AS English Language Glossary

·      Abstract Noun - A noun that refers to a concept, state, quality or emotion

·      Accent - The distinctive way a speaker from a particular region pronounces words

·      Acronym - A new word made from the initial letters of all the words in a name or phrase, e.g. NASA

·      Active Voice - When the subject of the sentence is directly performing the verb e.g. Steve burst the bubble

·      Adjective - A class of words that can appear before (attributive) or after (predicative)

·      Adverb - A class of words that modify verbs according to time, place, manner, frequency, duration or degree. They can sometimes modify nouns and adjectives too

·      Affixation - The process of adding an affix before (prefix) or after (suffix) an existing word to change either its meaning or grammatical function

·      Alliteration - When two or more words close to each other in a phrase begin with the same sound, e.g. down in the dumps

·      Anaphoric Reference - When a word, usually a pronoun, refers back to something or someone that has already been mentioned, e.g. Barry can't come because he's ill

·      Antithesis - Type of rhetorical language where contrasting ideas or words are balanced against each other, e.g. it's just too good from Green, and just too bad for the goalkeeper

·      Antonyms - Words with opposite meanings

·      Article - A kind of determiner that shows if the reference to a noun is general (a / an) or specific (the)

·      Aspect - A verb's aspect shows whether the action it refers to is already completed, or if it is still taking place

·      Assimilation - When sounds next to each other in a spoken word or sentence are pronounced in a different way to normal to make them easier to say

·      Assonance - When the main vowel sounds of two or more words that are close together in a text are similar or the same, e.g. low smoky holes

·      Audience - A person or group of people that read, view or listen to a text. A writer or speaker can aim to reach a certain type of audience by using specific literary techniques and language choices

·      Auxiliary Verb - Verbs used before the main verb in a sentence to give extra information about it, e.g. I have seen him

·      Babbling - The production of short vowel / consonant combinations by a baby acquiring language

·      Back Channeling - A kind of feedback in spoken language that supports the person speaking and shows that what is being said is understood

·      Behaviorism - A theory of language acquisition that suggests children learn language through a process of imitation and reinforcement

·      Blending - When parts of two words are combined to make a new one, e.g. netizen

·      Buzz Words - Words


No comments have yet been made