English Glossary

Adverb
A word class that may modify a verb (for example, ‘beautifully’ in ‘She sings beautifully’), an
adjective (for example ‘really’ in ‘He is really interesting’) or another adverb (for example ‘very’ in
‘She walks very slowly’). In English many adverbs have an –ly ending.

Adverbial
A word or group of words that contributes additional but nonessential information to the larger
structure of a clause.
An adverbial can contribute circumstantial information to a clause (for example about place,
‘outside’ in ‘I spoke with him outside’; when or how, ‘quickly’ in ‘She responded quickly’). It can also
contribute evaluative interpersonal meaning to a clause (for example ‘frankly’ in ‘Frankly, I don’t
care’).
Adverbs, adverb groups, prepositional phrases, nouns and noun groups can function as an adverbial
in a clause (for example 'tentatively' in 'They opened the letter tentatively', '...on the beach' in 'The
dog was running on the beach’. An alternative term for ‘adverbial’ is adjunct’.

Aesthetic
Relates to a sense of beauty or an appreciation of artistic expression. The selection of texts that are
recognised as having aesthetic or artistic value is an important focus of the literature strand.

Alliteration
The recurrence of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of words in close succession, for
example ripe, red raspberry.

Apposition
When one noun group immediately follows another with the same reference, they are said to be in
apposition, for example 'our neighbour, Mr Grasso...', 'Canberra, the capital of Australia, ...'

Appreciation
The act of discerning quality and value of literary texts.

Audience
The intended group of readers, listeners or viewers that the writer, designer, filmmaker or speaker is
addressing.

Author
The composer or originator of a work (for example a novel, film, website, speech, essay,
autobiography).

Camera angle
The angle at which the camera is pointed at the subject. Vertical angle can be low, level or high.
Horizontal angle can be oblique (side on) or frontal.

© VCAA
Clause
A clause creates a message through the combination of a subject (the element being identified for
comment) and its predicate (the comment about the subject which contains a verb), for example ‘I
(subject) shall eat my dinner (predicate).’
There are different kinds of clauses. The clause that is essential to any sentence is an independent
(or main) clause.
Compound and complex sentences contain more than one clause.
A clause that provides additional information to the main clause but cannot stand alone is a
dependent (or subordinate) clause. For example:
 'When the sun goes down (dependent), I shall eat my dinner (main).'
 ‘My time is limited (main) because I am reading Shakespeare.’ (dependent)
An embedded clause occurs within the structure of another clause often as a qualifier to a noun
group, for example:
 ‘The man who came to dinner (embedded) is my brother.’

Cohesion
Grammatical or lexical relationships that bind different parts of a text together and give it unity.
Cohesion is achieved through various devices such as connectives, ellipses and word associations
(sometimes called lexical cohesion). These associations include synonyms, antonyms (words
opposite in meaning, for example ‘study/laze about’, ‘ugly/beautiful’), repetition (‘work, work, work
– that’s all we do!’), word sets (for example class-sub-class or part-whole sets), and collocation
(using words that go with each other, for example ‘friend’ and ‘pal’ in, ‘My friend did me a big favour
last week. She’s been a real pal.’)

Collocation
Those words that commonly occur in close association with one another (for example ‘blonde’ goes
with ‘hair’, butter is ‘rancid’ not ‘rotten’, ‘salt and pepper’ not ‘pepper and salt’).

Colon
A punctuation convention used to separate a general statement from one or more statements that
provide additional information, explanation or illustration. The statements that follow the colon do
not have to be complete sentences.

Complex sentence
Contains an independent (or main) clause and one or more dependent (or subordinate) clauses. The
dependent clause is joined to the independent clause through subordinating conjunctions like
‘when’, ‘while’, and ‘before’. A complex sentence will not make sense without an independent
clause. In the following example, the dependent clause is underlined and the conjunction is in bold:
‘When the sun came out, we all went outside.’

