Selected Glossary

Authentic context
A real situation, or a setting of genuine significance within the learning programme; a valid purpose.

Close reading (also called intensive reading)
Reading to develop detailed understanding, involving the identification of distinctive language features such as vocabulary, imagery, and structure, and how these contribute to meanings, implications, and effects. For example, close reading of a poem may also involve examination of rhythm and sounds; close reading of a film may include examination of the structure of a scene, and analysis of the combination of elements such as dialogue, acting, editing, and camera work.

Components
The distinctive features which are combined to create a whole. Components of a visual text, for instance, include images, symbols, written words, font and type size, script, colour, and layout.

Context

1. The parts which precede or follow a word or text and are essential to its meaning.

2. The broader literary, social, or cultural environment to which a text (or part of a text) is related, and which affects the reader's understanding. A text produced for use in one context may come to be read in other contexts (such as a New Zealand classroom today).

Convention
A generally accepted usage, rule, or practice in the making or reading of texts. The conventions of written English include: movement from left to right across the page, punctuation, spelling, structure, word patterns, and literary devices and forms.

There are also conventions associated with any genre or text type, such as the layout of a business letter or curriculum vitae. Oral language has conventions for language and procedures used in, for example, formal debates, sermons, or speeches of welcome. Visual language has conventions for uses such as documentary films, theatrical performance, television news reports, or magazine covers. Although conventions change over time, and from one audience to another, they continue to function as an important element in communication.

Conversation
The exchange of ideas by spoken words, characterised and able to be analysed in terms of turn-taking behaviour, the roles and functions of participants, and particular language features.

Discourse
Connected speech or writing which is longer than a conventional sentence; sometimes a formal term for a talk, conversation, or written treatment of a subject.

Edit
To re-structure, re-order, clarify, and polish a text.

Expressive writing
Personal writing which reflects the writer's immediate thoughts, feelings, and observations. It is characterised by spontaneity and immediacy and is often intended for individual, private use. It plays an important part in clarifying ideas and exploring language, and may subsequently be shaped for poetic or transactional purposes.

Feature
See Language feature.

Fluency
The features which give language use the qualities of being natural, including interpretation, ease of use, and, in oral and visual language, characteristics of rhythm, intonation, and articulation. A language user may be accurate without being fluent.

Form
The essential structure of a text, including the style, organisation, and sequence of its elements. Some forms are used often enough to have conventional names (for example, sonnet, montage sequence, formal debate).

Genre
A particular type of text, having specific and distinctive characteristics arising from its purpose, function, and audience. Genres are not fixed or discrete categories.

Examples in written text include narratives, reports, instructions, journals, essays, poems, and letters; oral genres include conversations, prayers, and speeches; visual genres include documentaries, feature films, soap operas, and cartoons. These may be analysed into more specific genres. For example, feature films could be grouped as westerns, thrillers, musicals, and comedies.

Grammar
The structure of a language, particularly the way words and phrases are formed and combined to produce sentences. It takes into account the meanings, functions, and organisation of these sentences in the system of the language.

Graphic
Concerned with visual representation, emphasising writing, printing, and design. The term "graphic" can also be used as a noun (especially in the plural, "graphics").

Grapho-phonic cues
The letters and patterns of letters, separately or in clusters, which enable readers to identify sounds.

Illustrate
To clarify text or support an argument by examples or using drawings, diagrams, or pictures.

Information processing
A general term for the processes by which information is identified, understood, stored, organised, retrieved, combined, and communicated to form new knowledge.

Interpersonal language
Language characterised by direct exchange among people in conversation, debate, or personal letters.

Language feature
Any identifiable structural element of language, or particular language effect, including imagery. Learning to identify language features, and how they influence meaning, is important in close reading and exploring language.

Language functions
The generic term for the various uses and purposes of language.

Map
To represent abstract concepts or ideas (or three-dimensional objects) on a flat surface, by delineating their elements in chart or graphic form, showing connections and relationships among them.

Medium and Media
The material or technical means through which people communicate, whether in written language, oral language, or visual language. Each of these may make use of specific media. For example, oral language may be communicated or received through media such as direct speech, radio, television, telephone, or audiotape.

The term "print media" refers to all forms of printed and published material, including books, newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets.

Morphology
The branch of grammar concerned with the form of words, including word formation and inflection.

Non-verbal language
Communication without the use of words, using, for example, sound effects, music, gesture, facial expression, posture, or other elements to contribute particular shades of meaning. See also Visual text.

Poetic writing
Writing which has been crafted or shaped to convey ideas, thoughts, feelings, and sensory qualities to evoke a response from the reader. It is characteristic of fiction, biography, travel, and other personal narrative, as well as of poetry.

Reading process
The process by which we construct meaning from texts. Following contemporary critical precedents, the term is used here to refer to the skills and information used to interpret texts of all kinds, not only written texts. The process includes using semantics, syntax, visual cues, context, and background knowledge, and combining these to construct meaning.

Dame Marie Clay says of the reading development of children that they continue "to gain in this complex processing throughout their formal education, interpreting statements of ever-increasing complexity."

Reading strategies
The methods used to apply reading processes to gain understanding. They include sampling, predicting, self-correcting, recapitulating, and confirming.

Recorded text
Used in the context of this document to refer to texts recorded in audio formats, including audio cassette, radio, and compact disc.

Register
The vocabulary and language features associated with a specific social or occupational group or activity, used in relation to particular situations, roles, subjects, and audiences. Each person uses a variety of registers.

Role-play
An activity in which participants take the roles of different people in a situation and act out an interpretation of events.

Sampling (in reading)
Identifying significant visual features in a text to establish initial recognition of the general sense.

Scanning
A type of reading used to locate a particular piece of information without necessarily attending to the other parts of a text.

Semantics
The relationship between words and their meanings.

Semiotics
The study of signs and symbols and their use in human communication, referring not only to language, but also to cultural and social elements such as clothing.

Skimming
A type of reading used to identify only the main idea or ideas.

Sign
Any symbol or form that has a conventional meaning recognised within a particular community. "Sign" is a broad term that includes visual symbols, conventional gestures, and other types of non-verbal communication, as well as words. When we recognise a sign – by eye or ear – we recognise both its pattern and its meaning.

Simulation
An activity which reproduces a situation and which often involves dramatisation, role-play, or group discussion.

Storyboard
The device on which still photographs, concept sketches, pieces of dialogue, and connecting ideas are set out as a plan for filming.

Syntax
The arrangement of words into meaningful structures, and the relationships and combinations of these structures.

Technique
A specific method or procedure used in crafting or shaping text, or in using texts; or a method or activity designed to achieve a particular outcome.

Text
A piece of spoken, written, or visual communication that constitutes a coherent, identifiable unit, such as a particular speech, poem, poster, play, film, conversation in the sign language of the deaf, or any other language event. A text may be considered from the point of view of its structure, context, and functions.

Transactional writing
Writing which is intended to convey factual information or to argue the validity of a point of view with objective evidence. Transactional writing is typical of the language of science, technology, trade, reporting, persuasion, legal argument, and debate.

Visual text
A text in which visual elements predominate over words. Visual texts may include some forms of purely visual communication that have traditional links with English, such as mime or photographs, or combine written, oral, and visual language to construct meaning.

Wide reading (also called extensive reading)
Reading in quantity across a range of genres in order to gain a general understanding, develop good reading habits, build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure, and increase enjoyment of reading.