Glossary - C

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,…
Convergence / Divergence / Accommodation Theory
In his theory of ‘accommodation’ regarding conversation, Giles suggested that conversational…
Co-operative Principle
Conversation is a social interaction and co-operative and thus aims to be truthful, clear, brief and…
Covert prestige
The use of non-standard language forms (accent or dialect) in situations where such a form will gain…

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