Key Concepts In Linguistics

Communication:

The activity or processes of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information.

Language:

The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Linguistics:

The scientific study of language or of particular language.

Applied Linguistic:

The scientific study of language as it relates to practical problems, in areas such as teaching and dealing with speech problems.

Phonetics:

The study of speech sounds and how they are produced.

Phonology:

The study of the speech sounds of a particular language.

Phonemes:

Any of the set of smallest units of speech in a language that distinguish one word from another. In English, the /s/ is sip and /z/ in zip represent two different phonemes.

Allophone:

Any of the various phonetic realizations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated /p/ (as in pin) and unaspirated  /p/ (as in spin) are allophones of /p/.

Elision:

The omission of a sound segment which would be present in the deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation is technically described as elision.

Assimilation:

When two phonemes occur in sequence and some aspect of one phoneme is taken or copied by the other, the process is known as assimilation.

Alliteration:

The repetition of consonant sounds especially at the beginning of words is called alliteration.

Assonance:

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables is called assonance.

Denotation:

Denotation refers to literal or the dictionary meaning of a word.

Acquisition:

The gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations with others who know the language. It is an unconscious process.

Learning:

The acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience, or being taught. It is a conscious process.

Performance:

Performance is actual use of language in concrete situations.

Competence:

Competence is speaker's or hearer's knowledge of his language. It is an unconscious process.

Aphasia:

A language disorder resulting from brain damage is called aphasia, and this sort of brain damage almost always occurs in the left side of the brain (the left hemisphere).

Sociolinguistics:

 The study of the relationship between language and society.

Formal speech style:

When we pay more careful attention to how we are speaking.

Informal speech style:

When we pay less attention to how we are speaking.

Slang:

Slang or colloquial speech is more typical words or phrases that are used among younger speakers and other groups who are outside established higher-status groups.

Pidgin:

1) As a contact language, pidgin would have no native speakers.
2) A pidgin is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contacts, but who did not know each other's language.

Creole:

When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes the first language of social community, it is described as a Creole.

Standard Language:

Standard English (SE) is any form of the English language that is accepted as a national norm in a particular English-speaking country.

Non-standard Language: 

Not conforming in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc.,to the usage characteristics of and considered acceptable by most educated native speakers; lacking in social prestige or regionally or socially limited in use.

Dialect:

The form of a language that is spoken in one area with grammar, words and pronunciation that may be different from other form of the language.

 The vernacular:

The vernacular is the general expression for a kind of social dialect, typically spoken by a lower status group, which is treated as "non-standard' because of marked differences from the standard language.

Accent:

A way of pronouncing the words of a language that shows which country,area or social class a person comes from.

Diglossia:

In diglossia, there is a low variety, acquired locally and used for everyday affairs and a high or special variety, learned in school and used for important matters.

Register:

A register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in specific context, which may be identified as situational (e.g. in church), occupational (e.g. among lawyers) or topical (e.g. talking about language).

Jargon:

1) Jargon is a special technical vocabulary associated with a specific area of work or interest.
2) In social terms, jargon helps to create and maintain connections among those who see themselves as "insiders" in some way and to exclude "outsiders".

Syntax:

The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.

Phrase:

A group of related words that lacks either a subject or predicate or both is called a phrase.

Prescriptive Approach:

Prescriptive approach was taken by a number of influential grammarians, mainly in eighteen-century England, set out rules for the "proper" use of English

Descriptive Approach:

The descriptive approach is used to describe structures of the language as it as was used , not according to some view of how it should be used.

Tree-Diagrams 

One of the most common ways to create a visual representation of syntactic structure is tree-diagram.

Morphology

The study of forms

Morpheme:

 A minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function is known as morpheme.

Free-morphemes:

 The free morphemes are those forms that can stand  by themselves as single words. e.g. love,open, etc

Bound-Morphemes:

 The bound morphemes are those forms that cannot stand by alone as single words and are typically attached to another form or affixes.

Lexical_morphemes:

 The free morphemes that carry the "content" the of the messages to be conveyed are called lexical morphemes.

Inflectional-morphemes:

 A morpheme that cannot change the grammatical category of a word.

Derivational-morphemes:

A morpheme that can change the grammatical category of a word.

Stems:

When free morphemes are attached with bound morphemes, the basic word forms are technically known as stem.