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130 Cards in this Set

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AAVE
African-American Vernacular English
Accent
features of speakers' pronunciation that can signal regional or social background
Accomodation
adjusting the way one speaks to be more like a real or imagined interlocutor
Active/Passive
terms refering to the voice of a verb.
Active voiced verbs = 'doer' in subject position and 'done-to' in the object position. E.g. 'Tom hit Bob'.
As opposed to 'Bob was hit by tom' = Passive voice (reverse of active)
Activity Type
Closely related to genre. A term used to refer to events that can be defined by their goals and the constraints on the kinds of contributions that can be made (whether verbal or non-verbal).
Address forms
Expressions used to refer to a person when you are talking directly to them. Address forms can vary according to the relationships and context of use between speaker and hearer. Use of titles, use of first name, use of dfferent second person pronouns are examples
Agency/Agentive
agency is being in control of something - to be in the position of an agent (in terms of transivity analysis).
Arbitrariness of the Sign
Ferdinand de Saussure argued that there is no inherent connection between combinations of sounds or letters and the concepts which the represent. E.g. the fact that different languages label concepts differently.
Audience design
The idea that speakers will take into acount whom they are addressing and will alter their speech style accordingly.
back channel support
the feedback listeners give to speakers by verbal expressions (mm, yeah, uh-huh), facial and body expressions (nodding, smiling).
bricolage
Translates roughly from french as 'tinkering'/'DIY'. Refers to the way signs and symbols can be used to create new meanings, but placing them in novel contexts or combinations.
code-switching
Changing from one language to another, often in the same piece of talk.
code
A term sometimes used instead of 'language' or 'dialect' to refer to a system of communication. There are also non-linguistic communication condes such as dress codes and gesture codes.
codification
a process where scholars analyse and record the vocabulary and grammatical patterns (rules) of a language. Mainly happened for English in the 18th century
collocation
refers to the co-occurence of words. Some words are in frequent collocation such as 'Hot Stuff'. Collocation can affect the meaning of a word in a particular context, such as 'white' in collocation with 'wine', as opposed to with 'snow' where the meaning would not change.
communicative competence
in contrast to competence and performance, communicative competence is what a speaker need to do to construct appropriate utterances in a speech community.
communities of practice
a group of people who come together for a common aim or activity. communities of practice often develop their own ways of using language.
competence and performance
Compentence and performance are opposing terms. Competence refers to the grammatical rules which need to be followed. Performance refers to what people actually do in their speech.
conative
one of Jakobson's 6 functions of language which draws attention to the addressee-orientated nature of language
connotation
the personal associations conjured up by a word, although they are not strictly part of its definition. e.g. 'spinster' meaning an adult female human who has never been married but can carry connotations of 'old' and 'unnatractive'.
convergence
A process in which speakers chance their speech in order to make it more similar to that of their hearer, or to that of people in their social group. The convergence of whole dialects or accents is termed 'levelling'.
covert prestige
Covert meaning 'hidden' or 'non-obvious'. Sometimes, speakers use a seemingly less prestigious or non-standard language in order to identify with a group that uses that variety. Thus, the language variety of that group has a covert prestige.
crossing
A process in which speakers of one group occasionally use the speech patterns of another group as a means of identifying with some aspect of that group (see 'covert prestige'). it is similar to 'code-switching', however in crossing, the second language is not 'owned' by the speaker in the sense that they may be seen as an illegitimate user of the variety
defease
the term used when implicature is denied. e.g. 'it's cold in here' is generally seen as a request to close a window or turn up the heating. the implicature can be defeased by saying 'it's cold in here but dont close the window'.
denotation
the literal meaning of something, as opposed to connotation.
diachronic
as opposed to synchronic, diachronic means looking at a situation as it changes over time.
dialect
a variety of language which can signal the speaker's regional or social background. Unlike accents which only differ in pronounciation, dialects differ in their grammatical structure and in their vocabulary.
