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Accent and dialect
Accent is how we speak; dialect is the words we use – technically! But many people seem to include… -
Active and passive ‘voice’
This involves an aspect of the grammar (or properly. The syntax) a sentence or clause called agency… -
Adjective
An adjective is a member of a grammatical word class that functions to modify or make more specific… -
Adjacency Pairs
An adjacency pair is two speech turns made by different speakers consecutively, labelled first part… -
Agency
Agency is an aspect of a clause or sentence. Typically, the agent of a clause or sentence is the… -
Agenda
The motives of the speakers in a conversation. -
Agreement
Agreement is an aspect of English grammar. Within a clause structure certain words need to… -
Adverb
An adverb is typically a word or phrase that modifies or provides extra detail to tell more about… -
Adverbial
An adverbial is a grammatical term used to label any part of a clause that functions to give,… -
Ambiguity
This means ‘more than one possible meaning’. The rules of grammar exist to allow a structure of… -
Archaic
If a word is described as archaic, it suggests its use is now old-fashioned. Many words in poems are… -
Article
One of a very small class of words, akin to adjectives, called determiners. The so-called definite… -
Audience
‘Audience’ refers broadly to the kind of reader or listener the text was intended for. As this… -
Auxiliary verb
English verbs are limited as to what they can indicate on their own, i.e. through their own… -
Clause
A clause is a key grammatical structure. Thought of at its simplest, a clause can be considered as a… -
Cohesion
Many patterns of words exhibit a quality known as cohesion. This means that they form coherent… -
Collocation
Many words are habitually put together – or collocated. A collocation is any habitually linked… -
Colloquial / slang
A ‘colloquy’ is simply a formal word for ‘conversation’, so colloquial language refers to… -
Complement
A word, phrase or clause that follows a verb (or, in some grammars, also a preposition) and which… -
Conjunction
A word class composed of words that are used as ‘joining words’. Conjunctions function to link… -
Connotation / denotation
The denotation of a word is its direct, literal or specific meaning (the one that can be found as a… -
Context
Context is a central aspect of language use. It refers to ‘things’ that ‘surround’ a text at… -
Copula / linking verb
A very few verbs act only to link a subject to a complement, for example, the verb ‘is’ in,… -
Determiner
One of a small group of words that precedes and pre-modifies a noun to create a noun phrase, e.g. a,… -
Discourse / discourse analysis / discourse structure
Calling a text a ‘discourse’ means to consider its original existence as a part of a real-world… -
Element
A grammatical or clause element is a distinct grammatical unit – one of the several ‘building… -
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds from a word, e.g. a vowel, consonant or a whole… -
Ellipsis
When we speak or write, we try to be succinct. Grammar allows the use of ellipsis to help create… -
Ephemeral
A term that means ‘lasting for a short time’, i.e. transitory. In the study of language change,… -
Finite / non finite
This word applies only to certain verbs. A verb in a sentence can exist on its own as in these… -
Form and content
Form is what gives rise to meaning; without form, there can be no meaning. This form refers to… -
Function
The function of a word is what it ‘does’ in its sentence, e.g. its function is to act as a… -
Genre
The genre of a text is its type or kind. It’s a word that can be applied to more than just texts,… -
Grammar
Grammar is the set of ‘rules’ or conventions that tells how words can be linked (syntax) and… -
Graphology
Graphology is concerned with the form of a written text, i.e. its shape, layout and appearance.… -
Head / head word
All phrases have what is called a head or head word. This is the word within the phrase that… -
Ideology
Ideology refers to the values and attitudes we all share towards such things as ourselves, others… -
Idiomatic Language
Idiomatic language refers to many words or phrases that are a familiar and everyday feature of our… -
Imperative
The imperative mood is a form of grammar that allows the creation of a particular kind of sentence… -
Infinitive
A ‘bare’ form of a verb without tense but one that is often introduced by ‘to’. Infinitive… -
Inflection / inflexion/ inflected
The way words can change their form to show, for example, that they are singular or plural (e.g.… -
Intensifiers
Intensifiers are a special kind of adverb. An intensifier is used when the semantic value of another… -
Intransitive
A verb is called intransitive when no action transfers from its subject to an object, e.g. we swam… -
Interjection
A word class that is used to show emotion, e.g. ‘Ouch!’, ‘Hey!’ -
Irony
Irony is the name given to an effect of meaning created when one thing is said or written but… -
Lexeme
A lexeme or lexical item is a word – or occasionally a phrase – in its most basic form, like the… -
Latinate
This term refers to those many rather formal and often multisyllabic words in English that derive… -
Lexical (dynamic) and stative verbs
Lexical or dynamic verbs tell of an action (to hit, to call, to sing); stative verbs tell of a state… -
Lexis and Semantics
Lexis concerns word choice; semantics concerns meaning. Clearly the two concepts are intimately… -
Modifier / Modification / Pre-modification / Post-modification
Modification describes the grammatical process through which the meaning of a head word within a…
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Glossary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
