Glossary


acronym: a short word that is made up from the first letters of a group of words e.g. AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome alliteration: when most of the words in a phrase begin with the same letter or sound e.g. a basket of brown bread antonym: a word that means the opposite of another word in the same language e.g. “good” and “bad”


appropriate: something that is suitable (or correct) for a particular situation e.g. It is appropriate to use formal language in a business letter assonance: when words that are close to each other in a sentence have the same vowel sounds e.g. green beans audience: 1 the people who listen to or read what we say and write; 2 the people who watch a performance of music or drama or a film


bias: a strong feeling of preferring one idea or thing without having a good reason to do so brainstorm: to think about as many ideas as you can


caption: the words under a picture or chart that explain what it is about


climax: the most important and exciting part of a play


comment on: to say what you think about something and to give reasons for your ideas


compare: to explain how things are the same or different


conflict: a struggle between characters in a story conjunction: a word that joins and links words, phrases or sentences context and contextual clues: the words that come before or after other words or sentences and which help us to understand the meaning contraction: a short way of writing words in which some letters are left out and replaced with an apostrophe e.g. “don’t” is a contraction of “do not” contrast: to show how things are different from each other


debate: a formal, prepared discussion, done in teams


descriptive: descriptive writing has many adjectives, adverbs and images which create a colourful and interesting “picture” of something for a reader. The writer describes how things feel, smell and sound and how they look in detail


discuss: 1 to talk about something informally; 2 in a written answer you need to explain and give an opinion about something


effective: something that works well e.g. an effective image in a poem gives you a clear picture of something


emotive language: language which makes people feel strong emotions


empathise with: to understand how someone else feels evaluate: to give your opinion and make a judgement about something you have heard or read


explain: to describe


something so that other people understand it or to give a reason for something


extract: part of a passage or text


features of a text: an important part of the text that follows a particular style or format e.g. a text may have numbers or always be written in formal language figurative: words or


expressions that have an imaginative rather than an exact meaning e.g. similes and metaphors flow chart: a diagram that shows how different stages in a process are connected, usually with arrows


font: the size and style of letters used in typing or printing


genre: different types or categories of texts e.g. novel, poetry, letter


Glossary 331


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