Important terminolgy for Spoken language

Stereotype: A set of generalisations (often inaccurate or overly simplistic) about a group that allows others to categorise them and treat them accordingly.

Fillers: are words like ‘umm’, ‘erm’, ‘kind of’. They are used by speakers to ‘fill in’ pauses until they are able to articulate what they wish to say next.

Phatic: Small talk, or utterances used to ‘oil the wheels of conversation’, For example, ‘Nice day!’ said to a stranger at a bus stop.

Transitive: a verb needs a word, or words (called the object) to follow it and complete the explanation. In contrast, an intransitive verb does not need further words to follow it in order for it to make sense. Consider the following sentence, ‘The student read a book’. Note that ‘read’ can be both transitive and intransitive, depending on how it is used.

Prosody: The patterns of stress and intonation in a language.

Glottal stop: A stop consonant articulated by releasing pressure at the glottis; as in the sudden onset of a vowel. For example, ‘bottle’ pronounced without voicing the ‘t’ as in ‘bo’le’.

Deictic: An expression cannot be understood unless the context of the utterance is known. Examples are ‘here’ and ‘there’.

Overlaps: Where two or more speakers speak simultaneously

Non- fluency features: Features which demonstrate that speech is spontaneous rather than planned such as hesitation, repetition, fillers.

Rhetoric: A persuasive variety of language (speech and writing) often used in the public/political arena.

Attributive adjectives: Adjectives placed before the nouns they modify – often used in the language of advertising, for example ‘stronger, fresher, longer-lasting.’ ‘Male’ or ‘lady’ can also be added to titles of professions perpetuating gender stereotypes.

Back channelling: Feedback noises or brief utterances from a listener, showing the speaker that they are listening.

Clipping: A word formed from shortening an existing word. For example, ‘gym’ from ‘gymnasium’.

Complement: The complement can either be one word or a noun phrase. It gives more information about the subject or the object. Complements can be single words or noun phrases. Complements can also be adjectives or adjective phrases.

Colloquial language: Characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation.

Dominance: A theory that explains differences between male and female language use in terms of male power imposing a man-made system on women.

Euphemisms: An inoffensive substitute for a word which is considered offensive.

Face: Sense of personal identity or status that can be saved, lost or threatened by others’ utterances (important in pragmatics, especially politeness theory). Positive and negative face.

Insertion sequence: Where the original conversation is suspended for a short while because of an interruption from another source.

Insertion sequence: Where the original conversation is suspended for a short while because of an interruption from another source.