Introduction to the Linguistic Study of Languagemedium: the sense(s) involved in communication—hearing, seeing, touch-
ing, or some combination of these.
ordinary language philosophy: an early to mid twentieth-century philoso-
phy concerned with the meanings and uses of language.
passive vocabulary: those words whose meanings we recognize when we
hear them spoken or see them written but cannot easily bring to mind in
speaking or writing.
pragmatics: the study of contextually situated meanings.
prescriptive grammar: the set of conventions that define the standard va-
riety of a language; generally couched in evaluative and judgmental terms
such as “correct/incorrect” and “good/bad.”
semantics: (the study of) the literal meanings of linguistic expressions.
standard english: the variety of English expected in formal writing and
speaking, which is codified in dictionaries and style manuals, and taught in
composition classes.
teachability: the ease with which material can be organized for presenta-
tion in classrooms.
text: the auditory, visual, and/or tactile artifacts produced by communica-
tors.