Compound sentence
A sentence consisting of two or more independent (main) clauses joined by coordinating
conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘or’ ‘but’ and ‘so’. Each clause is coordinated or linked so as to give each one
equal status as a message. In the following example, the coordinating conjunction is underlined and
verbs are highlighted: ‘The sun emerged and we all went outside’.

Comprehension strategies

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Strategies and processes used by readers to make meaning from texts. Key comprehension
strategies include:
 activating and using prior knowledge
 identifying literal information explicitly stated in the text
 making inferences based on information in the text and their own prior knowledge
 predicting likely future events in a text
 visualising by creating mental images of elements in a text
 summarising and organising information from a text
 integrating ideas and information in texts
 critically reflecting on content, structure, language and images used to construct meaning in
a text.

Concepts about print

Concepts about how English print works. They include information about where to start reading and
how the print travels from left to right across the page. Concepts about print are essential for
beginning reading.

Conjunction
A word that joins other words, phrases or clauses together in logical relationships such as addition,
time, cause or comparison. There are two major types of conjunctions for linking messages:
coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.
 coordinating conjunctions are words that link words, phrases and clauses in such a way that
the elements have equal status in meaning. They include conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’:
o ‘Mum and dad are here’ (joining words)
o ‘We visited some of our friends but not all of them’ (joining noun groups)
o ‘Did I fall asleep and miss my dinner?’ (joining clauses)
 subordinating conjunctions introduce certain kinds of dependent clauses;
o ‘that’ simply marks declaratives, for example ‘I know that he is ill’
o ‘whether’ (or ‘if’ in the sense in which it is equivalent to whether) marks interrogatives, ‘I
wonder whether/if she's right’
o ‘while’, ‘after’, ‘when’, ‘because’, ‘if’ (in the conditional sense) serve to mark the kind of
dependent clause it introduces: for example one of time, reason, condition, ‘We went
home after/when the meeting ended’, ‘They stayed in because it was raining’, ‘I'll do it if
you pay me’

Connective
Words which link paragraphs and sentences in logical relationships of time, cause and effect,
comparison or addition. Connectives relate ideas to one another and help to show the logic of the
information. Connectives are important resources for creating cohesion in texts. The logical
relationships can be grouped as follows:
 temporal – to indicate time or sequence ideas (for example ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘next’)
 causal – to show cause and effect (for example ‘because’, ‘for’ , ‘s o’)
 additive – to add information (for example ‘also’, ‘besides’, ‘furthermore’)

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  comparative – for example ‘rather’, ‘alternatively’
 conditional/concessive – to make conditions or concession (for example ‘yet’, ‘although’)
 clarifying – for example ‘in fact’, ‘for example’

Context
The environment in which a text is responded to or created. Context can include the general social,
historical and cultural conditions in which a text is responded to and created (the context of culture)
or the specific features of its immediate environment (context of situation). The term is also used to
refer to the wording surrounding an unfamiliar word that a reader or listener uses to understand its
meaning.

Convention
An accepted language practice that has developed over time and is generally used and understood,
for example use of punctuation.

Coordinating conjunctions
Words that link phrases and clauses in such a way that the elements have equal status in meaning.
They include conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘either/neither’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘then’.

Create
Develop and/or produce spoken, written or multimodal texts in print or digital forms.

Creating
Creating refers to the development and/or production of spoken, written or multimodal texts in
print or digital forms.

Decode
The process of working out the meaning of words in a text. In decoding, readers draw on contextual,
vocabulary, grammatical and phonic knowledge. Readers who decode effectively combine these
forms of knowledge fluently and automatically, using meaning to recognise when they make an
error, and self-correct.

Dependent clause
A clause that cannot make complete sense on its own. It needs to be combined with an independent
clause to form a complete sentence. The dependent clause can be introduced by a finite verb like
‘goes’ in the following sentence: 'When the sun goes down, I shall eat my dinner.' But it can also be
introduced by non-finite verbs, as in ‘going’ in the following sentence: ‘From 1966 to 2001 the total
population decreased, going from 11,800 down to 11,077’.

