Key Terms

• Informality


  Spoken language is often more casual and relaxed than written language.
• Immediacy


  Spoken language happens in real-time, no need for written communication.
• Instant Feedback


  Speakers can receive immediate feedback through non-verbal cues, tone, and facial expressions.
• Spontaneity


  Immediacy allows for spontaneous and unplanned responses to situations.
• ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, ’I think’, are all examples of hedging
• Accent: How words are pronounced, varying due to region / class
• Adjacency Pairs:


  Simple, formulaic pairs of spoken communication e.g- ‘How are you?’ / ‘Fine thanks’
• Back-channel:


  Words and non-verbal utterances used by a listener to feedback to the speaker that the message is being followed and understood
• Contraction:


  A shortened form of an existing word or phrase often marked by an apostrophe e.g she‘ll= she will
• Diexis / diectics:


  Words such as ‘this’, ’that’, ’here‘ which refer outside the text - a sort of verbal pointing. Context dependant
• Dialect:


  Distinctive grammar and vocabulary specific to a region or social group
• Discourse marker:


  Words and phrases that signify the connection between utterances so what is said can be followed by the listener / reader
• Elision:


  The ejection or slurring of one or more sounds or syllables in a word

  e.g wassup = what is up, gonna = going to
• False start:


  A type of non-fluency feature, when a speaker begins an utterance, stops and either repeats or reformulates. Similar to ’Repairs’ and ‘self-correction’
• Fillers:


  Sounds produced by a speaker that carry no conventional meaning but to be inserted to allow time to think, create a pause, or to hold a turn in conversation.
• Ellipsis:


  The ejection of a part of the grammatical structure e.g ”You going to the party?” / “Might be”

  Words like ‘are’ and ’I’ are removed making it informal but understandable
• Hedge:


  Words and phrases that soften the force with which something is said e.g ’sort of’, ‘perhaps’
• Interactional talk:


  Language in conversation used for social reasons. E.g socialising with friends
• Non-fluency features:


  Normal characteristics of spoken language that interrupt the ‘flow’ of talk. Some examples: hesitations, false start, fillers etc.
• Paralinguistic features:


  Similar to body language - the use of gestures, facial expressions and other non-verbal elements to add meaning to the speakers message beyond the words being spoken
• Phatic talk:


  Conversational utterances that have no concrete purpose other than to establish or maintain relationships (like small talk -surface level, basic, short conversation)
• Pragmatics:


  A type of text analysis that focuses on the contexts and purposes of spoken language rather than the semantic, literal meaning
• Prosodic features


  Features such as stress, rhythm, pitch, tempo and intonation - used by speakers to mark out key meanings in a message.
• Repairs


  An alteration that is suggested or made by the speaker, or listener in order to correct or clarify something said previously
• Sociolect:


  A social dialect or variety of speech used by a specific group, such as working-class or upper-class speech
• Tag question:


  Strings of words ’tagged‘ onto a declarative sentence, turning it into a question. E.g “It’s a bit cold today, isn’t it?“
• Transactional talk:


  Language used to get things done or to transmit information or content
• Turn taking: 


  A turn is a time during which a single participant is speaking. Turn taking is where two participants converse with minimal overlap and interruption. A principal unit of conversational structure.
• Utterance:


  An utterance is a complete unit of talk, bounded by the speaker’s silence. Like a speech version of a paragraph.
• Vague language:


  Statements that sound imprecise and unassertive. E.g - ‘and so on’, ‘ or whatever’, ‘thingummyjig’, ‘what’s it’.
• Synonyms: 


  Equivalent vocabulary with similar meanings
• Euphemism:


  More socially acceptable words or phrases used instead of offensive or taboo language
• Dysphemism:


  Harsher, more blunt and often taboo words and phrases
• Hypernym:


  A broader term for a word. E.g Bird = pigeon, eagle, seagull
• Hyponym:


  More specific and informative version of a word. E.g ’Red’ instead of ‘colour’
• Antonym:

  Opposing vocabulary with contrasting meanings
• Determiner


  adjectives that describe how many or which thing e.g. these, some, many, two
• Articles

  Adjectives that appear before a noun and indicate whether the noun is specific or general e.g A, an, the
• Jargon

  Professional and specialised language understood by specialists in that field
• Lexis


  Words