linguistic performance
n · noun
Simple meaning
A speaker's actual use of language in real situations.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lihnggwistihkperfawrmuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
lɪŋɡˈwɪstɪkpɚfɔɹməns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
n
The term linguistic performance was used by Noam Chomsky in 1960 to describe "the actual use of language in concrete situations".
noun
linguistics
A speaker's actual use of language in real situations; what the speaker actually says, including grammatical errors and other non-linguistic features such as hesitations and other disfluencies (contrasted with linguistic competence)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The term linguistic performance was used by Noam Chomsky in 1960 to describe "the actual use of language in concrete situations".
Used this way, linguistic performance is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.