VCE English Language flashcards
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31 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Phoneme
- The smallest unit of sound that can distinguish meaning in a language, such as the difference between /p/ and /b/ in 'pat' and 'bat'.
- Allophone
- A pronunciation variant of a single phoneme that does not change word meaning, such as the different releases of /t/ in 'top' and 'stop'.
- Free morpheme
- A morpheme that can stand alone as a word, carrying meaning without needing to attach to another element, for example 'book' or 'run'.
- Bound morpheme
- A morpheme that must attach to another morpheme to occur, such as the plural '-s' or the negative prefix 'un-' in 'unhappy'.
- Open word class
- A word class that readily accepts new members through borrowing and word formation, including nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
- Closed word class
- A word class with a fixed membership that rarely gains new items, including prepositions, conjunctions, determiners and pronouns.
- Hyponymy
- A semantic relationship where one word's meaning is included within another's, as 'rose' is a hyponym of 'flower'.
- Cohesion
- The explicit linguistic links that hold a text together, including reference, lexical repetition, substitution, ellipsis and conjunctions.
- Register field tenor mode
- The three variables describing a situation: field is the topic, tenor is the relationship between participants, and mode is the spoken or written channel.
- Borrowing
- The process by which a language adopts words from another language, often to fill a lexical gap or to signal prestige, as with 'sushi' from Japanese.
- Semantic broadening
- A type of semantic change in which a word's meaning becomes more general, such as 'bird' once referring to a young fowl only.
- Semantic narrowing
- A type of semantic change in which a word's meaning becomes more restricted, such as 'meat' once meaning food in general.
- Pejoration
- A type of semantic change in which a word's meaning acquires negative connotations over time, as 'silly' shifted from blessed to foolish.
- Amelioration
- A type of semantic change in which a word's meaning improves in status, as 'nice' shifted from foolish to pleasant.
- Blending
- A word-formation process combining parts of two words into one new word, such as 'smoke' plus 'fog' producing 'smog'.
- Compounding
- A word-formation process joining two or more free morphemes into a single new lexeme, such as 'bookshop' or 'sunflower'.
- Acronym
- A word formed from the initial letters of a phrase and pronounced as a word, such as 'NATO' or 'scuba'.
- Prescriptivism
- An approach to language that judges usage against rules of correctness, often labelling certain variants as wrong rather than describing actual usage.
- Descriptivism
- An approach to language that records and analyses how people actually use language without judging variants as correct or incorrect.
- Sociolect
- A language variety associated with a particular social group, shaped by factors such as class, age, ethnicity or occupation.
- Idiolect
- The unique and individual pattern of language use belonging to one person, including distinctive vocabulary, pronunciation and syntactic habits.
- Overt prestige
- The social status attached to a standard or powerful variety, which speakers may adopt to appear educated, formal or socially mobile.
- Covert prestige
- The value attached to a vernacular variety as a marker of solidarity, identity and group loyalty, often hidden from official approval.
- Positive face
- In politeness theory, a person's desire to be liked, approved of and included by others, protected by compliments and friendly address.
- Negative face
- In politeness theory, a person's desire not to be imposed on or restricted, protected by hedging, apology and indirect requests.
- Convergence
- A communication strategy in which a speaker adjusts their language toward an interlocutor's style to signal solidarity and reduce social distance.
- Jargon
- Specialised vocabulary used by a particular occupational or interest group, efficient for insiders but often opaque to outsiders.
- Nominalisation
- The process of turning verbs or adjectives into nouns, which increases information density and formality and can obscure who performs an action.
- Anaphoric reference
- A cohesive device in which a pronoun or other word points back to something already mentioned, as 'it' referring to a previously named object.
- Adjacency pair
- A two-part conversational sequence in which the first turn makes a particular second turn relevant, such as a question followed by an answer.
- Inverted pyramid
- A news report structure placing the most important information first, followed by supporting detail in decreasing order of importance.