语言学课后习题答案

Chapter 1

Introduction

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) linguistics: the scienti?c or systematic study of language.

(2) language: a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. (3) arbitrariness: the absence of similarity between the form of a linguistic sign and what it

relates to in reality, e.g. the word dog does not look like a dog.

(4) duality: the way meaningless elements of language at one level (sounds and letters)

combine to form meaningful units (words) at another level.

(5) competence: knowledge of the grammar of a language as a formal abstraction and

distinct from the behavior of actual language use, i.e. performance.

(6) performance: Chomsky‘s term for actual language behavior as distinct from the

knowledge that underlies it, or competence.

(7) stylistics: the study of how literary effects can be related to linguistic features. (8) phatic communion: Language is used to establish an atmosphere or maintain

social contact between the speaker and the hearer.

(9) functionalism: the study of the forms of language in reference to their social function in

communication.

(10) formalism: the study of the abstract forms of language and their internal relations. (11) synchronic linguistics: the study of language and speech as they are used at a given

moment and not in terms of how they have evolved over time.

(12) diachronic linguistics: the study of linguistic change over time in contrast to looking at

language as it is used at a given moment.

2. No, language is human-speci?c. Human language has seven design features, including arbitrariness, duality, productivity, interchangeability, displacement, specialization and cultural transmission. These features are found utterly lacking in dogs‘ or pigs‘ noises and thus set human language apart from animal cry systems.

3. Arbitrariness refers to the fact that there is no logical or intrinsic connection bet ween a particular sound and the meaning it is associated with. For example, for the same animal dog, in English we call it /d0g/, in Chinese as ―gou‖, but ―yilu‖ in Japanese; it barks wow wow in English but wang wang in Chinese. Of course, onomatopoetic words such as ―quack-quack‖ and ―bang‖ are exceptions, but words like these are relatively few compared with the total number of words in a language.

4. A human baby does not speak any language at birth. What language the baby is going to speak is determined by the culture he is born into. A Chinese baby born and brought up in London by an English family will speak English, while an English child brought up in Beijing by a Chinese aunt will speak Chinese. That is to say, language cannot be transmitted through heredity. It is culturally transmitted.

5. Firstly, linguistics describes languages and does not lay down rules of correctness while traditional grammar emphasizes correctness. Secondly, linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, while traditional grammar emphasizes the priority of the written language. Thirdly, traditional grammar is based on Latin and it tries to impose the Latin categories and structures on other languages, while linguistics describes each language on its own merits. 6. A descriptive approach attempts to tell what is in the language while the prescriptive approach tells people what should be in the language. Most modern linguistics is descriptive, whereas traditional grammars are prescriptive.

7. Synchronic linguistics studies language at one particular time while diachronic linguistics studies language developments through time. Synchronic linguistics focuses on the state of language at any point in history while diachronic linguistics focuses on the differences in two or more than two states of language over decades or centuries. 8. No, human language has the design feature of specialization. It refers to the fact that man does not have a total physical involvement in the act of communication. For example, a mother can tell a story to her child while slicing up a cake. However, wolves can only respond to a stimulus and is totally involved physically in the communication process. Thus, a wolf cannot have a language similar to man‘s, even though it could express a thousand different emotions. Besides, the aspect of productivity also distinguishes human language from wolf ‘s postures.

Chapter 2

The Sounds of Language

1. De?ne each of the following terms brie?y.

(1) articulator: the tongue, lips, and velum, which change the shape of the vocal tract to

produce different speech sounds.

(2) assimilation: a phonological process whereby a sound becomes phonetically similar (or

identical) to a neighboring sound, e.g. a vowel becomes [+nasal] when followed by a [+nasal] consonant.

(3) consonant: a speech sound produced by partial or complete closure of part of the vocal

tract, thus obstructing the air?ow and creating audible friction. Consonants are described in terms of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.

(4) elision: the leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech.

(5) intonation: the variation in pitch and stress which gives beat and rhythm to the tune the

voice plays in ordinary speech.

(6) phoneme: the abstract element of a sound, identi?ed as being distinctive in a particular

language.

(7) phonetics: the study of linguistic speech sounds, how they are produced,

how they are perceived, and their physical properties.

(8) phonology: the study of the abstract systems underlying the sounds of language. (9) stress: the prominence given to certain sounds in speech.

(10) voicing: the vibration in the larynx caused by air from the lungs passing

through the vocal cords when they are partly closed; speech sounds are said to be either voiced or voiceless.

(11) voiceless: When the vocal cords are spread apart, the airstream from the

lungs is not obstructed at the space between vocal cords and passes freely. The sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless sounds.

(12) vowel: a speech sound produced without signi?cant constriction of the air ?owing

through the oral cavity.

