English Language Chapters 1-3

The study of the structure of words.

The study of the form, meaning, and behaviour of words.

The study of how words are arranged into phrases, clauses and sentences.

The study of the meaning of words

The study of how we make speech sounds and how we classify them.

The study of how speech sounds are organised and the patterns that speech sounds form within a language.

The study of language in a social context and how we use meaning as a part of conversation, rather than just words and their definitions.

The study of how language is used within a given context and how context contributes to meaning.

The sharing of information - ideas, facts, and opinions. The information may or may not be true, but presents it as factual.

Create and maintain social connections between the addresser and the addressee. They tend to be somewhat meaningless outside a social context, and the focus is on the contact - the way the message is delivered and received

Allows users to express emotions and desires. The purest demonstration of the emotive function is an interjection.

Typically involves directions, questions and commands. Messages with a conative function aim to cause the addressee to react in some way.

Used to talk about language itself. This could be to clarify something, clear up ambiguity, or to describe linguistical terms.

Focuses on the formation of the message itself and the beauty or wit of the text’s composition, rather than on the addresser or addressee.

Register describes the way in which an addresser intentionally alters their language to better suit the situation, changing things like their vocabulary and level of formality. These different aspects can also be merged to achieve a specific communicative purpose.

Tenor refers to the relationship between individuals communicating with each other. This relationship could vary depending on the professional roles of the speakers, the status difference between them, and their social distance. Social distance refers to the level of intimacy or remoteness between the speakers, and status refers to their social standing/power/prestige.

The intended set of listeners or readers. Certain demographics can be targeted by use of specific language suited to that demographic.

Cultural context relates to the attitudes, values and beliefs of the author and the audience.

Situational context refers to everything that works to shape the language that is being used. This includes the field, tenor, language mode, setting, and text type.

The field of a text describes the subject matter under discussion. It’s closely linked to semantic domain, and it can be useful to consider when discussing register.

Whether the text is written or spoken. Written texts have been viewed as being more formal, often using standard form of language with conventional spelling, punctuation and grammar, while spoken texts have been viewed as having more casual language, containing long and loosely connected ideas.

Setting relates to the surroundings in which the text occurs, including both location and time. The setting of a text can directly affect register, tenor, field, and language mode.

The form that the writing takes, e.g. text message, article, speech. Authors will often change their language style and register to conform to a particular text type.

Authorial intent is what the author aims to do or achieve with a text. It influences the language that is used in a text as well as its level of preparedness.

The smallest meaningful unit of language.

Stand alone and are words in their own right.

Cannot stand independently, must be attached to a free morpheme.

Do not change the meaning or word class, only provide additional grammatical information such as plurality, possession or sense.

Changes the meaning of words, creates new words and sometimes changes the word class.

The semantic base or centre of a word, contains its primary meaning. May be free or bound.

Affixes that are attached to the beginnings of words.

Affixes that are attached to the ends of words. All inflectional affixes are suffixes.

Affixes that are added in the middle of a word.

The name of a person, place or thing. (e.g. Daniel, London, dog)

Used in place of a noun or noun phrase to avoud repetition. (e.g. I, you, we, this)

Replaces a noun or noun phrase in the subject position.

Replaces a noun or noun phrase in the object position.

Contains the suffix ‘-self’ or ‘-selves’. (e.g. himself, herself, themselves)

Indicates possession or ownership. (e.g. his, mine, theirs, its)

Used to introduce a question. (e.g. who, what, why)

Helps to introduce a relative clause within a larger sentence by relating that clause to the noun that it modifies. (e.g. the train that left the station.)

Refers to a particular person, place, or thing. (e.g. that, this)

Shows an action or state of being. (e.g. go, speak, like, writes, running)

The most basic form of verbs. Simply shows an action or state of being.

A verb ending in ‘-ing’, ‘-ed/-d’, ‘-en/-n’ or ‘-t’. Participles may function as adjectives, describing or modifying nouns.

Base form of a verb, with ‘to __’. Usually functions as a noun, or an adjective or adverb.

Usually used to construct grammatical tenses. There are three primary auxiliary verbs in English, ‘be’, ‘have’, and ‘do’. These verbs, when coupled with a main verb, show aspects of tense, time, or voice.

Expresses the possibility, ability, intent, obligation, or necessity of an action occurring. They modify verbs to change their mode. There is a fixed set of modals in English: ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘will’, ‘would’, ‘shall’, ‘should’, ‘may’, ‘might’, and ‘must’.

