Download General linguistic terms you should know

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE - GLOSSARY
The following glossary should be used as a quick reference guide to the
key linguistic and literary terms you are expected to know. Always refer
back to your original notes for a full explanation of how to identify and
use these words in context.
Parts of Speech:
Noun – the name given to a person, place, feeling or thing
Proper nouns have capital letters
Abstract nouns are concepts and ideas – things you cannot see or touch
e.g. fear, wisdom etc.
Pronouns – words used in place of nouns e.g. he, she, we, they, it.
Adjective – any word or words used to describe a noun
Adverb – a word used to tell us more about a verb. NB – adverbs often
end in the letters ‘ly’ e.g. slowly, hurriedly, craftily etc. Adverbs can also
be indicators of time and place e.g. today, yesterday, here, now.
Verb – a word that indicates doing or being e.g. eating, living or one that
describes states e.g. seems
Conjunction – the name for any word used to join different parts of a
sentence together e.g. and, but, so, because, or etc.
Preposition – a word that relates one word to another e.g. in, on, under,
with etc.
Modal auxiliary – one of a number of verbs designed to help make
clearer the main or lexical verb e.g. might, could, should, etc.
Sentence Types:
Interrogative – a question
Imperative – a command
Declarative – a statement
Exclamatory – a word or sentence ending in an exclamation mark.
General linguistic terms you should know:
Graphology – the term used to describe the overall layout of a text and
the marks on the page
Phonology – the name given to the sounds in spoken language
Lexis – vocabulary
Semantics – meanings
Semantic field – a group of words taken from one topic or subject that
have related meanings
Modifier – a word that provides more meaning about its head word, which
can be a noun, adjective or verb. Pre-modifiers are placed before the
head word, post-modifiers are placed after.
Connotations – the associations that a word has
Pragmatics – looking at what a speaker means rather than what s/he says
Genre – the type or category of text
Context – any of a number of factors affecting the production and
reception of a text. Contextual variations include: age, gender, race,
class, social status, historical period etc.
Non-Fluency features – those features characteristic of spoken
language but not usually found in written texts e.g. repetition, false
starts, hesitations, self-correction, incomplete utterances etc.
Accent – the way in which we pronounce our words
Dialect – regional variations in spelling and sentence grammar
Register – the degree of formality or informality of speech or writing