dialect levelling
a convergence of accents and dialects towards each other within a geographic region
dialectologists
Those who study and document dialects
difference theorists
in respect to language and gender, those who argue that women's and men's languages are different, though equal.
diphthong
two vowel sounds connected such that it seems to be a single sound
discourse
used to refer to any piece of connected language which contains more than one sentence. Can also be used to refer specifically to conversations. Can also be used to refer to the way belief systems and values are talked about e.g. 'the discourse on capitalism'. The prevailing way that a culture talks about or represents something is called the dominant discourse - that is the 'common-sense' or 'normal' representation.
discourse marker
A word with a function more than a meaning, which is to structure speech. e.g. 'so', 'well', 'really'. They have a function in displaying effect and in structuring arguements.
divergence
a process where a speaker chooses to move away from the linguistic norms of their hearer or social group. This can involve using a style or language variety not normally used by the group or even speaking an entirely different language.
ethnographic
a research methodology which seeks to describe a particular society or event through methods such as participant observation and interviews, usually over a long period of time
euphemism
The use of an inoffensive or more pleasant term as a substitute for one which may be unpleasant or taboo. euphemisms can also be used to promote a more positive image, e.g. 'air support' for 'bombing'.
Dyseuphemism is the opposite.
foreground
to draw attention to something; this is a visual metaphor - something is put in the foreground to be made more prominent. This can be done linguistically through the use of marked terms, stress in speech or other modes of emphasis
generic
generally, an expression used to refer to a class of things. e.g. a distinction between the generic 'man' which refers to humans in general and the 'man' which refers to male humans.
genre
a 'kind' or 'type'. As used in discourse analysis, it can refer to, for example , writing genres such as thrillers, recipes and scientific writing.
hedges
linguistic devices, such as 'sort of' and 'I think' which dilute an assertion. e.g. difference between 'she's dishonest' and 'I think she's dishonest'.
hedgemony/hedgemonic
Initially related to dominance and leadership, the definition has been expanded to include all forms of dominance and leadership, especially in relation to dominant (or hedgemonic) ideologies.
heterogeneity/homogeneity
difference. as opposed to homogeneity (uniformity).
honorific
in general, it refers to the use of language to express respect or politeness. More specifically, it can refer to certain address forms which express respect, e.g. 'sir/madam' and the formal 'you'.
identity politics
Coming together for social or political action or purpose on the basis of common identity, whether constructed or not.
idiolect
the language of an individual
ideology
a set or pattern of beliefs
imperative
in grammatical terms, it is a verb form which is both a command and the simplest verb form in english, e.g. 'come!' or 'speak!'
implicature
a meaning which can be extracted but is implicit as opposed to explicit.
indicator
one of William Labov's three kinds of linguistic variables. An indicator describes variation which is obvious to those who are external to a social group as marking out that group. Indicators are not socially evaluated by members within that group. These forms do not show style shifting - that is, they dont change regardless of whether the context is casual or formal. This contrasts with 'marker' and 'stereotype'.
informant
Someone who acts as a source of linguistic data
in-group/out-group
An in-group is a social group to whoch the speaker belongs. An out-group comprises of people who dont belong to that group. e.g. gang members may use certain expressions with each other that mark them as members of a particular gang or in-group.
interlocutor
an addressee
interpellation
describes the way people are addressed and positioned by ideologies
interruption
simultaneous speech and an utterance that stops the interrupted person speaking.
intertextuality
generally used to refer to the referencing of or allusion to one text by another. This may be done by obvious quotation, parody or borrowing any textual feature.
isogloss
an idealised geographic boundary between the use of one linguistic variable or feature and another.
jargon
a rather negative term for language used by a group that is difficult or impossible for those outside the group to understand. It is often associated with a specific profession.
langue
Ferdinand de Saussure's term for the perfect knowledge of a language we all believe we have in our heads, in contrast to the 'corrupt' versions of language we all produce, which he called 'parole'
lexical item
the term used by linguists for one of the senses of 'word'. e.g. while 'loves' and 'loved' are two different words in terms of their form, they still represent the same lexical item - 'to love'.

