OCR a level English glossary

refer to ideas and concepts that only exist in the mind

the distinct pronounciation pattern of a group of people

where a speaker adapts to another speaker's accent, dialect or sociolect

abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words pronounced as a single word (e.g. OPEC, NASA, RAM)

clause construction where the subject is also the actor (they are doing or have done something to somebody/something)

a pair of utterances in a conversation that go together (e.g. greeting and reply, question and answer, etc)

a word that modifies a noun (e.g. 'the orange sky')

a word that modifies a verb telling you how, where or when an action takes place; can also modify adjectives, telling you how much (e.g. 'I am really delighted)

words, phrases or clauses which act as adverbs and which identify where, when and how when modifying the verb

linguistic and behavioural choices provided by technology

where a speaker sets up the main topic of conversation

associating objects which are unrelated but which have one or more features in common (e.g. both being the same colour)

an online relationship where two participants know each other in the offline world

a determiner such as 'a' or 'the'

an imbalance of power between people

there is a delay between utterance and response. Responses posted on a forum, which may occur moths or even years after the original post, are an example of discourse that is asynchronous

the person or people reading or hearing the text

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

an image used by a user that accompanies a username

supportive terms such as 'oh' and 'really'

where a speaker is completely blunt and direct (e.g. 'sit down!')

a form of prejudice in favour of or against an idea, person or group, expressed through language/images and so on. It can take obvious or implicit forms, or a mixture of the two, and can arise from what is omitted as well as from what is stated or shown

a speaker's ability to use two dialects of the same language

the most commonly occurring form of overextension in a child's language and relates to confusing a hypernym (a broad category like fruit) with a hyponym (a specific example like an apple)

chain-like structure in a sentence ('so we... and then... and then we...')

a speaker responds and sets up the other speaker's next utterance in a chain that runs on past an adjacency pair

speech patterns used by parents and carers when communicating with young children

a structural unit that contains at least one subject and one verb - it can include other features as well such as an object, complement and adverbial.

spoken expressions which are designed to close (a conversation)

a process of standardising a language

the many parts of a text that help to draw it together into a recognisable whole. For example, the headline, picture and caption in a news article will all have words/images that link together in terms of the meaning and subject matter of the article.

two or more words that are often found together in a group or phrase with a distinct meaning (e.g. 'over the top')

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')

a clause element that tells you more about the subject or the object

has two or more clauses, one of which is a subordinate clause

a word formed from two other words (e.g. 'dustbin')

has two or more clauses, usually joined to the main clause by the conjunctions 'and' or 'but' and depends on the main clause to exist

a sentence that has three or more clauses, one of which will be a subordinate clause and one of which will be a coordinate clause

refer to things we touch or can experience physically

the process by which humans (and animals) are taught or trained to respond, and learn by positive reinforcement (e.g. praise from an adult) for whatever is deemed to be appropriate learning within that specific context - for choosing the correct word or for politeness for example.

a word that joins clauses together

the associated meanings wee have with certain words, depending on the person reading or hearing the word, and on the context in which the word appears

groups of consonants that depend more muscular control than single consonant or vowels, so tend to appear later in the baby's utterances

linguistic and behavioural restrictions provided by technology

where, when and how a text is produced or received

where a speaker moves towards another speaker's accent, dialect or sociolect

sounds a baby will make like 'goo' and 'ga-ga', generally around the age of 6-8 weeks. It is believed that during this period the child is discovering their vocal chords

a clause beginning with a coordinating conjunction and is essentially a main clause joined to another main clause

these signal the start of a coordinate clause

a verb that takes a compliment (such as 'seems' 'appears' or a form of the verb 'to be')

a collection of written texts

describes high social status through use of non-standard forms

a statement - a type of sentence which gives information and where the subject typically comes in front of the verb

'the'

terms that point towards something and place the words in context

the literal, generally accepted, dictionary definition of a word

words determining the number or status of the noun

refers to the study of historical language occurring over a period

a non-standard variety of a language, including lexis and grammar, particular to a region

the technique of storing, transmitting and processing data used for mobile phones and computers among others

the part of the clause that is directly acted upon by the subject

describes the structure of any text (or segment of the text) that is longer than a single sentence

marks a change in direction in an extended piece of written or spoken text (e.g. 'nevertheless' or 'to sum up')

the way a text is structured, according to the typical features of the text's genre

a device used to close a conversation

a response that is unexpected, although not necessarily rude if phrased appropriately (e.g. speaker A - 'Dinner's ready at 7.' Speaker B - 'not dinner, I only just had breakfast!')

where a speaker actively distances himself/herself from another speaker by accentuating their own accent or dialect

making your accent or lexis more informal

gaining knowledge by direct and indirect observation or experience

a dialect of English that is perceived to have spread outwards from London along the south east of England. It has features of received pronounciation and London English.

the history of a word, including the language it came from, if appropriate, and when it began to be used regularly

a reference to something, often cultural, beyond the text

factors that affect the way you speak (e.g. age, where you live, etc)

children who are raised without human intervention ('feral' meaning existing in a wild/natural state, as opposed to domesticated). There are examples of children having been raised by animals such as dogs.

words used in a text which relate to the text's subject matter (e.g. the field of medicine, gold, etc)

making an offensive and insulting post in a chatroom

where someone obviously does not obey the conversational maxims that have been suggested by Grice

describes the degree to which texts stick to certain conventions and to how impersonal they are. The more spoken mode features a text has the more informal it will tend to be.

controlling the agenda of a conversation (its direction and subject); or making utterances that encourage a child to fill in the blanks

words derived from French or Latin, or both that are more rarely used; often seen as having a higher status and/or being more specialist

the kind of text you have in front of you (e.g. advert, speech, song, etc)

a way of communicating that relates to movement and/or body language, either instead of words (as would be likely in a multimodal media text) in addition to them

a form of stop consonants made at the back of the throat to replace the 't' sounds (e.g. 'wha?' instead of 'what')

the building blocks of sentences (words, phrases, clauses, etc.) and how they go together to mean something to the reader or listener

a scholar of grammar

the correspondence between the written shape of a letter and its sound

the main noun at the centre of a noun phrase

words that appear often in everyday speech

a single word representing a more complex though generally created by a child. For example the word 'juice' may be used to signify 'I want some juice' - in this context. 'juice' would be a holophrase.

a polite utterance relating to context designed to put speakers at their ease

an electronic link embedded in a text that takes the reader to another website

categories (e.g. pets, vehicles and sweets) are all hypernyms

examples within a category (e.g. pony, trick and sherbet lemons) are all hyponyms

a form of common non-literal expression (e.g. 'I was dead on my feet')

your own individual way of speaking

implying something in what we say

a command - a type of sentence where the subject is usually left out and the verb is in its bare forms (e.g. 'give the hat to me')

'a' or 'an'

receives the action

an ending such as -ed, -s, or -ing added to change a tense or number, or in the case of nouns to make a plural