DELTA Module One

redundancy

Approximately 50% of all items in a spoken English utterance are not absolutely vital in order to achieve communication.

phatic language

Language whose purpose is to smooth the conduct of social relations. It has an interpersonal function.

Realia

Real objects used as teaching aids to make learning more natural. Includes items such as tickets, pictures, clothes, etc.

modality

The lexical and grammatical ways used by speakers to express their attitude to what they're saying. For example: Maybe Sarah is a chef. (lexical _______: adverb)

Lexicon

The vocabulary of a language.

cotext

the linguistic environment in which a word is used within a text

affixation

words formed by the combination of bound affixes and free morphemes

word family

A group of words which share the same root but have different affixes, as in care, careful, careless, carefree, uncaring, carer.

bilabial plosive

A non-continuant consonant articulation where the lips are pressed together./p/ /b/

Non-gradable adjectives

Adjectives that cannot be expressed in degrees and so cannot be graded.

hyponym

Describes the relationship between words represented by the formula X is a type of Y. eg banana to fruit.

TALO

Text as a Linguistic Object

TASP

Text as a Stimulus for Production

Discourse management

The ability to produce extended written and spoken texts, for example conversations.

Pragmatic competence

The ability to use language in a contextually appropriate fashion.

Apodosis

The main clause in a conditional sentence.

Utterance meaning

The meaning of something that is said, including the words used, the speaker's tone and posture and other contextual considerations.

phonology

The study of a sound system of a particular language, which describes the abstract system that allows the speakers of a language to distinguish meaning from mere verbal noise.

Universal Grammar

The theory which claims that every speaker of a language knows a set of principles which apply to all languages and also a set of parameters that can vary from one language to another, but only within set limits.

cohesion

The use of grammatical and lexical means to achieve connected text, either spoken or written.

Principled eclecticism

The use of various teaching styles in a discriminating manner as required by learner needs and styles, favoured by contemporary course book writers.

polysemy

This refers to the case where one word has more than one related meaning.

Achievement test

This test evaluates a learner's understanding of a specific course or study programme.

Tautology

When two synonyms are placed consecutively or very close together for effect. eg. the reason why

Utterance

a complete unit of talk, bounded by the speaker's silence.

superordinate

a term for an 'umbrella' item of lexis which subsumes a range of more specific items, e.g. fruit in relation to apple, orange, pear

content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest

denotation

the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression

Dictogloss

A classroom dictation activity where learners are required to reconstruct a short text by listening and noting down key words, which are then used as a base for reconstruction.

Action research

A development tool for a teacher that involves observing or gathering other data about a class through interviews, case studies, and questionnaires.

Test-Teach-Test

A lesson design in which learners first perform a task, which the teacher uses to assess learners' specific needs. They are then taught whatever they need in order to re-do the task more effectively.

direct method

A method in which grammar rules are not taught / only the target language is used in the classroom / translation is avoided at all costs. There is no tolerance of error (eg Berlitz)

Dipthong

A one-syllable sound that is made up of two vowels. In Received Pronunciation English there are eight of these.

allophone

A phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language. The difference in pronunciation does not affect meaning. The different pronunciations of the same phoneme are determined by position in a word. eg /p/ in /pin/ and /spin/

Fossilisation

A process through which an error has become a permanent feature of a learner's language use and is believed to be resistant to correction.

Framing

A questioning technique which involves asking a question, pausing and then calling on a student to answer. In this way, students maintain maximum attention.

Adjacency pair

A sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers. The first utterance leads to a set of expectations about the response.

Diglossia

A situation where a language that has two forms, one a 'higher' and more prestigious form used by educated speakers in formal situations, and the other a 'lower', vernacular form used more commonly.

notional syllabus

A syllabus that is organised according to general areas of meaning that are used in most grammars, such as frequency, location, duration and possibility.

Structural syllabus

A syllabus which is based around a series of grammatical structures, which are sequenced according to assumed level of complexity.

Diagnostic test

A test that helps the teacher and learners identify problems that they have with the language.

subjective test

A test which requires the markers to evaluate and not just to follow a mark sheet.

Idiolect

A variety of a language unique to an individual. It is manifested by patterns of vocabulary or idiom selection (the individual's lexicon), grammar, or pronunciations that are unique to the individual.

Anaphoric reference

A word or phrase that refers back to another word or phrase which was used earlier in a written or spoken text.

Polyseme

A word or phrase with different, but related senses. eg. a person's foot, and the foot of the stairs (both relate to the base of something).

Content word

A word which carries meaning when used alone and refers to a thing, state, quality or action.

process writing

An approach to writing where learners are encouraged to brainstorm, plan, draft, re-draft, review, and "publish" their written work.

Interlanguage

An emerging linguistic system that has been developed by a learner of a second language (or L2) who has not become fully proficient yet but is approximating the target language.

display questions

Asked by teachers in order to find out what a learner can say in the target language.

