abstract noun

Back 2

A naming for an idea, concept, state of being or belief.

Front 3

Active verb

Back 3

A word that represents a physical action.

Front 4

Stative verb

Back 4

A word that represents a process that's often mental.

Front 5

Auxiliary verb

Back 5

A verb that has to be used with another verb to create present participles or the future tense, e.g I AM going, you WILL go.

Front 6

Modal verb

Back 6

An auxiliary verb that expresses a degree of either possibility or necessity, e.g. might, may.

Front 7

Superlative

Back 7

An adjective that displays the most extreme value of its quality.

Front 8

Comparative

Back 8

An adjective that relates one thing in some way to another, e.g. bigger.

Front 9

Third person pronoun

Back 9

Him, her, he, she, it, them, those.

Front 10

Monosyllabic lexis

Back 10

Words of one syllable.

Front 11

Polysyllabic lexis

Back 11

Words of two or more syllables.

Front 12

Imperative

Back 12

A command.

Front 13

Declarative

Back 13

A statement.

Front 14

Interrogative

Back 14

A question.

Front 15

Exclamatory

Back 15

A sense of emotion, sense of alarm or overly strong emphasis.

Front 16

Register

Back 16

The level of formality.

Front 17

Tenor

Back 17

The tone, or the relationship between the author and reader and how it's created.

Front 18

Syntax

Back 18

The way words form sentences.

Front 19

Parenthesis

Back 19

An aside within a text created by section off extra information between brackets, dashes or between two commas.

Front 20

Rhetorical question

Back 20

A question designed not to be answered. When it's followed by an answer, it's called a "Hypophora".

Front 21

Hyperbole

Back 21

Deliberate over-exaggeration of things for effect.

Front 22

Imagery

Back 22

A descriptive or metaphorical use of language to create a vivid picture.

Front 23

Personification

Back 23

A device in which the non-human is given personal or human quantities.

Front 24

Symbolism

Back 24

Using figurative and metaphoric language, items or incident in a way that certain things represent other things, e.g. colour representing the sadness of a character.

Front 25

Semantic field

Back 25

Words that relate to a certain subject, e.g. RAM and gigabyte for computing.

Front 26

Lexical set

Back 26

The selection of relative lexemes from the text. One can take a lexical set of field specific lexis, modifiers, proper nouns etc.

Front 27

Semantics

Back 27

The meaning of words.

Front 28

Oxymoron

Back 28

The use of apparently contradictory words in a phrase.

Front 29

Collocations

Back 29

Words that, through usage, naturally go together, e.g. John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Front 30

Onomatopoeia

Back 30

When a word is spelt exactly the same as the sound it describes.

Front 31

Consonance

Back 31

The repetition of double consonants in the middle of words.

Front 32

Assonance

Back 32

The repetition of vowel sounds.

Front 33

Alliteration

Back 33

The repetition of consonant sounds in a text, often at the beginning of words.

Front 34

Dramatic irony

Back 34

When the audience is aware of more than one of the characters in either a play or a piece of fiction to create a dramatic effect.

Front 35

Genre

Back 35

The category of fiction of type of text.

Front 36

Compound words

Back 36

A word created by utilising two existing words separated by a hyphen.

Front 37

Irony

Back 37

Language that conveys a meaning to other than that literally expressed by the words, usually for humorous effect.

Front 38

Cliche

Back 38

When language is used over and over until it becomes so well known that it loses its original potency.

Front 39

Idiom

Back 39

A saying, often a cliche where the words that make up the saying don't have the same meaning as the overall semantic effect.

Front 40

Mode

Back 40

How it's presented. Written or spoken?

Front 41

Intonation

Back 41

The rise and fall of an individual's natural speaking voice to keep listeners interested.

Front 42

Utterance

Back 42

An uninterrupted chain of spoken or written language.

Front 43

False starts

Back 43

The speaker realises the beginning of an utterance isn't working so effectively re-starts by rephrasing.

Front 44

Hesitation indicators

Back 44

Moments in discourse that indicate the speaker is playing for time, e.g. urm, err.

Front 45

Fillers

Back 45

The insertion of words, phrases or noises into a speaker's discourse, e.g. like, y'know, sort of.

Front 46

Latch-on

Back 46

When a speaker takes their turn immediately after the preceding speaker has finished speaking leaving no, or little, pause.

Front 47

Overlaps

Back 47

When one speaker speaks over another.

Front 48

Elision

Back 48

The omission of a vowel or syllable in the pronunciation of a word, e.g. going t'shop.

Front 49

Adjacency pairs.

Back 49

Pairs of utterances in a conversation that follow on from each other e.g. greeting and greeting, question & answer.

Front 50

Hypophora

Back 50

Asking a question then answering it yourself. Rhetorical device.