We can also have two words with the same phonological form but which represent two different lexical items, e.g. bark of a dog and bark of a tree.
lexicographer
a maker of dictionaries - someone who documents the changing meaning of works in a language
lexifier
the language which gives most of the vocabulary to a pidgin or a creole
lexis
vocabulary
lingua franca
a language which is not native to either speaker or listener but is used for communication where learning one or the other native languages is not practical
linguistic determinism/relativism
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The idea that language influences thought. The strong version, linguistic determinism, holds that we cannot thinkn outside the terms of our language. The weaker, more credible version, relativism, holds that we tend to think in terms of out language system
Linguistic imperialism
the imposition of one culture's language upon another culture
Linguistic market
A way of understanding the social/cultural capital that speakers of particular varieties have. The linguistic market can be understood as the attitudes speakers have to varieties, what can be acomplished with them and thus which forms are valuable to acquire.
Linguistic norm
generally, a norm refers to 'standard practice'. Speech communities can differ with respect to the liinguistic norms being followed. These norms can involve grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and the appropriate social use of language
linguistic variable
a linguistic item (phoneme, morpheme, lexeme, syntactic feature), which has identifiable variants, the presence of which is variable.
linguistic variation
a term referring to the many ways that language systems can change or vary with respect to their grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Language systems change over time. The also change in accordance with the geographical or social identity of their users and to the situations in which they are used.
linguistic variety
A term with several meanings. Generally refers to an identifiale language system which is used in particular geographic or social situations and has its own linguistic norms. e.g. english spoken in Alabama differs from english spoken in Sheffield
marked
generally speaking, it means noticably unusual. Refers to anything that deviates from the norm and this deviation is signalled by additional information
marker
One of William Labov's three kinds of linguistic variables. A marker is language variation which is subject to style shifting because it is evaluated socially in-group, unlike an indicator.
matched guise experiment
method of investigating people's attitudes to different languages. It involves informants listening to several recordings of the same script spoken by the same speaker, but using a different language for each recording. The informants are then asked to judge each speaker's personal characteristics based on what they hear. Matched guise experiments can also be adjusted to elicit people's attitudes to different voice qualities, accents or dialects.
metalingual
language used to talk about language.
minimal responses
in conversations, the contributions made by speakers to show they agree or that they are listening, e.g. 'mm hm' and 'yeah'
mitigation
making an utterance less forceful, usually with epistemic modals, such as 'may', 'might' or verb forms that indicate a lack of complete certainty, such as 'I think' as opposed to 'I know'
modal auxillary verb
the verbs: will, shall, would, should, can, could, must, may, might. They have several meanings, one of which is epistemic, meaning that speakers use modals to express their attitude towards the certainty of what they are saying.
modalities
different modes of communication, including speech, writing and other visual modes
morphology
the study of the smallest meaningful part of language, the morpheme. Morphemes can be 'bound' or 'free'. Bound morphemes cannot stand by themselves while Free can. In 'smallest', 'small' is Free and '-est' is Bound
multimodal
referring to communicative contexts which use more than one channel, e.g. the internet, which facilitates written, spoken and visual modes of interaction
nominalisation
the grammatical process of forming a noun from aother word class, e.g. organisation is the nominalisation of the verb 'organise'
orthography
the writing system of a language and how words are spelled. 'So' and 'Sew' have different spellings, though they sound the same
overlap
sometimes classified as a kind of interruption. An overlap is a brief instance of simultaneous talk which does not result in a speaker stopping what they were saying.