Design
The way particular elements are selected and used in the process of text construction for particular
purposes. These elements might be linguistic (words); visual (images); audio (sounds); gestural (body
language); spatial (arrangement on the page, screen or 3D), and multimodal (a combination of more
than one).

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Digital texts
Audio, visual or multimodal texts produced through digital or electronic technology which may be
interactive and include animations and/or hyperlinks. Examples of digital texts include DVDs,
websites, e-literature.

Digraph
Two letters that represent a single sound. Vowel digraphs are two vowels (‘oo’, ‘ea’). Consonant
digraphs have two consonants (‘s h’, ‘th’). Vowel/consonant digraphs have one vowel and one
consonant (‘er’, ‘ow’).

E-literature
The electronic publication of literature using the multimedia capabilities of digital technologies to
create interactive and possibly non-linear texts, through combining written text, movement, visual,
audio and spatial elements. It may include hypertext fiction, computer art installations, kinetic
poetry and collaborative writing projects allowing readers to contribute to a work. E-literature also
includes texts where print meanings are enhanced through digital images and/or sound and
literature that is reconstituted from print texts (for example online versions of The Little Prince or
Alice in Wonderland).

Ellipsis
 The omission of words that repeat what has gone before; these terms are simply understood
(for example ‘The project will be innovative. To be involved will be exciting.’ ‒ ‘in the project’
is ellipsed in the second sentence).
 Through a related resource called substitution, a word like ‘one’ is substituted for a noun or
noun group as in ‘There are lots of apples in the bowl. Can I have one?’ (‘of them’).
 A cohesive resource that binds text together and is commonly used in dialogue for speed of
response and economy of effort, for example (do you) ‘Want a drink?’ / ‘Thanks, I would.’
(like a drink).
 The use of three dots. This form of punctuation (also known as points of ellipsis) can be used
to indicate such things as surprise or suspense in a narrative text or that there is more to
come in an on-screen menu.

Etymological knowledge
Knowledge of the origins and development of the form and meanings of words and how the
meanings and forms have changed over time.

Evaluative language
Positive or negative language that judges the worth of something. It includes language to express
feelings and opinions, to make judgments about aspects of people such as their behaviour, and to
assess the quality of objects such as literary works. Evaluations can be made explicit (for example
through the use of adjectives as in: ‘She’s a lovely girl’, ‘He’s an awful man’, or ‘How wonderful!’),
however, they can be left implicit (for example ‘He dropped the ball when he was tackled’, or ‘Mary
put her arm round the child while she wept.’)

Figurative language
Words or phrases used in a way that differs from the expected or everyday usage. They are used in a
nonliteral way for particular effect (e.g. simile, metaphor, personification).

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Framing
The way in which elements in a still or moving image are arranged to create a specific interpretation
of the whole. Strong framing creates a sense of enclosure around elements while weak framing
creates a sense of openness.

Genre
The categories into which texts are grouped. The term has a complex history within literary theory
and is often used to distinguish texts on the basis of their subject matter (detective fiction, romance,
science fiction, fantasy fiction), form and structure (poetry, novels, short stories).

Grammar
The language we use and the description of language as a system. In describing language, attention
is paid to both structure (form) and meaning (function) at the level of the word, the sentence and
the text.

Graphophonic knowledge
The knowledge of how letters in printed English relate to the sounds of the language.

Handwriting
The production of legible, correctly formed letters by hand or with the assistance of writing tools, for
example pencil grip or assistive technology.

High frequency sight words

The most common words used in written English text. They are sometimes called ‘irregular words’ or
‘sight words’. Many common or ‘high-frequency’ words in English are not able to be decoded using
sound–letter correspondence because they do not use regular or common letter patterns. These
words need to be learnt by sight, for example 'come', 'was', 'were', 'one', 'they', 'watch', 'many'.

Homophone
A word identical in pronunciation with another but different in meaning, for example 'bare' and
'bear', 'air' and 'heir'.

