English Definitions

• GAP

  Genre Audience Purpose
• Register


  How formal you are in a text. Mode, manner, tenor, field
• High Frequency lexis, Low frequency lexis


  Common words, rarer words
• Polysyllabic, disyllabic, monosyllabic

  More than one syllable, two syllables, one syllable
• Jargon, technical vocabulary, taboo

  Words used in a profession/group that others don't get, words used in a specific field, a word considered inappropriate for the context
• Under-specificity, over-specificity, modality

  Lack of detail, surplus of detail, if something is written/spoken
• Connotation, denotation

  Objective inference (red rose), subjective inference (red is love)
• Hyponym

  A word connected to a wider word, eg 'horse' is a hyponym of 'animal'
• synonym, antonym, semantic field

  A word similar, a word opposite, a feeling created by the mood of words
• euphemism, dysphemism

  A polite word in place of a rude one, e.g 'passed away' instead of died, a rude word in place of a polite one eg. 'shrink' instead of therapist
• Figurative language, metaphor, conceptual metaphor

  About metaphors, using a word/phrase to describe two unrelated things (e.g you're an open book), using a sometimes more concrete idea to describe an abstract one (e.g time is money)
• Dialect, sociolect, genderlect, familalect

  Language perculiar to a region/social group, dialect of a specific class, language styles associated with different genders, words/phrases used and understood omly by a family/small group of people.
• Prosodics

  how we use rhythm stress and pace in speech to create particular effects
• Intonation

  The pitch
• Stress

  Where volume is raised to place emphasis on a particular syllable
• Pace

  the speed you talk at