Glossary - I

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…
Ideational
A part of linguist M.A.K. Halliday’s (1985) theory that labelled a kind of utterance used to…
Ideolect
A language ‘variety’ specific to the individual. We each use certain stylistic aspects that…
Implicature
See Grice’s co-operative principle.
Implicit imperative
A verb used in the imperative (‘command’) mood but which has been made more polite by some…
Initiation
An opening to a conversation – an initiating move. The floor being taken in this way can often…

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