NCEA L1 English flashcards
NCEA L1 English · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Register
- The variety of language chosen to suit a particular situation, audience, and purpose, ranging from formal to informal and including technical or colloquial vocabulary.
- Active listening
- A listening approach where the listener paraphrases, questions, and responds to the speaker's points, showing comprehension and building on ideas rather than simply waiting to talk.
- Rhetorical question
- A question asked for effect rather than to obtain an answer, used in speech and writing to engage the audience or prompt them to agree with a point.
- Contrastive stress
- Placing emphasis on a particular word to highlight a contrast with what was said or expected, for example stressing 'I' to signal that someone else did not.
- Hedge
- A word or phrase such as 'sort of' or 'maybe' that softens a claim, signalling uncertainty or politeness rather than a firm assertion.
- Discourse marker
- A word or phrase like 'however', 'so', or 'right then' that signals the structure of spoken or written text, guiding the listener through shifts in topic.
- Paralinguistic features
- Non-verbal elements of speech such as volume, pace, pitch, and pause that carry meaning alongside the words themselves.
- Salience
- The quality that makes one element of a visual text draw the eye first, created through size, colour contrast, placement, focus, or isolation.
- Camera angle
- The position from which a shot is taken; a low angle makes the subject appear powerful, while a high angle makes them appear vulnerable or diminished.
- Layout and reading path
- The arrangement of elements on a page and the route the eye follows through them, often guided by size, placement, and leading lines.
- Typography
- The choice of font, weight, size, and spacing in a visual text; serif fonts suggest tradition, sans-serif modernity, and bold capitals urgency.
- Colour connotation
- The associations a colour carries in a culture, such as red for danger or passion and green for nature or safety, which shape a viewer's response.
- Framing
- What is included within the borders of an image and what is excluded; tight framing creates intimacy or pressure, wide framing creates context and distance.
- Symbol
- An object, image, or action that stands for an idea beyond its literal meaning, relying on shared cultural association to communicate that idea.
- White space
- Empty area deliberately left in a layout, used to create emphasis, breathing room, elegance, or a sense of isolation around an element.
- Visual hierarchy
- The ordering of elements by importance as communicated through size, colour, position, and contrast, so the viewer reads the most significant part first.
- Metaphor
- A comparison stating that one thing is another, without 'like' or 'as', transferring qualities from one domain to another to create new meaning.
- Simile
- A comparison using 'like' or 'as' to link two unlike things, making an unfamiliar quality easier to grasp by relating it to something known.
- Personification
- Giving human qualities or actions to a non-human thing, such as an object, animal, or abstract idea, to create vividness or emotional resonance.
- Connotation
- The associations and emotional overtones a word carries beyond its literal dictionary meaning, shaping tone and reader response.
- Denotation
- The literal, dictionary meaning of a word, independent of the associations or emotional overtones it may carry in context.
- Syntax
- The order and arrangement of words and clauses in a sentence; changes in syntax alter emphasis, pace, and clarity.
- Minor sentence
- A sentence fragment lacking a main clause, used deliberately to create pace, emphasis, or a conversational or dramatic tone.
- Alliteration
- Repetition of the same initial consonant sound in nearby words, used to create rhythm, emphasis, or a memorable phrase.
- Onomatopoeia
- A word that imitates the sound it describes, such as 'buzz' or 'crash', creating auditory immediacy in a text.
- Hyperbole
- Deliberate exaggeration not meant to be taken literally, used for emphasis, humour, or emotional intensity.
- Tone versus mood
- Tone is the writer's attitude towards the subject; mood is the feeling the text creates in the reader. They are related but distinct concepts.
- PEEL paragraph
- An analytical paragraph structure: point, evidence, explanation, link. The explanation must state the effect of the feature on the reader or audience.
- Theme versus topic
- Topic is what a text is about; theme is the message or insight the text offers about that topic, expressed as a statement rather than a word.
- Purpose and audience
- Purpose is what the text aims to do (persuade, inform, entertain, describe); audience is who it addresses, shaping vocabulary, tone, and assumed knowledge.
- Unfamiliar text strategy
- Read the question first, then annotate the unfamiliar text for purpose, audience, ideas, and language features before writing a structured, evidence-based response.
- Embedded quotation
- A short quotation woven into the grammar of your own sentence, allowing precise word-level analysis rather than a long block quote.