Read the words and discuss what you think they might mean before revealing the definition.

Acronym – An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of words and pronounced as a word, e.g. NASA

Blend – A word formed combining two or more words to create a new word (meaning is a combination of the two originals)

Borrowing – Introducing a loan word from one language into another

Clipping – The creation of a new word with the same word class and denotation by dropping one syllable or more (called a truncation) e.g. Thurs, spec, flu.

Code shifting – When speakers switch between more than one language or variety in a situation.

Coinage – The construction and addition of new words to the word stock

Collocation – A recognisable group of words that frequently occur together.

Colloquialism – An informal word, phrase or pronunciation, often associated with informal speech

Deixis – A word or phrase (such as this, that, these, those, now, then) that points to the time, place, or situation in which language is being used.

Derivation – A term to describe words that are formed by adding affixes to create new words eg slow + ness

Double negative – The use of two negatives (= words that mean "no") in the same phrase or clause

Ellipsis – The omission of part of a sentence that can be understood by the context.

Exclamation – The tone communicated by the use of an exclamation mark.

Exclamative – Used to express strong feelings, strong emphasis or emotion.

Filler – Words, usually with no semantic value, which are inserted into speech either from habit or to give a participant thinking time as they search for a word.

Initialism – A word formed from the first letters of a sequence of words pronounced letter by letter.

Logogram – When graphic units are associated with words/actions eg emoticons, x etc.

Neologism – The creation of a word from existing lexical items eg electracy – the skills and facility needed to make full use of the communicative potential of new electronic media.

Non-standard – Language that does not conform to the standard prestige form which is used as a linguistic norm.

Obsolete words – Words that are no longer in use.

Register – A style of language used in a particular context defined in terms of mode, tenor and field.

Semantic Change – Changes in word meaning over time.