• Glossary

Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

A

Adverbial

is a word, phrase or clause which adds information to verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.  It relates ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’ or ‘to what degree’, e.g., He ran as fast as he could (how)(clause). BACK | INDEX

Adjectival

is a word, phrase or clause which gives a clearer picture of a noun.  It can define, point out, quantify, give an opinion, state a fact or categorise, e.g., I know the girl in the red cape (fact)(phrase).). BACK | INDEX

Adjectives and adverbs

are single words which can define, point out, quantify, give an opinion, state a fact or categorise a noun, e.g., This is a Californian bungalow (categorising); adverbs are single words which add meaning to a verb, adjective or other adverb, e.g., He came too late (This gives the degree of lateness). BACK | INDEX

Antonyms

are words whose meanings are the opposite of other words e.g., ‘tall’ is an antonym ‘short’; ‘hot’ is an antonym of ‘cold’ BACK | INDEX

B

Binary opposition

is a deliberate introduction by the writer of a design of opposing features, such as good versus evil, happiness versus unhappiness.  These features are linked in with a particular ideology or value system in a culture.  The writer may even be using them to push a certain way of thinking.  BACK | INDEX

C

Clause level grammar

deals with four kinds of clauses: the statement (which gives information): I am tired; the question (which asks for information): Are you tired?; the exclamation (which reacts to information/actions) ‘How tired I am!’; the command (which demands something): ‘Run fast.’  BACK | INDEX

Closure

occurs when any loose ends in a story are tied up and any ambiguities resolved.  Readerly texts will most often give this sense of completion, while writerly texts are more likely to be open-ended. BACK | INDEX

Cohesion

is a writing technique in which the writer is able to link ideas in clauses, sentences and in and between paragraphs using pointing out pronouns, the definite article, replacement of verb/noun groups, repetition, synonyms and antonyms, collocation, word sets and text connectives. BACK | INDEX

Collocation

refers to groups of words which are normally found together in one context, e.g., pond, fish, water, algae, ducks. BACK | INDEX

Command

is an example of clause level grammar in which a demand is made: ‘Eat your breakfast’.BACK | INDEX

Complex sentence

is the opposite to a simple sentence.  It contains not only the main clause but one, two or more subordinate clauses dependent for their meaning on the main clause: e.g., The house which stood on the hill (subordinate clause – an adjectival) was a long distance from the town where we used to live (subordinate clause – an adjectival). BACK | INDEX

Compliant reader

The compliant reader is the ideal reader and accepts a text uncritically. See also: ideal reader; implied reader; resistant reader. BACK | INDEX

Compound sentence

is a sentence in which a certain kind of clause has been compounded with the use of a co-ordinating conjunction, such as ‘and’ and ‘but’ e.g., Buy the groceries and head for home. (‘and ’has been used to link two main ideas). BACK | INDEX

Constructedness (of texts)

Realistic fiction constructs a virtual reality through the use of  conventions such as narrative voice and narrative structure.  Accepting these artifices requires the willing suspension on disbelief on the part of readers.  Metafictive texts (See 4.14) are concerned with revealing the constructedness of realistic texts. BACK | INDEX

Context of culture

refers to the meanings and assumptions that people share in a community. BACK | INDEX

Context of situation

has three parts: the field (what is being spoken about); the tenor (what are the relationships among/between the participants); the mode (what are the circumstances in which the language communication takes place) (e.g. spoken or written language). BACK | INDEX

Critical literacy

aims to uncover meanings, often hidden in a text by identifying ideologies, values and identities contained in the texts and their discourses.  So the reader, reading with a critical consciousness, engages is such activities as deconstruction and consideration of his/her position in relation to the text. BACK | INDEX

Cultural norms

Are culturally determined ways of behaving and acting in particular situations, ways which are considered appropriate.  In Australia, for example, the audience is silent during an opera performance; in Italy people are inclined to  express their reactions quite vocally, even during the singing. BACK | INDEX

D

Deconstruction

takes an analytic approach to texts and seeks to discover the underlying ideology of a work.  Consideration is given to the reasons for the text being constructed the way it is. BACK | INDEX

Defamiliarisation

is a technique used for making the familiar strange in order to heighten the awareness of something. BACK | INDEX

Discourse

is a form of language peculiar a social institution or practice.  Within the discourse specific language patterns, attitudes, behaviour and power relationships operate.  " BACK | INDEX

E

Exclamation

is an example of clause level grammar in which one reacts to what has been spoken, implied or shown:  ‘What a beautiful gown!’ BACK | INDEX

