English glossary 7

Language acquisition – The process of learning a first language as a child, or learning a second or foreign language.

Liaison – A process that changes the pronunciation of words at boundary points.

Linguistic determinism – Part of the Sapir-Whorf theory that language determines the way you think.

Lingua Franca – The main language used in an area in which speakers of more than one language live.

Loan word – A word borrowed from another language.

Lyric – A term used to describe a fairly short poem or song (usually between a dozen and thirty lines) which expresses the feelings and thoughts of an individual speaker in a persona; and subjective fashion.

Meta language – Language used to talk about language.

Monophthong – A simple or pure vowel sound.

Morphology – The study of the structure of words in terms of free and bound morphemes.

Native speaker – A speaker who uses a first language or mother tongue.

Negative politeness strategy – Involves indirectness to avoid intrusion, hedges or questions defer by giving a superior form of address, apologetic.

Orthography – A study of spellings and the ways in which letters are used in a language.

Over-generalisation – The process used by children and learners to extend the meaning of a word (dada as a reference to all men). Also called over-extension.

Patriarchal order – A name Dale Spender uses to identify language as embodying male…