Describes, modifies, or gives more information about a noun. (e.g. big, beautiful, red)

Help to describe, modify or qualify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and whole phrases or sentences. Most commonly, they are formed by adding ‘-ly’ to the end of an adjective, and they express elements such as time, place and manner; cause and effect; degree; certainty; frequency; and comment. (e.g. only, never, slowly, here)

Expresses a relationship between a noun and another word, phrase, or element in a sentence. (e.g. with, during, against, under, apart of, between)

Link words, phrases, clauses and sentences together. They allow us to form complex ideas and sentences, and demonstrate relationships between words or phrases. (e.g. and, but, since)

A conjunction that helps to place two or more elements side by side in a way that demonstrates equality and equivalence. There are seven coordinators in English: ‘for’, ‘and’, ‘nor’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘yet’, and ‘so’ (FANBOYS).

A conjunction that links clauses and sentences to each other in a way that demonstrates a parent-child relationship. The ‘parent’ sentence is referred to as the independent clause, and the ‘child’ sentence is referred to as the dependent clause. (e.g. because, since, as, though, while)

Words that are placed in front of a noun, and helps to clarify the noun, specify quantity, or indicate possession.

Provides information about the specificity or definiteness of the noun. (e.g. the, an, a)

Helps to specify the quantity of a noun, using a scale of reference. (e.g. none, few, all, several, most, some)

Indicates specific nouns in a sentence. Helps provide information about the noun in relation to the speaker and listener. (e.g. this, that, these, those)

Used before a noun to express ownership or possession. (e.g. my, your, hers, its, our, their)

A word or phrase that expresses feelings, or sometimes requests/demands. They tend to be highly expressive and emotive, adding colour to language. They also include greetings as part of conversational exchanges. (e.g. oh no!, wow!, hi, bye)

A single word or group of words that are related to each other and, together, form a structural unit that conveys meaning.

Contains a noun as the head of the phrase, and modifiers to that noun. (e.g. ‘the happy mouse’, ‘the mouse in my pocket’, ‘the mouse who was very happy’)

Consists of a main verb and any modifiers. These modifiers include primary and modal auxiliaries, infinitives, adverbs, noun phrases acting as objects, and complements. (e.g. ‘I ate the cake’, ‘he might have seen a dog’)

Consists of a preposition and a noun phrase that is considered to be its object, and they modify nouns, verbs or adjectives within a larger phrase, clause to sentence. (e.g. ‘the Tardis is bigger on the inside’)

Consists of an adjective as its head and may include modifiers to that adjective. Usually the modifiers are adverbs or other adjectives. This type of phrase describes a noun in a sentence. (e.g. ‘I wore a bright pink fluffy jumper’)

Consists of an adverb as its head and may include modifiers to that adverb. This phrase can a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Adverb phrases help to describe elements the same way adverbs do. (e.g. ‘I ate the cake very quickly’)

A set of phrases that must, as a minimum, contain both a subject and a predicate. This means that there needs to be a main verb (predicator) and a noun phrase (subject) that acts upon that verb. Clauses can also contain objects, complements, and adverbials. They may form a complete sentence (independent clause) or part of a sentence (dependent clause).

The main actor that plays a role with the verb of a clause. Subjects are typically noun phrases. (e.g. she, the pilot, the happy owner)

Consists of the main verb of a clause and all of its modifiers. It contains the whole of the clause that comes after the subject. (e.g. ‘the cake was baked last Tuesday’, ‘she gave a cookie to the first person she saw on her way to school’)

The object of the clause provides further information about the subject and the verb. While clauses will always have a subject and a predicate, they will not always have an object.

(e.g. ‘I ate the cake‘, ‘Dylan sold his laptop’)

Sometimes, more than one object appears. When this occurs, we categorise them as direct or indirect.

The noun phrase that is directly affected by the verb. (e.g. ‘Josh cooked dinner for his son’, ‘Paul read his daughter a story’)

The noun phrase that in indirectly affected by the verb. (e.g. ‘Josh cooked dinner for his son’, ‘Paul read his daughter a story’)

A word or set of words that complete the meaning of a subject or a predicate. They are essential to understanding; if the complement is removed, the sentence will no longer make sense. Complements can complete a subject or the object. (e.g. ‘The pizza felt hot.’ - subject complement, ‘The comment made everyone feel awkward.’ - object complement)

Complements come directly after a copula verb, which are a special type of verb that only appear in sentences that require complements, such as ‘be’, ‘seem’, and ‘feel’.

