Linguistic Terms

LINGUISTICS TERMS
1. Language. It is a system of conventional, spoken or written symbols by means of

which human beings, as the members of a social group and participant in its culture
communicate (OR). It is a primarily human and non instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and dresses by means of a system of voluntarily
produced symbols.
2. Linguistics. It is the science that studies the origin, organization, nature and
development of a language descriptively, historically comparatively and formulates
the general rules related to language.
3. Diachronic Linguistics. It is the linguistics that studies the development of

language through history or through time.
4. Synchronic Linguistics. It is the linguistics that investigates how the people

speak and use language in a given speech community at a given time.
5. Comparative Linguistics. It is the linguistics through which two or more different

languages are compared.
6. Langue. It is the set of all possible grammatical sentences in the language.
7. Parole. It is the only object available for direct observation to the linguist.
Utterances are examples of parole.
8. Socio-Linguistics. The study of language as part of culture and society has now
commonly been accepted as socio- linguistics.
9. Psycho-Linguistics. It is the study of interrelationship of psychological and

linguistic behaviour.
10. Dialect. It is a specific form of a given language spoken in a certain locality or

geographic area.
11. Sociolect. It is a form of language, which is spoken by the members of a

particular group of stratum of a speech community.
12. Isogloss. It is a line indicating the degree of linguistic change.
13. Registers. These are the varieties of language that correspond to different
situations, different speakers and listeners and writers and readers etc.(It is
business language of a particular profession)
14. Idiolect. It is a variety of language used by one individual speaker, including

peculiarities of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary etc.
15. Diglossia. Where we do find two or more dialects or languages in regular use in
a community we have a situation which is called diglossia.
16. Pidgin. It is a contract language, a mixture of elements from different natural
Written & Composed by SAEED QURESHI M.A English (part 1) Page 1

LINGUISTICS TERMS
languages.
17. Creole, It is a mixed natural language composed of elements of different
languages in areas of intensive contact.
18. Phonetics. It is the scientific study of the production, transmission and reception
of speech sounds.
19. Acoustic Phonetics. It is the study of the physical properties of speech

sounds such as frequency and amplitude in their transmission.
20. Auditory Phonetics. It is the study of hearing and the perception of speech
sounds. It studies different auditory impressions of quality pitch and loudness of
sounds.
21. Articulatory Phonetics. It recognises that speech is produced by some kind of

sound making apparatus inside the human body and that specific sounds may be
related to specific movement of the apparatus.
22. Vowel. A word which is uttered without a blockage of air is called vowel.
23. Consonant. A word that cannot be spoken with out a blockage of air is called
consonant.
24. Stress. It is the degree of force with which a syllable or a word is uttered. It is
crucial in English pronunciation. It can be called grammatical device in spoken
English.
25. Intonation. It is the tune, the melody, the music of speech. It shows the
speaker’s mental attitude.
26. Phonology. It is the organization of sounds into patterns. It is the study of vocal
sounds and sound changes, phonemes and their variations in particular language.
27. Phoneme. It is the minimal bundle of relevant sound features.
28. Allophone. It is a speech sound which is one of a number of variants of a

phoneme. Such a variant can be either in complementary variation or in free
variation.
29. Morphology. It is the science and study of the smallest grammatical units
of language and of their formation into words including infection, derivation and
composition.
30. Syntax. It is the grammar of sentences and morphology is the grammar of

words.
31. Morpheme. Minimal units of grammatical structure such as the four components
of “un-faith – ful – ness” are called morphemes.

LINGUISTICS TERMS
32. Lexical Morphemes. These are nouns, verbs adjectives and adverbs.
33. Grammatical Morphemes. These are elements like prepositions, articles,

conjunctions, gender or tense and so on.
34. Compounds. A compound is lexical unit in which two or more lexical

morphemes are juxtaposed (contiguous / placed side by side) eg. Air craft, text book.
35. Idiom. An idiom is a phrase, the meaning of which cannot be predicted from the
individual meanings of morphemes it comprises.
36. Sentence. A sentence is a word or set of words followed by a phrase and

revealing on intelligible purpose.
37. Word. It may be defined as the union of a particular meaning with a particular
complex of sounds capable for a particular grammatical employment.
38. Analogy. It is process by which morphs, combination of morphs or linguistic

pattern are modified or new ones created in accordance with those present in a
language.
39. Stylistic. It is the study of linguistic features of a literary text – phonological,

lexical, syntactical which directly affects the meaning of an utterance.
40. Phrases. A group of words which is grammatically equivalent to a single word

and which does not have its own subject and predicate is called a phrase.

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LINGUISTICS TERMS

1. Language. It is a system of conventional, spoken or written symbols by means of

3. Diachronic Linguistics. It is the linguistics that studies the development of

4. Synchronic Linguistics. It is the linguistics that investigates how the people

5. Comparative Linguistics. It is the linguistics through which two or more different

6. Langue. It is the set of all possible grammatical sentences in the language.

9. Psycho-Linguistics. It is the study of interrelationship of psychological and

10. Dialect. It is a specific form of a given language spoken in a certain locality or

11. Sociolect. It is a form of language, which is spoken by the members of a

12. Isogloss. It is a line indicating the degree of linguistic change.

14. Idiolect. It is a variety of language used by one individual speaker, including

16. Pidgin. It is a contract language, a mixture of elements from different natural

Written & Composed by SAEED QURESHI M.A English (part 1) Page 1

19. Acoustic Phonetics. It is the study of the physical properties of speech

21. Articulatory Phonetics. It recognises that speech is produced by some kind of

27. Phoneme. It is the minimal bundle of relevant sound features.

28. Allophone. It is a speech sound which is one of a number of variants of a

30. Syntax. It is the grammar of sentences and morphology is the grammar of

Written & Composed by SAEED QURESHI M.A English (part 1) Page 2

33. Grammatical Morphemes. These are elements like prepositions, articles,

34. Compounds. A compound is lexical unit in which two or more lexical

36. Sentence. A sentence is a word or set of words followed by a phrase and

38. Analogy. It is process by which morphs, combination of morphs or linguistic

39. Stylistic. It is the study of linguistic features of a literary text – phonological,

40. Phrases. A group of words which is grammatically equivalent to a single word

Written & Composed by SAEED QURESHI M.A English (part 1) Page 3

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