Language terminology

• Abstract nouns 


  Refer to ideas and concepts that only exist in the mind
• Active voice 


  Clause construction where the subject is also the actor (they are doing or have done something to somebody/something)
• Adjacency pair 


  A pair of utterances in a conversation that go together (greeting and reply, question and answer, etc.)
• Adverbial

  Words, phrases, or clauses which act as adverbs and which identify where, when, and how when modifying the verb.
• Article 


  A determiner such as ‘a’ or ‘the’
• Asymmetrical power

  An imbalance of power between people.
• Asynchronous


  When there is a delay between utterance and response.
• Auxiliary verb 


  Assists the main verb; primary auxiliary verbs do, have, and be denote changes of tense
• Catenative


  Chain like structure in a sentence - 'so we...and then...and then we...'
• 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.
• 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’)
• 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’)
• Declarative

  A statement – a type of sentence which gives information and where the subject typically comes in front of the verb
• Definite article

  'the'
• Deixis 


  Terms that point towards something and place the words in context
• Discourse structure


  The way a text is structured, according to the typical features of the text’s genre
• Empirical approach


  Gaining knowledge by direct and indirect observation or experience
• Exophoric reference


  A reference to something, often cultural, beyond the text
• Idiom


  A form of common non-literal expression (e.g. ‘I was dead on my feet’)
• Illocutionary act

  Implying something in what we say
• Indefinite article

  'a' or 'an'
• 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
• Intonation

  The pitch (how high or low you are in your vocal range)
• Lexical field


  Identifies the main subject matter of a text (e.g. food in a recipe, money in an article on economics)
• 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.
• Asyndetic listing

  No conjunctions between items
• Polysyndetic listing 


  Repeated conjunctions between items
• Syndetic listing


  Conjunctions between items
• Anaphora


  Repetition of a word/s at the beginning of successive clauses
• Parataxis


  The placing of related clauses in a series without using connecting words
• Hypotaxis 


  Subordinate clauses that make focus clear
• Anaphoric reference 


  Refers back to previous word in text
• Cataphoric reference


  Refers to word later in text
• Endophoric


  Refers to word in text
• Antanaclasis 


  Rhetorical device in which a ward is repeated in a sentence with different meanings
• Epizeuxis


  Same word or phrase repeated in succession in same sentence or line