Hybrid texts
Composite texts resulting from a mixing of elements from different sources or genres (for example
infotainment). Email is an example of a hybrid text, combining the immediacy of talk and the
expectation of a reply with the permanence of print.

Idiomatic expressions
A group of (more or less) fixed words having a meaning not deducible from the individual words.
Idioms are typically informal expressions used by particular social groups and need to be explained
as one unit (for example ‘I am over the moon’, ‘on thin ice’, ‘a fish out of water’, ‘fed up to the back
teeth’).

Independent clause
A clause that makes sense on its own whereas a dependent clause needs to be added to an
independent clause for the sentence to make sense.

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Intertextuality
The associations or connections between one text and other texts. Intertextual references can be
more or less explicit and self-conscious. They can take the form of direct quotation, parody, allusion
or structural borrowing.

Juxtaposition
The placement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side for
a particular purpose for example to highlight contrast or for rhetorical effect.

Language features
The features of language that support meaning, e.g. sentence structure, vocabulary, illustrations,
diagrams, graphics, punctuation, figurative language. Choices in language features and text
structures together define a type of text and shape its meaning. These choices vary according to the
purpose of a text, its subject matter, audience and mode or medium of production.

Language patterns
The arrangement of identifiable repeated or corresponding elements in a text. These include
patterns of repetition or similarity (for example the repeated use of verbs at the beginning of each
step in a recipe, or the repetition of a chorus after each verse in a song). The patterns may alternate
(for example the call and response pattern of some games, or the to and fro of a dialogue). Other
patterns may contrast (for example opposing viewpoints in a discussion, or contrasting patterns of
imagery in a poem). The language patterns of a text contribute to the distinctive nature of its overall
organisation and shape its meaning.

Layout
The spatial arrangement of print and graphics on a page or screen including size of font, positioning
of illustrations, inclusion of captions, labels, headings, bullet points, borders and text boxes.

Lexical cohesion
The use of word associations to create links in texts. Links can be made through the use of repetition
of words, synonyms, antonyms and words that are related such as by class and subclass.

Listen
The use of the sense of hearing as well as a range of active behaviours to comprehend information
received through gesture, body language and other sensory systems.

Media texts
Spoken, print, graphic or electronic communications with a public audience. They often involve
numerous people in their construction and are usually shaped by the technology used in their
production. The media texts studied in English can be found in newspapers, magazines and on
television, film, radio, computer software and the internet.

Medium
The resources used in the production of texts including the tools and materials used (for example
digital text and the computer, writing and the pen or the typewriter).

Metalanguage
A language used to discuss language conventions and use.

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Metonymy
The use of the name of one thing or attribute of something to represent something larger or related
(for example using the word 'crown' to represent a monarch of a country; referring to a place for an
event as in ‘Chernobyl’ when referring to changed attitudes to nuclear power, or a time for an event
as in ‘9/11’ when referring to changed global relations).

Modal verb
A verb that expresses a degree of probability attached by a speaker to a statement (for example `I
might come home') or a degree of obligation (for example ‘You must give it to me', `You are not
permitted to smoke in here').

Modality
Aspects of language that suggest a particular angle on events, a speaker or writer’s assessment of
possibility, probability, obligation and conditionality. It is expressed linguistically in choices for modal
verbs (for example can, may, must, should), modal adverbs (for example possibly, probably,
certainly) and modal nouns (possibility, probability, certainty).

Mode
The various processes of communication – listening, speaking, reading/viewing and writing/creating.
Modes are also used to refer to the semiotic (meaning making) resources associated with these
communicative processes, such as sound, print, image and gesture.

Morpheme
The smallest meaningful or grammatical unit in language. Morphemes are not necessarily the same
as words. The word ‘cat’ has one morpheme, while the word ‘cats’ has two morphemes: ‘cat’ for the
animal and ‘s’ to indicate that there is more than one. Similarly ‘like’ has one morpheme, while
‘dislike’ has two: ‘like’ to describe appreciation and ‘dis’ to indicate the opposite. Morphemes are
very useful in helping students work out how to read and spell words.

