Language+Terms


 * __Acronym__ -** A word composed of the initials of several words and pronounced as such. SCUBA diving is an example. **S**-self **C**-contained **U**-underwater **B**-breathing **A**-apparatus.

With the word //Unbelievable//. **Un-**prefix. **believe**-root. **able**-suffix. English does not use infixes normally but an example would be: un-freakin-believable. **freakin** would be an infix.
 * __Affix__ -** A bound morpheme attached to a stem or root. An affix would be a prefix, suffix, or infix


 * __Babbling__ -** Speech sounds produced in the first few months after birth that gradually come to include only sounds that occur in the language of the household. An example would be the sounds a 6 month old baby makes or Mr. Fullerton before he has had his coffee in the morning.


 * __BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills)__ -** Language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. Also referred to as social language. When two classmates are speaking on the playground are using this.


 * __CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency)__ -** CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. CALP is necessary for a student to be successful in school.

__**Cognate**__ - Words in in related languages that developed from the same ancestral root. //Impossible// in English and //Imposible// in Spanish is an example of cognates.

__**Etymology**__ - The history of words or the history of a particular word. For example the word //uvula,// that little thing hanging down in the back of our throats, comes from the Latin word for grape // ūvula. // Since that thing in the back of our throat looks like a cluster of grapes someone decided to give it the same name as the fruit.

__**Lexicon**__ - The component of the grammar containing speaker's knowledge about morphemes and words; a speaker's mental dictionary. This is not to be confused with short people from Ireland.

__**Morpheme**__ - The smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function. //Pancakes// contains three morphemes. //pan, cake,// and the plural //s.//

__**Phoneme**__ - The basic form of a sound. For example, //boot// and //but// sound different because the //oo// are a different phoneme than the //u.// __**Phonetic Alphabet**__ - Alphabetic symbols used to represent the phonetic segments of speech in which there is a one-to-one relationship between each symbol and each sound. There are forty letters or symbols in the phonetic alphabet for English.

__**Syntax**__ - The rules of sentence formation. For example, in English a person in English might say "//Mr. Fullerton is a crazy person", whereas a person in Spanish might say "//Señor Fullerton es una persona loca." In English the adjective //crazy// comes in front of the noun //person.// In Spanish the adjective //loca// comes after the noun. This is just one example of how the syntax of each language is different.

Sources;

Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2003). //An Introduction to Language//. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

James Fullerton ESL Teacher Oak Grove Elementary School jfullerton1@k12tn.net