Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

Glossary
226
hierarchy as the person being talked about; in an educational context,
usually students of the same age and level.
performance see competence.
performative According to the philosopher Austin, words like promise in
which the saying of the word is the doing of the act. ‘I promise I will’ is
to make the promise, but ‘I eat the bread’ is not to eat it.
perlocution A perlocutionary act is one which has an effect on the person
communicated with, thus if I scare, convince, persuade or inspire
someone, I have not merely done something to them but I have changed
them in some way. Cf. illocution.
phoneme The smallest unit of sound which can be used in meaningful
contrast with other sounds in a particular language. Thus the sounds
contrasted by a and u in bad and bud or by b and m in bad and mad are
phonemes of English.
phonetics The study of sounds used in speaking. Usually divided into
articulatory phonetics (the study of the organs of speech in use) and
acoustic phonetics (the study of the physical properties of the sounds
used). Cf. phonology.
phonetic transcription The written record of the sounds used in speech
requiring a special alphabet. A phonemic transcription limits itself to
the sound distinctions necessary to distinguish words meaningfully.
Phonetic transcriptions attempt more precisely to indicate the exact
quality of the sounds produced. See IPA.
phonics An approach to teaching reading which concentrates on building
up the sound of the word from the sounds associated with the
individual letters. Cf. look and say.
phonology The study of the way in which the sounds in a language are
organised to express meaning. See phoneme; cf. phonetics.
phrase structure In TG the rules which form the base component of the
grammar, and show the basic structure of the sentence, using
categories to be found in many other grammatical descriptions.
Example of PS rule:
NP————>
Det
+N
i.e. Noun Phrase consists of determiner +noun
e.g.
the
girl
pidgin A limited language which is developed for (usually commercial)
contact between two groups of speakers of different languages. Cf.
creole.
pitch The high or low sound quality of the voice, measurable in
frequencies. This will vary over an extended stretch of speech, and
movement in pitch may convey grammatical meaning, e.g. He spoke? v.
He spoke. In tone languages, the same sounds may be spoken at
different pitches to produce words of totally different meanings.
practice stage In most language teaching, follows the presentation stage

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Glossary
227
(q.v.) and consists of opportunities for students themselves to master
the new item(s).
presentation stage The point (usually at the beginning of the lesson) when
new material is introduced by the teacher. Followed by practice stage.
production stage The part of the lesson where students use language
meaningfully, following presentation and practice stages (q.v.).
Sometimes used for any occasions when students either speak or write,
however uncommunicatively.
proxemics The study of how human beings position themselves in relation
to each other. Much communication is subtly adjusted by distance,
where and how people touch, what posture they adopt, etc. Varies from
culture to culture. Cf. body language; kinesics.
psycholinguistics The study of all psychological issues relating to
language, particularly first and second language learning, the
relationship between language and concept formation, and language
disorders.