Morphemic knowledge
Knowledge of morphemes, morphemic processes and the different forms and combinations of
morphemes (for example the word ‘unfriendly’ is formed from the stem ‘friend’, the adjective
forming suffix ‘ly’ and the negative prefix ‘un’).

Multimodal text
Combination of two or more communication modes, for example print, image and spoken text as in
film or computer presentations.

Narrative
A story of events or experiences, real or imagined. In literary theory, narrative includes the story
(what is narrated) and the discourse (how it is narrated).

Narrative point-of-view
The ways a narrator may be related to the story. For example, the narrator might take the role of
first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of events, reliable or unreliable in
interpretation of what happens.

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Neologism
The creation of a new word or expression.

Nominalisation
A process for forming nouns from verbs (for example `reaction' from `react' or `departure' from
`depart') or adjectives (for example `length' from `long', `eagerness' from `eager').
A process for forming noun phrases from clauses (for example `their destruction of the city' from
`they destroyed the city').
Nominalisation is a way of making a text more compact and is often a feature of texts that contain
abstract ideas and concepts.

Noun
A word class used to represent places, people, ideas and things. Nouns can be made plural (for
example dog/dogs) and can be marked for possession (for example dog/dog’s). There are different
types of nouns including:
 abstract noun refers to an idea, state or quality (for example ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’,
‘courage’, ‘doubt’, ‘success’ and ‘love’)
 concrete noun refers to something that has a physical reality. It may be seen, touched,
tasted
 pronoun refers to words like ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘them’, ‘hers’ that are used in place of a noun.

Noun groups
A group of words building on a noun. Noun groups usually consist of an article (‘the’, ‘a’, ‘an’) plus
one or more adjectives. They can also include demonstratives (for example ‘this’, ‘those’),
possessives (for example ‘my’, ‘Ann's’), quantifiers (for example ‘two’, ‘several’), or classifiers (for
example ‘wooden’) before the head noun. These are called pre-modifiers after the noun, phrases
and clauses act as post-modifiers following the head noun (for example ‘the girl with the red shirt
who was playing soccer’).

Onset and rime

The separate sounds in a syllable or in a one syllable word. In ‘cat’ the onset is /c/and the rime is
/at/, in shop the onset is /sh/ and the rime is /op/. Word families can be constructed using common
onsets such as /t/ in top, town, tar, tap, or common rimes such as /at/ in cat, pat, sat, rat. These are
very useful for teaching spelling.

Personification
The description of an inanimate object as though it were a person or living thing.

Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound in a word. The word ‘i s’ has two phonemes /i/ and /s/. The word ‘ship’
has three phonemes /sh/, /i/, /p/.

Phonic
The term used to refer to the ability to identify the relationships between letters and sounds when
reading and spelling.

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Phonological awareness
A broad concept that relates to the sounds of spoken language. It includes understandings about
words, rhyme, syllables and onset and rime. NOTE: the term ‘sound’ relates to the sound we make
when we say a letter or word, not to the letter in print. A letter may have more than one sound, such
as the letter ‘a’ in ‘was’, ‘can’ or ‘father’, and a sound can be represented by more than one letter
such as the sound /k/ in ‘cat’ and ‘walk’. The word ‘ship’ had three sounds /sh/, /i/, /p/, but has four
letters ‘s’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘p’. Teachers should use the terms ‘sound’ and ‘letter’ accurately to help students
clearly distinguish between the two items.

Phonological knowledge
Information about the sounds of language and letter-sound relationships (when comprehending a
text), for example single sounds, blends.

Phrase
A unit intermediate between clause and word consisting of a head word alone or accompanied by
one or more dependents. The class of a phrase is determined by the head: a phrase with a noun as
head is a noun phrase (e.g. men or the men who died), one with a verb as head is a verb phrase (e.g.
went or had gone), and so on.

Poetic devices
Particular patterns and techniques of language used in poems to create particular effects.

