| Term | Definition |
| idiolect | every person's unique way of speaking |
| voice quality | how the voice sounds |
| lexical choice | a speaker's choice of words |
| transactional talk | used to obtain goods and services |
| intinterpersonal or interactional talk | talk used for socialising |
| hesitations,fillers,false starts | pauses and interruptions in speech |
| spoken discourse | utterances that are connected |
| phatic communion | polite words and phrases that ease the conversation along |
| hedges | words/phrases that make what you're saying seem vaguer |
| fillers | unnecessary additions to give thinking time eg mmm |