Lexicon of Linguistic Terms
- AAVE
- African American Vernacular
English
- Accent
- pronunciation feature of a dialect
- BEV
- Black English Vernacular
- Bidialectal
- possessing the ability to speak two different dialects
- Bilingual
- possessing the ability to communicate in two languages
- Creole
- a language derived from other existing languages that
becomes the primary language of the people who speak it
- Creole Hypothesis
- the idea that modern AAVE derived from a hybrid of English
and West African languages
- Decreolization
- change in a creole that makes it more like the
standard language of an area
- Dialect
- a language variety used by and characteristic of a
particular social group; for example dialects can be
characteristic of regional, ethnic, socioeconomic,
or gender groups
- Dialect Hypothesis
- the idea that modern AAVE is derived from incorrectly
learned English
- Ebonics
- another term for AAVE. Although it is a current "buzz-word"
in the media, the term is more than 20 years old. Most Linguists
prefer AAVE or Black English.
- Grammar
- 1) the study of sentence structure, esp. with refrence
to syntax and morphology 2) systematic account of the
rules governing language in general
- Idiolect (ideolect)
- the linguistic system of an individual speaker
- Jargon
- 1) the technical language of a special field 2) the
obscure use of a specialized language
- Morphology
- study of word structure, esp. in terms of morphemes
- Phonetics
- science of speech sounds, esp. of their production,
transmission and reception
- Phonology
- study of sound systems of a language
- Pidgin
- a language composed of two or more languages created for
the purpose of communication, usually around trade centers,
between people who do not speak a common language. It is
never a person's primary language
- Pragmatics
- study of factors influencing a person's choice of language
- SE
- Standard English
- Semantics
- study of linguistic meaning
- Slang
- 1) informal, nonstandard vocabulary 2) the jargon
of a special group
- Standard English
- the "text book" language spoken by many Americans
that is sometimes referred to as "the Language of
Wider Communication"
- Syntax
- 1) study of word combinations 2) study of sentence
structure (including word structure)
- Variety
- any language,dialect, or register