Point of view
 Refers to the viewpoint of an author, audience or characters in a text.
 Narrative point of view refers to the ways a narrator may be related to the story. The
narrator, for example, might take the role of first or third person, omniscient or restricted in
knowledge of events, reliable or unreliable in interpretation of what happens.

Predictable text
Texts that are easily navigated and read by beginning readers because they contain highly regular
features such as familiar subject matter, a high degree of repetition, consistent placement of text
and illustrations, simple sentences, familiar vocabulary and a small number of sight words.

Prediction
An informed presumption about something that might happen. Predicting at the text level can
include working out what a text might contain by looking at the cover, or working out what might
happen next in a narrative. Predicting at the sentence level is identifying what word is likely to come
next in a sentence.

Prefix
A prefix is a meaningful element added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.

Prepositional phrases
Prepositions are positional words, for example:’ below ‘, ‘for’, ‘down’, ‘above’, ‘to’, ‘near’, ‘under,
’since’, ‘between’, ‘with’, ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘into’, ‘from’, ‘beside’, ‘without’, ‘out’, ‘during’, ‘past’,
‘over’, ‘until’, ‘through’, ‘off’, ‘on’, ‘across’, ‘by’, ‘in’, ‘around.’ Prepositional phrases are units of
meaning within a clause that contain a preposition, for example ’She ran into the garden’, ‘He is
available from nine o’clock’.

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Pun
Humorous use of a word to bring out more than one meaning; a play on words.

Read
To process words, symbols or actions to derive and/or construct meaning. Reading includes
interpreting, critically analysing and reflecting upon the meaning of a wide range of written and
visual, print and non-print texts.

Return sweep
The way English print travels from left to right and then returns to the left of the page for the next
and each subsequent line.

Rhetorical question
A question that is asked to provoke thought rather than require an answer.

Rime and onset

The separate sounds in a syllable or in a one-syllable word. In ‘cat’ the onset is /c/and the rime is
/at/, in shop the onset is /sh/ and the rime is /op/. Word families can be constructed using common
onsets such as /t/ in top, town, tar, tap, or common rimes such as /at/ in cat, pat, sat, rat. These are
very useful for teaching spelling.

Salience
A strategy of emphasis, highlighting what is important in a text. In images, salience is created
through strategies like placement of an item in the foreground, size and contrast in tone or colour. In
writing, salience can occur through placing what is important at the beginning or at the end of a
sentence or paragraph or through devices such as underlining or italics.

Scanning
When reading, moving the eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning
is also used when a reader first finds a resource to determine whether it will answer their questions.

Semantic knowledge/information
Information related to meanings used when reading. Semantic information includes a reader’s own
prior knowledge and the meanings embedded in a text. Readers use semantic information to assist
in decoding and to derive meanings from a text.

Semicolon
Join clauses that could stand alone as sentences. In this way clauses that have a close relationship
with one another may be linked together in a single sentence.

Sentence
A unit of written language consisting of one or more clauses that are grammatically linked. A written
sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
There are different types of sentences:
 simple sentence – has the form of a single independent clause (for example ‘Mary is
beautiful.’ ‘The ground shook.’ ‘Take a seat.’)

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  compound sentence – contains two or more clauses that are coordinated or linked in such a
way as to give each clause equal status. In the following example ‘and’ is the coordinating
conjunction: ‘We went to the movies and bought an ice cream.’
 complex sentence – contains an independent (or main) clause and one or more dependent
(or subordinate) clauses. The dependent clause is joined to the independent clause through
subordinating conjunctions like ‘when’, ‘while’ and ‘before’ as in the following examples:
‘We all went outside when the sun came out,’ and ‘Because I am reading Shakespeare, my
time is limited.’

Simple sentence
Contains one clause and expresses a complete thought. It has a subject and a verb and may also
have an object or complement.

Sound effect
Any sound, other than speech or music, used to create an effect in a text.

Sound/letter correspondence
The relationship of spoken sounds of English to letters of the alphabet or to letter clusters.

Speak
Convey meaning and communicate with purpose. Some students participate in speaking activities
using communication systems and assistive technologies to communicate wants, and needs, and to
comment about the world.

