1. ESL TERMS2

2. QUESTIONS Which of these figures most closely reflects the size of an educated adult's active vocabulary? a. 50,000 b. 5,000 c. 1,000,000 d. 200,000 e. 10,000 a

3. Which of these is a gradable opposite? a. Husband — wife b. Hot — cold c. Male — female d. Single — married e. Buy — sell b

4. What is the term for the semantic connectedness we expect to find in a story? a. Syntax b. Layout c. Coherence d. Discourse e. Structure c

5. What do we have to do to work out which meaning of the word ‘table’ people have in mind when they use it? a. Look up ‘table‘ in a dictionary b. Look at the sentence in which it occurs c. Ask them to point to a table d. Look up ‘table‘ in an encyclopedia e. Find a table and ask if that is what they meant b

6. What is the average age at which children start to string words together to make sentences? a. 12 months b. 18 months c. 2 years d. 2 years 6 months e. 3 years b

7. What is the branch of linguistics that studies human soundmaking, transmission, and reception? a. Phonology b. Graphology c. Production d. Semantics e. Phonetics e

8. Whispered speech is part of which topic of language study? a. Paralanguage b. Prosody c. Syntax d. Intonation e. Morphology a

9. What does graphology, in its linguistics sense, study? a. Learning to read b. A person's character in handwriting c. The writing system of language(s) d. Maths diagrams e. Tennis stars c

10. Within which branch of linguistics do we find the study of spelling? a. Graphology b. Phonology c. Graphetics d. Semantics e. Pragmatics a

11. Which of these is an example of a sentence-connecting adverb? a. Smelly b. Shapely c. Connecting d. Linker e. Consequently e

12. When does language acquisition start? a. In the womb b. At birth c. 6 months d. 12 months e. 18 months a

13. At around what age do babies first use some of the rhythm and intonation patterns of the language they are learning? a. 3 months b. 6 months c. 9 months d. 12 months e. 18 months c

14. What do we call words that look or sound like each other but whose meanings are different? a. Synonyms b. False friends c. Opposites d. Similes e. Tautology b

15. What period of life does developmental psycholinguistics cover? a. Conception to birth b. Birth to 5 years c. Birth to 12 years d. Birth to age 60 e. The whole lifespan e

16. 6. What would be a sign of linguistic deterioration in old age (senescence)? a. Good story-telling skills b. Ability to recall people's names c. Singing ability d. A weak voice quality e. Aptitude for foreign languages d

17. Who said that trying to stop language change is like trying to ‘lash the wind’? a. William Shakespeare b. Geoffrey Chaucer c. Samuel Johnson d. William Wordsworth e. J K Rowling c

18. What is the name some grammarians have given to such parenthetical expressions as ‘you know’ and ‘you see’? a. Noun phrases b. Comment clauses c. Relative clauses d. Subordinate clauses e. Major sentences b

19. Which of these words do you most associate with prescriptivism? a. Change b. Variation c. Correctness d. Tolerance e. Description c

20. What do we call linguistics when it tries to solve problems in other domains? a. Speech sciences b. Communication studies c. Media studies d. Cultural linguistics e. Applied linguistics e