Glossary of language terms
Turn taking = a turn is a time in which a single participant speaks, with minimal overlap
between the speakers
Informal = language which is seen as more familiar and friendly than Standard English
such as clichés and slang e.g. hiya mate, what’s up, get some grub
Formal = language which is seen as more serious than Standard English e.g. Good
afternoon Sir, I am going to go to the ladies room
Connotation = the implied meaning or association of a word e.g. café or bistro – different
connotations? What about ‘ask’ or ‘interrogate’?
Denotation = the actual meaning of a word e.g. interrogate; the denotation is to ask, but it
has an aggressive and negative connotation
Pragmatics = the meaning that is communicated rather than the surface meaning, so if a
teacher says ‘it’s too noisy’, she may mean for the class to be quiet
Fillers = items that do not carry meaning, but which are inserted to allow the speaker time
to think or to pause e.g. um, err, ah, well
Accent = the ways in which words are pronounced/ how words sound, which can vary
according to the region or social class
Received Pronunciation = aka The Queen’s English – an accent that is seen as
prestigious from the South West/ Oxford/ Cambridge region
Dialect = the distinctive grammar and vocabulary which is associated to a particular
region
Standard English = language that is understood by all and has a status of representing the
‘correct’ or standard way to speak e.g. hello, toilet, goodbye, woman, man, food
Register = the formality of language whether it is formal or informal, quite informal, quite
formal, taboo language, very formal etc
Idiolect = an individual’s distinctive style of speaking, which could include both accent
and dialect
Sociolect = shared language that belongs to a particular group of people e.g. teachers,
hockey players, politicians
Jargon = words and phrases that are specific to certain jobs or contexts e.g. in teaching,
jargon is used such as curriculum, APP, AFL, pupil voice, assessment
Transcript = the way in which speech is written down so that it can be closely studied
More Advanced Glossary
Clipping – words that are shortened e.g. pub
Blend – parts of two words blended together e.g. brunch, chillax
Loan words – words that are from another language e.g. pizza, café
Eponyms – words that are formed from people’s names e.g. dyson, hoover, biro
Compounds – two words joined, usually through a hyphen e.g. submarine, co-operate
Acronyms – letters that stand for different words e.g. OMG, NATO
Elision – taking out letters or parts of words to blend sounds e.g. txt, wanna
Overt prestige – people who openly or who are aware of changing their speech e.g.
accent and/ or words to appear more prestigious
Covert prestige – people who are unaware of changing their speech e.g. accent and/ or
words to appear more prestigious
Transcript Conventions
(0.0)
lapsed time in tenths of a second e.g. (0.5), (2.0)
(.)
a gap of approximately one tenth of a second
[
point of overlapped speech beginning
]
point at which overlapped speech ends
word
underlined word indicates the speaker emphasises the word
WORD capitals indicates shouting by the speaker