Experiential

is a language function which expresses what is going on.  The writer uses verbs and nouns, noun groups, verb groups, sentence level grammar, adverbials and adjectivals to capture a specific experience, e.g., ‘The train honked noisily round the bend as the children on the bank waved happily at the passengers seated so sedately in the carriages, staring with blank eyes out to the countryside.’ BACK | INDEX

F

Field, tenor and mode

See context of situation for an explanation. BACK | INDEX

Focalisation/ focalising character

is a process by which the writer allows the reader to perceive the story (or a particular incident) through the eyes, thoughts and feelings of a particular character or of the narrator. BACK | INDEX

Foregrounding

is a technique which highlights something through the use of figurative language or unusual word order or sentence structure or point of view.  The writer could. BACK | INDEX

Frame of reference

This is a set of ideas, a mind-set, through which other ideas are interpreted. Stephens et al. (2003) explain that “everyday life is ordered or ‘framed’ by conventional and predictable schemas which delineate … typical situations we experience, such as eating breakfast…” (p.62). See also: schema, schemata. BACK | INDEX

G

Gaps

occur in most texts where the writer expects readers to be able to fill in the missing information or explanation from their cultural knowledge, their frame of reference. See also: schema, schemata. BACK | INDEX

I

Ideal reader

The ideal readers does not question or probe a text, accepts its underlying ideology and sees it as unproblematic. See also: compliant reader; implied reader; resistant reader. BACK | INDEX

Ideology

is a way of thinking, typical of a given group of people. It underpins social life and shows why people act in a certain way, why they confront and deal with problems in a specific way. Sometimes in fiction ideology is explicit, at others, passive (values are taken for granted), and at others, embedded in the language. BACK | INDEX

Imagery

is a word picture that the writer creates out of noun groups, adverbials and adjectivals, verbs and verb groups, e.g., A thick, white mist swirled up the valley and settled over everything.  Huge gum trees so prominent in the sunlight now disappeared completely. All birdsong was silenced.’ BACK | INDEX

Implied reader

In Reader Response approaches to literary criticism, the implied reader is one who is invited to fill the text’s gaps in the way the writer expects. and who accepts the text’s ideology. See also: compliant reader; ideal reader; resistant reader. BACK | INDEX

Interpersonal

is a language function which expresses human relationships in action.  The writer uses clause level grammar to achieve it, e.g.,
“What are you doing this afternoon?” he asked his companion. (Question)  
“I’m going down to watch the cricket at the oval. (Statement)
Come with me!  Alan Sefton is leading the team,” he replied.  (Command)
“No thanks! (Exclamation) I have better things to do with my time than watching grown men occasionally hit a little ball.” (Statement) BACK | INDEX

M

Marginalisation

Groups in society may be marginalised in texts when they are not part of the dominant discourse and their ideas and values are not represented.  They are often not given a voice.  See also: Silences. BACK | INDEX

Metafiction

Is the term given to works which deliberately draw attention to the fact that they are fiction and raise questions about the relationship between fiction and reality.  The devices and structures used in realistic fiction to create a ‘virtual reality’  are commented on and thus exposed as devices. BACK | INDEX

Metaphor

is an implied comparison between persons and/or things who/which usually are not compared or have no relationship with each other.  The words ‘like’ or ‘as’ are not used, e.g., ‘The sunlight scooped out the hollow of darkness on the ground before him.’; ‘He was a lion as he savagely challenged his opponents on the contentious issue.’ . BACK | INDEX

Metonym

is a figure of speech in which the writer substitutes something else for the name of a certain noun, e.g., ‘The Irishman declared: “I’m proud I grew up in the Emerald Isle.” ‘.  “Emerald Isle” has here been substituted for the country of Ireland. BACK | INDEX

Modality

Multiple meanings

This term refers to reading as a process of transferring meaning which is created by the readers through transactions they make with the text.  They derive separate meanings through using the signs provided by the author and associating these with their own knowledge and experience. These interpretations could change with second readings and readings at a later date when the readers’ knowledge and experience may have altered. BACK | INDEX

N

Noun group

gives information about people, ideas, places, things. It can consist of just the single noun or pronoun, e.g., ‘the house’ or ‘it’ or two nouns, or a noun qualified by adjectives, e.g., ‘the bat and ball’, ‘the willow bat and the leather ball’. BACK | INDEX

O

Onomatopoeia

is a figure of speech in which the sounds of certain words imitate the sounds of what they describe, e.g., ‘clatter’, ‘crash’, ‘clomp’. BACK | INDEX

Open-ended texts

are those which reject the notion of fixed meanings and do not give a sense of completion or closure at the end.  Mysteries may be left unsolved (as in real life) and the reader is likely to be left with unresolved issues which arose in the text.

