Native variety

A variety of English considered to be older and more in uential

Nativised variety

A variety of English in uenced by local cultures and languages

Lingua franca
A common language used by di erent people to communicate with each other

Pidgin language

A language born as a result of the contact between two di erent languages

Creole
A pidgin language that is learned as a mother tongue

Cultural norm
Typical cultural behavior

Liguicism
Where one language group assumes linguistic superiority to other language groups, resulting in
the extinction of local languages

Linguistic imperialism
Where the language of one culture invades and dominates the language and culture of another
country

Linguistics
The study of human language in general.

Appropriateness

The suitable relationship between context and speech

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 Register

Variations in language based on the participants, topic, setting or medium

The formality or informality of language used in a particular situation.
Register may also refer to language which is speci c to a particular group, e.g. technical
register, scienti c register.

Style
Level of formality. Speak formally or informally.

Dialect

A subordinate variety of a language that is spoken in a particular geographical region or by a

speci c group of people, and that may have distinct vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

Universal grammar
The existence of an innate capacity for language acquisition, based on principles common to
all languages

Lexical item

Any item that functions as a single meaning unit, regardless of its di erent derived forms, or of
the number of words that make it up.

Lexis

A technical term for the vocabulary of a language, as opposed to its grammar.

Immersion

An immersion programme is one in which children, as a group, are taught some or all of their
school subjects in a language that is not their mother tongue.

Accent
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An accent refers to the way in which a person pronounces words, re ecting their particular
regional or cultural background.

Priming

Pragmatics
pragmatics is the study of language or utterance meaning in uenced by the context.

Parameter

Properties that individual languages have that di erentiate them from other languages.

Paralinguistics
The aspects of spoken communication that do not involve words.

Approach
An approach is a theory about language learning or even a philosophy of how people learn in
general.

Method
A method is an application of an approach in the context of language teaching.

Procedures
Procedures are the step-by-step measures to execute a method.

Technique
A technique is a single activity that comes from a procedure.

Semantic
The study of meanings in a language. It can be applied to entire tests or to single words.
Semantic development
A gradual process beginning just before the child says their rst word and incudes a wide
range of word types.

Overextension
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An error in early word use in which a child uses a single word to label multiple di erent things
in a manner that is inconsistent with adult usage.

Morpheme
The smallest unit of language that carries meaning. Play (one morpheme), played (two
morpheme play+ed)

Language acquisition device

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