that the world is orderly, that all natural phenomena have natural causes,
and that nothing is self-evident, but the laws of nature can be discovered
through experimentation. Although few people nowadays subscribe to all
of these beliefs, some degree of positivism characterizes most “scientific”
approaches to understanding all phenomena, including language learning.
Logical positivismis a specific type of positivism that rejects as meaningless
all statements that cannot be empirically verified.
see also modernism, postmodernismpossessiven
a word or part of a word which is used to show ownership or possession.
In English, there are many kinds of possessives, for example:
apossessive pronouns, such as my, her, your, mine, hers, yours, etc.
b’s, as in Helen’s shoes, and s’, as in the three boys’ books
c the ofconstruction, as in the home of the doctor
The possessive pronouns that are used before a noun (e.g. my, her, your) are
often called “possesive adjectives” to distinguish them from those that are
used after a verb (e.g. mine, hers, yours). The distinction can be seen in a
pair of sentences like:
Mybook is here. This book is mine.
see also determiner
postcolonial theory n
a set of theories that deal with the cultural legacy of colonial rule, including
issues of national identity, gender, race, ethnicity, and literature in the former
colonial language.
post-creole continuumn
when people in a creole-speaking community are taught in the standard
language to which the creole is related, they form a post-creole continuum.
For example, in Jamaica and Guyana, an English-based creole is spoken
and Standard English is taught in schools. Those with higher levels of
education speak something close to Standard English, the acrolect. Those
with little or no education speak the creole or something close to it, the
basilect, and the rest speak a range of varieties in between, the mesolects.
post-creole continuumsee also decreolization, speech continuum