P

Personification

is a figure of speech in which an abstract idea, an inanimate object or an aspect of nature is described as if it were human, e.g., “The wind stood up, and gave a shout;/ He whistled on his fingers”. BACK | INDEX

Phrase and group level grammar

This consists of noun/verb groups, e.g., ‘The red brick house (noun group) is still standing (verb group) near the huge stud (adverbial phrase of place) with the tall pine trees.’ (adjectival phrase of fact). Their use allows the writer to be more specific and concise and accurate in his/her depiction/explanation of a scene/incident or facts.BACK | INDEX

Position/positioning

See: Reader positioning BACK | INDEX

Pronouns

are words used to replace nouns.  They are of several kinds: personal – I, me, you, he, she, him, her, it, we, us, they, them; possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs; demonstrative (pointing out) this, that, these, those; relative: who, which, that (when ‘who’ or ‘which’ can be substituted) whose, whom and where (when ‘in which’, ‘at which’, ‘on which’ or ‘by which’ can be substituted.  These are but half of them.  It is important to remember that a pronoun replaces a noun so has the same kind of function in a sentence/clause as a noun, e.g., ‘John spoke to the girl’ could become ‘He spoke to her.’. BACK | INDEX

Q

Question

is a form of writing/speaking in which one seeks information, e.g., What is the time?’ Some questions elicit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reply while others require a statement in return. BACK | INDEX

Questioning techniques

See ‘question’ above.  In examining a dialogue, one can usually detect who has the controlling position in the conversation by the number and type of questions being asked and by whom, and whether the questions are eliciting information or merely requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. See also: Interpersonal BACK | INDEX

R

Reader positioning

There are various ways in which readers can be positioned to interpret texts.  By identifying with focalizing characters they may be led to adopt their position.  Similarly, an authoritative narrative voice can also present as natural to the implied reader the values and attitudes present in a text. BACK | INDEX

Readerly texts

conform to readers’ expectations and do not draw attention to the fact that they are constructed texts, See also:  writerly texts BACK | INDEX

Reader’s repertoire

includes the personal, socio/cultural and literary knowledge and experiences that readers bring to a text.  These contributions by readers to meaning making, are as significant as the written word itself in reader response theory (See:  Part 3). BACK | INDEX

Repetition

is common in literary texts and music and is often used for emphasis or to stress its contents or message of a literary work. Patterns of repetition can occur at all levels, from the morphological (parts of word) to the syntactic (sentence pattern) and semantic (meanings). BACK | INDEX

Resistant reader

Resistant readers read against the text and question the discourses presented.  They may or may not reject the underlying ideology, but read with a critical consciousness, aware of what is being said, and what is being left unsaid. See also: compliant reader; ideal reader; implied reader. BACK | INDEX

Rhetorical devices

refer to literary language.  Through rhetorical devices the writer is leading the reader to make certain connections which are significant to the message in the text.  He/she wishes to share accurately and precisely the feelings being experienced. There are several rhetorical devices.  The most commonly used are : the simile, the metaphor, the personification, the symbol, the metonym and onomatopoeia.  Please check the meaning of each of these in the glossary. BACK | INDEX

S

Schema, schemata

Schemata are hypothetical mental structures which are created through experience with people and events in the world. Thus, although they reflect individuals’ experiences, they are also socio-culturally determined and may be shared across individuals in a particular culture. For example, most Australians would understand what the term “howzat!” implies because they have developed an abstract set of expectations about the game of cricket.

A schema is used to guide encoding, organisation and retrieval of information and is critical in understanding texts. This understanding is a product of the text itself and the reader’s prior knowledge.
See also: frame of reference. BACK | INDEX

Sentence level grammar

concerns how the writer has organized the sentences.  One needs to consider not only the main clause but see if the writer has used compound clauses and/or complex clauses, e.g., The river wound round the bend (main clause) where the party was waiting for him (adjectival – a complex clause) until the van arrived (adverbial clause of time  -  a complex clause) and the goods were packed inside it (a second adverbial clause of time  -  compounding the first adverbial clause of time – a compound clause). BACK | INDEX

Sentence organisation

is the way the writer decides to organise the order of the clauses within a sentence.  For example, he/she may decide to begin with the main clause and add the subordinate clause or begin with the subordinate clause and finish with the main idea, e.g., ‘. ‘The sun was setting when he set out.’ (Main clause first and the second clause which is subordinate, qualifies the idea contained in the main clause. Loose sentence)  ‘When he set out, the sun was setting.’ (The main idea is put last in this example and thus creates a climax. Periodic sentence)  A writer has five options for constructing the sentence: constructing a balance, creating a climax, beginning with the main clause, hiding the main idea in the middle of the sentence, and lastly, beginning with the main idea but splitting the subject apart from the rest of the clause in order to explain something about the subject. BACK | INDEX