Spoonerism
A slip of the tongue where the initial sounds of a pair of words are transposed.

Standard Australian English

The variety of spoken and written English language in Australia used in more formal settings such as
for official or public purposes, and recorded in dictionaries, style guides and grammars. While it is
always dynamic and evolving, it is recognised as the ‘common language’ of Australians.

Stereotype
When a person or thing is judged to be the same as all others of its type. Stereotypes are usually
formulaic and oversimplified.

Stylistic features
The ways aspects of texts (such as words, sentences, images) are arranged and how they affect
meaning. Style can distinguish the work of individual authors (for example Jennings’ stories,
Lawson’s poems) as well as the work of a particular period (for example Elizabethan drama,
nineteenth century novels). Examples of stylistic features are narrative viewpoint, structure of
stanzas, juxtaposition.

Subject
An element in the structure of a clause, usually filled by a noun group, that is enacting the verb, for
example ‘the dog (subject) was barking’. The normal position of the subject is before the verb group,
but in most kinds of interrogative it follows the first auxiliary verb, for example ‘Was the dog
barking?’, ‘Why was the dog barking?’

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In independent clauses the subject is an obligatory element except in imperative clauses and casual
style, for example ‘There will be no milk left’.
Most personal pronouns have a different form when the subject of a finite clause (I, he, she, etc.)
than when the object (me, him, her), for example ‘She won the race’, not ‘Her won the race’. In the
present tense, and the past tense with the verb ‘be’, the verb agrees with the subject in person and
number, for example ‘Her son lives with her’ and ‘Her sons live with her’
or
 subject matter refers to the topic or theme under consideration.

Subordinating conjunction
Links a dependent clause to an independent (main) clause in a sentence. Examples include
conjunctions like ‘when’ in the sentence: ‘When I went to Sydney, I met my aunt’; ‘while’ in ‘While
waiting for my dinner, I fell asleep and ‘although’ in 'Although I left my coat behind in the car, I
continued on my way.'

Suffix
A meaningful element added to the end of a word to change its meaning.

Syllabification
The process of dividing words into syllables.

Syllable
A single unit of pronunciation.

Syntax
The ways words, phrases and clauses are structured in sentences. In some schools of linguistics,
syntax and grammar are used interchangeably.

Tense
A verb form that locates the event described by the verb in time (for example ‘Sarah laughs’ is
present tense, ‘Sarah laughed’ is past tense).

Text
The means for communication. Their forms and conventions have developed to help us
communicate effectively with a variety of audiences for a range of purposes. Texts can be written,
spoken or multimodal and in print or digital/online forms. Multimodal texts combine language with
other systems for communication, such as print text, visual images, soundtrack and spoken word as
in film or computer presentation media.

Text navigation
The way readers move through text. Readers generally read novels in a linear fashion from the
beginning to the end; readers of nonfiction books often use the contents page and index and move
between chapters according to the information sought. Readers often read digital texts more
flexibly, according to interest and purpose, using hyperlinks to move between pages and digital
objects, such as videos or animations, making quick judgments about relevance of material.

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Text processing strategies
Strategies readers use to decode a text. These involve drawing on contextual, semantic, grammatical
and phonic knowledge in systematic ways to work out what a text says. They include predicting,
recognising words and working out unknown words, monitoring the reading, identifying and
correcting errors, reading on and re-reading.

Text structure
The ways information is organised in different types of texts for example, chapter headings, sub
headings, table of contents, indexes and glossaries, overviews, introductory and concluding
paragraphs, sequencing, topic sentences, taxonomies, cause and effect. Choices in text structures
and language features together define a text type and shape its meaning. See language features.

Theme
 refers to the main idea or message of a text, or
 grammatical theme indicates importance both within a clause and across a text . In a clause
the theme comes in first position and indicates what the sentence is about. Theme is
important at different levels of text organisation. The topic sentence serves as the theme for
the points raised in a paragraph. A pattern of themes contributes to the method of
development for the text as a whole.