Formative assessment

Assessment which checks students' progress during a course. Only tests what has been taught on the course. eg Progress test

modal auxiliary verb

Auxiliary verb which expresses the attitude / modifies the meaning of the main verb in a sentence. They do not conjugate / inflect like 'normal' verbs. eg might/can

phoneme

One of the distinctive sounds of a particular language. It cannot be replaced with another sound without causing a change in meaning.

Code mixing

Switching between two or more language within sentences and phrases - often used to show belonging and solidarity within bilingual or multilingual communities.

TAVI

Text as a Vehicle for Information

Connotation

The attitudinal meaning of a word, which may be culturally determined, such as whether it carries a positive or negative meaning.

Register

The language appropriate to particular types of situations.

Metalanguage

The language used to describe, analyse or explain another language including, for example, grammatical terms and rules of syntax.

sentence

The largest purely grammatical unit in a language.

ellipsis

The leaving out of elements of a sentence because they are either unnecessary or because their sense can be worked out from the immediate context.

cognitive deficit

The limitations on processing information in a second language compared to in L1.

interference

The negative influence of one language whilst learning another language.

Order of acquisition

The order in which grammar/language items are thought to be acquired.

Nuclear stress

The place in an utterance where the major pitch movement begins, marking the focal point of the message.

parataxis

The placing of clauses or phrases one after another, without words to indicate coordination or subordination, as in Tell me, how are you

Backwash

The positive or negative impact of a test on classroom teaching.

priming

The process by which a word gathers particular associations through repeated encounters.

Ephenthesis

The process of adding vowels to make possible syllables out of impossible consonant sequences, for example /helep/ for help.

acquisition

The process of picking up a language without formal instruction and without a sustained conscious effort to learn the language.

induction

The process of working out rules on the basis of examples. Also called discovery learning.

Substitution

The replacing of a noun phrase or a clause by a single word in order to avoid repetition or to make a text more cohesive.

prosodic features

The stress, rhythm, and intonation along with tempo, loudness and voice quality of speech.

consequential validity

The way in which the implementation of a test can affect the interpretability of test scores; the practical consequences of the introduction of a test

deixis

The way language points to spatial, temporal and personal features of the context. For example, I have been here three weeks now, the referents of I, here and now cannot be identified without knowing the context.

silent period

This refers to the fact that children learning their first language go through a lengthy period simply listening before they say their first words.

Collocation

Two or more words that co-occur in a language more often that would be expected by chance.

minimal pair

Two words that are identical except for one sound, revealing which phonemes are semantically significant

face validity

Used to say that a test is acceptable to a learner, in that it meets the learner's expectations of what a test should be like.

uptake

What learners report to have learnt from a language lesson. Typically this does not match what the teacher intended to teach.

Phatic speech

Words or phrases that have a social function and are not meant literally. For example, "You're welcome" after hearing thank you doesn't literally mean the hearer is welcome.

The Silent Way

a METHOD of foreign-language teaching developed by Gattegno which makes use of gesture, mime, visual aids, wall charts, and in particular Cuisinière rods (wooden sticks of different lengths and colours) that the teacher uses to help the students to talk. The method takes its name from the relative silence of the teacher using these techniques.( Longmans dictionary of language teaching & applied linguistics p486)

coordinating conjunction

a conjunction (like 'and' or 'or') that connects two identically constructed grammatical constituents

tenses

a grammatical category which is used to indicate the time at which an action happens by changing the form of the finite verb. English has two: past and present, e.g. he walked and he walks

Direct Test

a test employing tasks which replicate real-life activities, e.g. role-playing a job interview, writing a letter of complaint, or reading and completing an application form

intransitive verb

a verb (or verb construction) that does not take an object

transitive verb

a verb (or verb construction) that requires an object in order to be grammatical

copula verb

a verb that connects the subject to the complement. They are sometimes called linking verbs.

meronym

a whole-part relationship where X is a part of Y. eg wheel to car.

phrasal verb

an English verb followed by one or more particles where the combination behaves as a syntactic and semantic unit

idiom

an expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up. eg. to make ends meet

phone

an unanalyzed sound of a language. It is the smallest identifiable unit found in a stream of speech that is able to be transcribed with an IPA symbol.

agglutinative language

language in which each affix carries one item of grammatical meaning

parallelism

phrases or sentences of a similar construction/meaning placed side by side, balancing each other, to aid grammatical cohesion

construct validity

the degree to which a measure actually assesses what it claims to assess

conversion

the process by which an item becomes a different word class. eg noun to verb (water/to water)

Parsing

the process of analyzing a text to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given formal grammar. Also known as syntactic analysis.

suprasegmental

the sound of the whole utterance. Important for receptive fluency. What happens at word boundaries.

discrete item test

used when we want to know if a learner can recognise or produce a specific language item

homonym

words which are written and pronounced the same way, but have different meanings. eg Would you _like_ a drink? Who do you look _like_?

homophone

words which are written differently, and have different meanings, but pronounced the same. eg sew, so

homograph

words written the same way, but pronounced differently, and have different meanings. eg windy day, windy road.