Silences

are what is left unsaid in a text.  Often the ideas and viewpoints of characters or groups in society are not represented.  They are not given a voice; they are silenced.BACK | INDEX

Simile

is a figure of speech in which the writer makes a comparison between persons, things, ideas which are usually never put together.  He/she uses ‘like’ or ‘as’ e.g., He tramped through the debris like an elephant in the jungle.BACK | INDEX

Simple sentence

A simple sentence is one that contains only one idea, that is one subject and one verb (i.e. one clause).  Its idea/message is not compounded or made complex by the addition of compound or complex clauses, e.g., This is an example of Gothic architecture. BACK | INDEX

Statement

is a form of writing/speaking in which the person volunteers information, e.g., ‘I know when the train arrives.’ BACK | INDEX

Surprise endings

may occur in both readerly and writerly texts. In the latter, they are a way of destablilising readers’ expectations, while in novels like whodunits they conform to the traditional conventions of story-telling and tie up loose ends by solving the mystery. BACK | INDEX

Symbol

is the way a writer uses specific concrete objects or simple actions, or names of characters to represent abstract ideas, e.g., a dove could represent ‘peace’ in a certain context; a plain golden ring could represent ‘marriage’ in a certain context.  In the given context the noun does not merely stand for something; it embodies in itself the meaning it evokes. BACK | INDEX

Synonyms

are words that have similar meanings to other words, e.g., ‘little’ is a synonym of ‘small’; ‘huge’ is a synonym of ‘enormous’. BACK | INDEX

Syntax

refers to the way a sentence is constructed. The usual format is: ‘subject, verb, object and/or circumstances. See also: Sentence organisation. BACK | INDEX

T

Text connectives

are words/phrases which assist with the flow of information from one sentence to another or one paragraph to another, e.g., ‘She stopped outside the building.  At that moment (text connective) the tocsin rang out.’ BACK | INDEX

Text level grammar

refers to the grammar patterns that operate throughout a text. For example, in a particular text type, such as procedure, commands are used; in a narrative action verbs in the past tense are used; in an exposition abstract nouns are used, e.g., ‘Cream the butter and eggs.’ (procedure); ‘The search party left the camp at six o’clock and started to climb the mountain.’ (narrative); ‘The production rate drops dramatically at the end of the season.’ (exposition)

The term, ‘text level grammar’ also refers to the particular structures that are found in each text type. As well, it refers to the paragraphing, topic sentences, themes, various cohesive techniques and other grammatical patterns such as noun and verb groups, adverbials and adjectivals used in the piece of writing. BACK | INDEX

Theme

The grammatical theme of a clause includes all the words up to the first finite verb (verbs which indicate when the action is taking place – past, present or future tenses).  It indicates the topic (what is being talked about).  Throughout a passage, the theme focuses the reader’s attention on how the topic is being developed.  This helps to make the text coherent and cohesive and
allows the reader to predict what is happening.

e.g.  John and Peter went fishing.  They collected their rods from the garage, and then they took off for the river. BACK | INDEX

 

V

Verbs

generally refer to actions or states.  They are words which show action, sensing, saying and relating, e.g., ‘The rabbit ran (action) in panic across the busy road.’; ‘She thought (sensing) of happier times.’; ‘The display of books is (relating) in the shop window.’; ‘The man pleaded (saying) guilty in court.’ BACK | INDEX

Verb group

Can consist of a single verb or a group, e.g., ‘whistled’ or ‘had been whistling.’ BACK | INDEX

W

Word and language usage

A writer takes into consideration the text type he/she is intending to produce and so chooses words/phrases appropriate to the text.  Sometimes his/her choice may involve specialised/abstract or commonplace words, e.g., transportation  or just buses and trains. BACK | INDEX

Word level grammar

Refers to the single nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs that are found in a given text.  Each of these categories has been addressed already in other parts of this glossary.. BACK | INDEX

Word sets

refer to groups of words that have a special connection. There is a relationship between something and its parts. For instance, if one speaks/writes about the human body, one will probably introduce in some way,  the arms, hands, legs, feet, head and the like, e.g., ‘He was noticeable in a crowd, with his strong, muscular body, a head of blond, curly hair and blue eyes, large hands and feet and a smile constantly on his lips.’ BACK | INDEX

Writerly texts

do not conform to readers’ expectations and often subvert the norms of story-telling by drawing attention to the structures and patterns of traditional fiction. See also: readerly texts. BACK | INDEX

top

Critical Literacy Support | Created: June 2007
Copyright © Academic Skills Unit, Australian Catholic University 2007 -