Types of texts
Classifications according to the particular purposes they are designed to achieve. These purposes
influence the characteristic features the texts employ. In general, in the Australian Curriculum:
English, texts can be classified as belonging to one of three types: imaginative, informative or
persuasive, although it is acknowledged that these distinctions are neither static nor watertight and
particular texts can belong to more than one category.
Imaginative texts – texts whose primary purpose is to entertain through their imaginative use of
literary elements. They are recognised for their form, style and artistic or aesthetic value. These texts
include novels, traditional tales, poetry, stories, plays, fiction for young adults and children including
picture books and multimodal texts such as film.
Informative texts – texts whose primary purpose is to provide information. They include texts which
are culturally important in society and are valued for their informative content, as a store of
knowledge and for their value as part of everyday life. These texts include explanations and
descriptions of natural phenomena, recounts of events, instructions and directions, rules and laws
and news bulletins.
Persuasive texts – whose primary purpose is to put forward a point of view and persuade a reader,
viewer or listener. They form a significant part of modern communication in both print and digital
environments. They include advertising, debates, arguments, discussions, polemics and influential
essays and articles.

Verb
Tell us what kind of situation is described in a clause – in particular, whether it is a happening or a
state – but they often need other elements to locate the situation in time, to indicate polarity
(positive or negative), aspect (whether the situation is completed or not) or modality (the
assessment of the speaker about the situation)
 doing for example ‘She climbed the ladder’
 being for example ‘The koala is an Australian mammal’

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  having for example ‘the house has several rooms’
 thinking for example ‘She believes in her work’
 saying for example ‘The prime minister spoke to the media’
Verbs are essential to clause structure and change their form according to tense (present tense or
past tense), to person (first, second or third) and number (singular and plural).

Verb groups
Groups of words that are centred on a verb and consist of one or more verbs. The main verb in a
verb group often needs auxiliary (or helping) verbs to indicate features like time (past or present),
polarity (positive or negative), aspect (whether the action is completed or not) and modality (the
assessment of the speaker about the action). All the following verbs contribute to the meaning of
the verb group as a whole: ‘the girl played soccer’, ‘the girl was playing/had been playing soccer’,
‘the girl was not playing soccer’, ‘the girl could have been playing soccer’.

View
Observe with purpose, understanding and critical awareness. Some students use oral, written or
multimodal forms to respond to a range of text types. Other students participate in viewing activities
by listening to an adult or peer describing the visual features of text, diagrams, pictures and
multimedia.

Visual features
Visual components of a text such as placement, salience, framing, representation of action or
reaction, shot size, social distance and camera angle.

Visual language choices

Choices that contribute to the meaning of an image or the visual components of a multimodal text
and are selected from a range of visual features like placement, salience, framing, representation of
action or reaction, shot size, social distance and camera angle.

Voice
In English grammar voice is used to describe the contrast between such pairs of clauses as ‘The dog
bit me’ (active voice) and ‘I was bitten by the dog’ (passive voice). Active and passive clauses differ in
the way participant roles are associated with grammatical functions.
In clauses expressing actions, like the above examples, the subject of the active (the dog) has the
role of actor, and the object (me) the role of patient, whereas in the passive the subject (I) has the
role of patient and the object of the preposition by (the dog) the role of actor.
In clauses that describe situations other than actions, such as ‘Everyone admired the minister’ and
‘The minister was admired by everyone’, the same grammatical difference is found, so that the
object of the active (the minister) corresponds to the subject of the passive, and the subject of the
active (everyone) corresponds to the object of the preposition ‘by’.
and
In the literary sense, it can be used to refer to the nature of the voice projected in a text by an
author (for example ‘authorial voice’ in a literary text or ‘expert voice’ in an exposition).

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Write
Plan, compose, edit and publish texts in print or digital forms. Writing usually involves activities using
pencils, pens, word processors; and/or using drawings, models, photos to represent text; and/or
using a scribe to record responses or produce recorded responses.

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