overt prestige
a type of prestige attached to forms of language use that are publicly acknowledged as correct and as bestowing high social status upon their users
paradigmatic
as opposed to syntagmatic. The paradigmatic axis of language describes the way words are chosen from among all possible choices and, as a consequence, can be said to be meaningful, e.g. to call a woman a girl or a lady
parallelism
when there is the same or similar syntactic structure in two or more parts of a text. The similarity of asks the reader to understand the two parts in relation to each other. It is a stylistic choice common in persuasive language
parole
Ferdinand de Saussure's term for the language we actually produce, which may not match the system of langue in our heads because, as de Saussure believed, of errors we make in the actual production of speech
pejoration
to acquire negative connotations or even dennotations over time. Semantic pejoration is particularly common for words associated with women
phatic
one of Roman Jakobson's six functions of language. Phatic talk is often described as 'small talk' as its primary function is to build or sustain social relationships rather than, for example, to convey information
phoneme
the smallest significant sound unit in a language. For example, bat, sat, and pat are different words in english because they differ in their first sound unit. The sounds /b/, /s/ and /p/ are three of the phenomes of the english language. English has approx 44 phenomes - it varies between accents
phonetics/phonetic
the study of speech sounds, especially how they are made by speakers and percieved by hearers. Analysing the phonetics and phonology of a language generally involved looking at speakers' pronunciation
phonology/phonological
the study of the sound systems of languages. It looks at what sounds are significant for a language (phenomes) and the permissible ways that sounds can be combined in words. E.g. the phonology of english would permit a word such as 'tump' but not 'mptu'
pidgin
a simplified form of a language, in terms of both vocabulary and grammar, which arises when speakers of different languages need a common means of communication, usually for trading purposes. Pidgins are not fully fledged languages and have no native speakers. A 'creole', while it may have developed from a pidgin, is a fully fledged language with native speakers. In its most standard or prestive variety, a creole will closely resemble one of the original languages it came from.
post-vocalic 'r'
Post-vocalic means after a vowel. A speaker whose accent does not have post-vocalic 'r' will pronounce the 'r' only when it occurs before a vowel, such as in 'trap' and 'arise'. As opposed to 'floor' and 'smart'
prescription/prescriptivists
the view, and those who maintain that there are rules for 'correct' language use and that language users should abide by them
prestige variety
when used with respect to language, it refers to a variety which society associates with education and high social status
presupposition
a background assumption embedded within a sentence or phrase. The assumption is taken to be true regardless of wheter the whole sentence is true e.g. 'we will introduce a fairer system' presupposes that the current system is not fair
qualitative research
the collection and interpretation of textual material for analysis and interpretation
quantitative research
research that is designed to collect and interpret numerical data
recieved pronounciation (RP)
the accent which is generally used by newsreaders on national television in the UK. Sometimes called an 'educated British accent', an RP accent is not marked for a particular region of Britain, but is marked for relatively high social class. Estimated 3% of Britons normally use RP
referential
One of Roman Jakobson's six functions of language. The referential function of language is what we might normally think of as information, or the denotative function of language, but also includes the ideas, objects and conventions which speakers share knowledge of.
register
the way that language can systematically vary according to the situation in which it is used. Different registers can be characterised by their sentence structure, pronunciation and vocabulary. Three factors that determine variation in register have been proposed: 'field', which refers to the subject matter of the discourse; 'tenor', which refers to the role being played by the speaker and the resulting level of formality; and mode, which usually refers to the medium of communication, such as speech or writing
represent/representation
as used in discourse analysis, it is essentially how the speaker chooses to refer to something or someone. E.g. the same act could be represented as terminating a pregnancy or killing an unborn baby, depending on the worldview of the speaker. (See Euphemism)
rhetoric/rhetorical
the use of language to persuade or convince the hearer
semantic derogation
a process in which a word can take on a second meaning and/or connotations which are negative and demeaning. E.g. comparisons of the words 'mistress' and 'spinster' to their male counterparts 'master' and 'bachelor'
sign
the arbitrary combination of concept and label which exists in the minds of members of a speech community.
