🕰️Words Gone Wild
The creation of an entirely new word is known by this term.
What is a neologism?
The stage where a child produces sounds such as “ba-ba-ba” before producing recognizable words.
What is the babbling stage?
“The classroom was a zoo” uses this figurative language technique.
What is a metaphor?
The intended reader or listener of a text.
What is the audience?
The study of meaning in language.
What is semantics?
“Brunch,” created from breakfast and lunch, demonstrates this word-formation process.
What is blending?
A single word such as “milk” being used by a child to communicate an entire idea.
What is the holophrastic stage?
“Absolutely amazing” demonstrates this type of strongly positive vocabulary.
What is evaluative language?
To persuade, inform, entertain, or advise are examples of this.
What is purpose?
The vocabulary choices used within a text.
What is lexis?
Turning a word like Google from a proper noun into a verb demonstrates this process.
What is conversion?
An utterance like “Mommy go” or “want cookie” is associated with this stage of language development.
What is the two-word stage?
“Well,” “so,” and “anyway” can function as these organizational features of spoken discourse.
What are discourse markers?
The level of formality a speaker or writer uses based on the situation.
What is register?
The study of sounds in spoken language.
What is phonology?
When a word develops a more negative meaning over time, this semantic change has occurred.
What is pejoration?
This theorist argued that children possess an innate capacity for acquiring language.
Who is Noam Chomsky?
Words such as “maybe,” “perhaps,” and “possibly” reduce the certainty of a statement through this technique.
What is hedging?
A speaker changing their language depending on whom they are speaking to demonstrates this concept.
What is accommodation?
The structure and formation of words.
What is morphology?
When a word's meaning becomes broader and applies to more things than it originally did.
What is semantic broadening?
When a child calls every four-legged animal a “dog,” they are demonstrating this linguistic phenomenon.
What is overextension?
“Could you possibly close the window?” demonstrates these linguistic features used to soften an interaction.
What are politeness strategies?
The surrounding social circumstances that help explain why particular language choices have been made.
What is context?
The study of how context influences the meaning of language.
What is pragmatics?