informal speechn
another term for colloquial speech
informantn
(in research) a person who provides the researcher with data for analysis.
The data may be obtained, for instance, by recording the person’s speech or
by asking him or her questions about language use.
see also field work
information contentn
see information theory
information gapn
(in communication between two or more people) a situation where infor-
mation is known by only some of those present. In communicative
language teachingit is said that in order to promote real communication
between students, there must be an information gap between them, or
between them and their teacher. Without such a gap the classroom activi-
ties and exercises will be mechanical and artificial.
In an information gap taskor activity, such as spot the difference, each
learner has some information that that the other student(s) don’t have.
By sharing the information, they can solve the problem or accomplish the
prescribed task cooperatively.
information processingn
(in psychology and psycholinguistics) a general term for the processes
by which meanings are identified and understood in communication, the
processes by which information and meaning are stored, organized, and
retrieved from memory and the different kinds of decoding which take
place during reading or listening. The study of information processing
includes the study of memory, decoding, and hypothesis testing, and the
study of the processes and strategies (see strategy) which learners use in
working out meanings in the target language^1.
see also heuristic, hypothesis testing, information theory, input,
cognitive psychology
information reportn
see TEXT TYPES
information retrievaln
1 the process of retrieving information from memory or that is stored in
another source, such as a computer
2 the study of how such processes occur
informal speech