signified
the 'concept' half of the sign
signifier
the 'label' half of the sign
social distance
a term used to describe the relationship between people in terms of a hierachy of some kind. What influences social distance may include age, class and the like. It helps us understand why, for example, speakers may choose to use a formal mode of address rather than an informal one
social networks
a way of describing the way people are connected to each other in a community. Social networks can be closed, where everyone knows each other. Closed networks are said to be dense. Networks can also be multiplex or uniplex depending on whether individuals have more than one relationship with each other.
speech community
a human group, defined either geographically or socially, whose members share a common language variety and set of linguistic norms
speech event
a specific unit or exchange of speech which has a well-defined structure; e.g. a greeting or a sermon
standardisation
in relation to language codification, the regularisation of some aspect, e.g. spelling or pronunciation. This standard is often based on written norms and may be devided by an institutional body. The term may also describe the process of dialects moving closer to a standard variety.
stereotype
one of William Labov's three kinds of linguistic variables. A variable is a stereotype when the association of a group with a variable is so well known and has attracted such negative or archaic associations that the form is actively avoided by in-group speakers
stratified/stratification
division into layers. In terms of social stratification, people in any one layer share certain social characteristics and are 'equals' but differ from and are not 'equal' to those in other layers. E.g. social stratification by class: upper, middle and lower
structuralism
the idea that the system of signs is structured and that the meaning of signs depends on their position relative to other signs
style
distinctive linguistic choices that are made, e.g. the choice of words or a register. Style is one of the categories used to analyse genre. Style is now also used to discuss the way people modify their language to effect a particular identity
style-shifting
people do not always talk in the same way. They can shift their speech styles and this can involve using different words, pronunciations or even grammatical forms. E.g. the style difference between singin' and singing, verdant and green. (See audience design and register)
symbolic capital
symbolic/cultural capital refers to assets that individuals accumulate based on their presentation, speech, relationships, education and so on. Like real capital (money), symbolic capital can be used to procure things.
symbolic violence
the way in which what society positively values results in the exclusion of those who dont align with these values
symmetry
as used in linguistics, an equal balance between expressions; asymmetry is an imbalance between expressions. E.g. Symmetry/Asymmetry in pronouns, Address forms and power relationships
synchronic
as opposed to diachronic, synchronic looks at something at a particular point in time
syntactic/syntax
grammatical rules which determine how words can be combined into phrases and sentences. E.g. the syntactic rules of english permit the phrase 'the nice book' but not 'book the nice'.
syntagmatic
as opposed to paradigmatic. The syntagmatic axis of language describes the way in which words are ordered in relation to each other, from left to right.
tag questions
a way of turning a declarative into a question by the addition at the end, e.g. 'its good, isnt it?'
topical ambiguity
situation where the hearer needs to know the topic of the discussion in order to interpret a word correctly. E.g. a hit means one thing in the context of pop songs, another in baseball and another in relation to the internet
transitive/intransitive
a kind of verb used in a clause. A transitive verb requires a direct object to make sense, e.g. 'Lucy loves Fred'. Intransitive is the opposite, e.g. 'Lucy sleeps'
transivity (model)
model in the analysis of utterances, to show how the speaker's experience is encoded. In the model, utterances potentially comprise of three components. 1. Process, which is typically expressed by the verb. 2. Participants in the process. The doer or 'actor' acting upon the 'goal'. 3. Circumstances associated with the process. E.g. She cried 'loudly' or he jumped 'from the cliff'.
variationist
a branch of sociolinguistics which examines the way in which language differs among various populations according to, for example, geography, class, age and the like. Some argue that only variationist linguistics is properly sociolinguistics
Vernacular
the word comes from the latin meaning 'of the home'. It refers to the indigenous language or dialect of a speech community, e.g. the vernacular of Liverpool. It is often used in contrast to the standard or prestige variety of a language.