HSC English EAL/D flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Individual human experience

The particular events and emotional responses of one character or persona, shaped by personal history and circumstance, as distinct from experiences shared by a whole group.

Collective human experience

Experiences shared by a group, community or generation, such as war, migration or economic hardship, which a text represents as shaping many lives at once.

Paradox

A statement or situation that appears self-contradictory yet reveals a deeper truth, often used to expose the complexity of human motivation and behaviour.

Anomaly

A departure from what is expected or typical within a text, which invites the responder to question accepted norms and assumptions about human behaviour.

Role of storytelling

The function narrative performs in expressing, preserving and reflecting human experience, including how form and voice shape the meaning conveyed.

Challenge assumptions

The rubric requirement that a text unsettle a responder's prior beliefs, prompting reconsideration of what is assumed to be normal or true.

Human qualities and emotions

Named attributes such as resilience, grief, compassion or alienation arising from experience; precise naming strengthens analysis of what a text represents.

Ignite new ideas

The effect by which a text generates fresh understanding in the responder, moving them beyond prior knowledge to a new perspective on experience.

Language and identity

The relationship in which language choices construct, affirm or contest a sense of self, including through accent, dialect, register and naming.

Code-switching

Alternating between language varieties within or across interactions, often signalling group membership, power relations or a change in social context.

Linguistic relativity

The claim that the language a person uses influences, rather than fully determines, how they perceive and categorise experience.

Standard language ideology

The belief that one language variety is inherently superior, which naturalises social hierarchies by presenting social judgements as linguistic facts.

Dialect

A rule-governed variety of a language associated with a region or social group, differing in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation but not in inherent correctness.

Register

The variety of language selected according to context, purpose and audience, ranging from formal to informal and adjusting lexis, syntax and tone.

Language loss

The decline of a language as speakers shift to a dominant variety, often through policy or pressure, weakening cultural transmission and intergenerational knowledge.

Language revival

Efforts by communities to restore and maintain a language, linking linguistic practice directly to cultural continuity and collective identity.

Cultural positioning

The way a text locates itself and its reader in relation to cultural values, assumptions and histories, shaping how identity is understood.

Narrative voice

The constructed persona who tells a story, whose diction, knowledge and attitude shape how the responder evaluates events and characters.

Narrative perspective

The point of view through which events are presented, such as first person or limited third person, controlling the responder's access to information.

Structural motif

A recurring element such as an image, phrase or situation that accumulates meaning across a text and signals its central concerns.

Juxtaposition

Placing two elements side by side so their contrast produces meaning, often used to highlight inequality, change or conflicting values.

Foreshadowing

A structural device in which earlier details anticipate later events, creating coherence and shaping the responder's expectations.

Cyclical structure

A form in which a text returns to its opening situation or image, implying repetition, entrapment or transformation rather than simple closure.

Embedded quotation

Integrating a short quotation into the grammar of the writer's own sentence, demonstrating close textual control rather than reliance on block quotation.

Authorial control

The deliberate selection and arrangement of form, structure and language by a composer to shape meaning and response.

Nominalisation

Converting a verb or adjective into a noun, producing an abstract and formal register suited to analytical writing but dense if overused.

Cohesion

The linking of sentences and paragraphs through reference, lexical chains, conjunctions and thematic progression so the argument reads as a unified whole.

Modality

The degree of certainty or obligation expressed in a statement, calibrated in analysis through verbs such as suggests, positions and implies.

Thesis statement

A single arguable sentence stating the text, the technique and the effect, which governs the direction of an entire analytical response.

Comma splice

Joining two independent clauses with only a comma, an error that obscures sentence boundaries and weakens the clarity of formal writing.

Dangling modifier

A modifying phrase that does not logically attach to the subject of its sentence, producing unintended and often absurd meaning.

Reflective writing

Writing that examines the composer's own experience and learning, using first person and a controlled, consistent voice to draw general insight.