Accentue

Accentue is a term used in linguistics and media studies to describe the deliberate highlighting of a particular element within a communication to influence interpretation.

Etymology: The term is a neologism formed from accent- plus a French-style suffix -ue, intended to evoke both accentuation and a noun-like designation. It emerged in scholarly discourse in the early 2020s, though it has not achieved widespread consensus on its exact definition.

Definitions and forms: As a verb, accentue means to apply deliberate emphasis to a word, phrase, or feature. As a noun, an accentue is an instance of emphasized content. The concept encompasses prosodic, typographic, and interface-related emphasis.

Applications: In linguistics, accentue studies focus on how emphasis affects interpretation and memory. In digital media, accentue describes design patterns that guide attention to key actions or information, such as bold typography, color contrast, or motion cues. In pedagogy, accentue refers to highlighting core concepts to improve comprehension.

Examples: Spoken: rising intonation on a target word. Written: bolding a term in a sentence. Digital: a button that briefly glows when hovered to draw attention.

See also: Emphasis, Accent, Highlighting, Multimodal communication.