Provides extra information about a verb. They often say where, when, how, or how often something occurs. Unlike complements, adverbs provide optional information, and can be removed without affecting the overall comprehensibility of the clause. (e.g. ‘the cat was purring on my lap’, ‘she performed poorly’, ‘we are working harder’, ‘stress levels increase most often before a big life event.’)

Conveys thoughts, ideas, and statements of fact. They must contain at least one subject and one predicate.

A statement of fact. While the statement may or may not be true, the sentence’s framing implies that it is. (e.g. ‘It’s raining outside‘, ‘the sun will not rise tomorrow’)

Framed in the form of a question, ending with a question mark. Can be rhetorical or genuine. (e.g. ‘are you sure?’, ‘where are you going?’)

Act as commands, instructions or requests. Most of the time, due to the way they are framed, the subject is not stated, as it’s likely to be the addressee, it’s implied, or it’s understood within the context. (e.g. ‘go outside’, ‘cut the pizza into quarters’)

Expresses emotions and adds emphasis. Will often end with an exclamation mark. (e.g. ‘what big eyes you have!’, ‘wow, look at him go!’)

Contains a single clause that consists of a subject and a predicate. The clause contains all of the information required to convey meaning. (e.g. ‘I ate the pie’, ‘he cried’)

Consists of two or more independent clauses that are joined together using a coordinator, therefore they are equal/equivalent. (e.g. ‘I ate the pie and she ate the cake’, ‘he cried and she laughed’)

Consists of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses, joined to the independent clause using a subordinator. (e.g. ‘I ate the pie after she ate the cake’, ‘He cried because she laughed’)

A combination of compound and complex sentences. They contain at least two independent clauses that have been joined by a coordinator, and at least one dependent clause that has been joined by a subordinator. (e.g. 'Ben ate the croissant and I ate the pie after she ate the cake’, ‘He cried because she laughed and I did to’)

Incomplete sentences that are missing either the subject or the predicate. However, the fragment still makes sense within the text as a whole. (e.g. ‘I can’t even’, ‘How are you? not well.’)

Contains a group or range of words that have related meanings. We often use words from the same semantic domain to aid comprehension; when words are lexically related, they are more easily and quickly understood. Semantic domain is closely linked to field.

The elements of speech that exist outside single sounds such as vowels or consonants; it is the study of the acoustic elements of our voices that affect whole sequences of syllables.

The relative height, ranging between high and low, of auditory sound. The pitch of our voice can change naturally, and on purpose.

• high pitch - ↑(text)↑

• low pitch - ↓(text)↓

• rising pitch - /

• falling pitch - \

Relates to the patterns of pitch variation across phrases, clauses, and sentences, indicating their nature (question, statement, etc.)

• continuing intonation - ,

• final intonation - .

• rising/questioning intonation - ?

• falling intonation - \

The intensity that is placed upon a syllable/word within a phrase, clause or sentence. The speaker may increase the length, pitch or volume to create emphasis. Depending on where the stress is in the sentence, the meaning can change.

• stress - word

The speed of which something is delivered. It is often linked to the communication of emotion or intent.

• fast tempo/allegro - <A (text) A>

• slow tempo/lento - <L (text) L>

The relative increase, decrease or maintained level of decibels across a spoken text.

• very loud/fortissimo - <FF (text) FF>

• loud/forte - <F (text) F>

• soft/piano - <P (text) P>

• very soft/pianissimo - <PP (text) PP>

• increasingly louder/crescendo - <CRE (text) CRE>

• increasingly softer/diminuendo - <DIM (text) DIM>

Features of speech that help to distinguish it from writing, but are hard to transcribe, even using the IPA. Vocal effects such as coughs, laughter, and whispering can add meaning to a conversation, as well as non-verbal communication such as body language, gaze and gesture.

The different sounds the human voice can make and how they can be combined to make limitless meaning.

That the potential number of different utterances is infinite.

There is no necessary connection between words and what they mean, but although language is arbitrary, it is also rule-driven.

People are not limited to talking only about things that are happening then and there.

We use language to talk and think about language.

We learn to use language through interaction with other people, and the language we acquire reflects the cultural context we were born into.