2. Minimal pair test or substitution test.

Minimal pair test or substitution test is to see whether substituting one sound for 4another results in a different word. If it does, the two sounds represent different phonemes. For example, as to the English word bear, if we substitute p for b, we get the word pear, the two are different words. Then /b/ and /p/ represent different phonemes. Other examples are chunk/junk, ban/bin, bet/beat, ?ne/vine, side/site, etc.

3. Take the word big for example, in the word big /big/, /b/ is the onset, /i/ is the nucleus and /g/ is the coda. The difference between open syllables and closed syllables is whether the words have codas. If there are codas, they are closed syllables, such as pig, hat and at; if not, they are open syllables, such as do, I, tea and key. 4. (1) stop, consonant (2) back, rounded, vowel 5. (1) voiceless / voiced (2) bilabial / labiodental (3) close / semi-open (4) stop / nasal (5) alveolar / palatal (6) alveolar / dental

(1) kit/git, bucker/bugger, bag/back (2) mark/nark, smack/snack, sum/sun (3) best/vest, ober/over, lib/live (4) bore/more, abate/amate, mob/mom (5) pat/fat, apt/aft (AmE), harp (BrE)/half

7. (1) The stresses are placed on the second syllable except for ―promise‖. We may easily conclude that the verbs usually are stressed on the second syllable. (2) Syllable representations of the words:

collide [k2#laid] elect [i#lekt] consider [k2n#sid2]

Chapter 3

Morphology

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) morphology: the study of the structure of words.5

(2) morpheme: the smallest unit of language that carries meaning or serves a

grammatical function.

(3) free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a word.

(4) bound morpheme: a morpheme that can not stand alone as a word, e.g.

ment (as in establishment), and -er (as in painter).

(5) morph: the smallest meaningful phonetic segments of an utterance on the level

of parole.

(6) allomorph: a phonetic form in which a morpheme is realized, e.g. -s, -es, and en are all

allomorphs (in writing) of the plural morpheme.

(7) derivation: the formation of new words by adding af?xes to other words or morphemes in

morphology and word formation.

(8) clipping: the process by which parts of a word of more than one syllable have been cut

off, and reduced to a shorter form.

(9) acronym: words which are composed of the ?rst letter of a series of words and are

pronounced as single words. Examples: NATO, radar and yuppy.

(10) initialism: Some new words are composed of the ?rst letters of a series of words

and pronounced by saying each letter in them. Such words are called initialism.

(11) blending: A single new word can be formed by combining two separate forms.

Typically, blending is ?nished by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of another word. For example, brunch is formed by the shortened forms of breakfast and lunch.

(12) root: the morpheme that remains when all af?xes are stripped from a complex word, e.g.

system from un- + system + atic + ally.

(13) stem: the base to which one or more af?xes are attached to create a more complex

form that may be another stem or a word. For example, book is the stem of bookish.

(14) pre?x: Af?xes can be joined to the beginning of the root or stem, in which case

they are called pre?xes.

(15) suf?x: Af?xes can be joined to the end of the root or stem, in which case they are called

suf?xes.

2. (3), (5), (7)

3. (1) simple: ?y tree suite

(2) bound morpheme root ?y / reuse spiteful

re-

?y

use

-ful spite

preplan pre- plan desks -s desk triumphed -ed triumph suite / suite optionality -ality option untie un- tie delight de- light fastest -est fast prettier -ier pretty tree / tree justly -ly just deform de- form mistreat mis- treat dislike dis- like payment -ment pay disobey dis- obey premature pre- mature 4. (1) Column I: ablaut (vowel modi?cation) Column II: suppletion Column III: stress modi?cation

(2) The process in the Column I is ?nished by changing the vowel of each word, while in

Column II, the process is ?nished by changing vowel and consonant of each word.

(3) Column I: awake/awoke bear/bore arise/arose blow/blew bite/bit hide/hid lie/lay know/knew foot/feet goose/geese tooth/teeth louse/lice Column II: bad/worse are/were many/more Column III: ?combine/com‘bine ?compress/com‘press7 ?conduct/con‘duct ?insert/in‘sert ?insult/in‘sult ?intern/in‘tern

5. (1) Omitted. (2) Other examples:

?rerun (n.) – re‘run (v.) ?contrast (n.) – con‘trast (v.) ?convert (n.) – con‘vert (v.) ?desert (n.) – de‘sert (v.) ?export (n.) – ex‘port (v.) ?increase (n.) – in‘crease (v.) ?conduct (n.) – con‘duct (v.) ?object (n.) – ob‘ject (v.) ?content (n.) – con‘tent (v.) ?protest (n.) – pro‘test (v.) ?insult (n.) – in‘sult (v.) ?produce (n.) – pro‘duce (v.)

When a word belongs to different word classes, the stress of the word will be sometimes placed on different syllables. When all the words above are stressed on the ?rst syllables, they are nouns, but if they have the second syllables stressed, the words become verbs. 6. (1) It means ―the inhabitant of ‖. (2) It means ―the person who does‖.

(3) The morphological rule working here is ―n. + -er –– n.‖, and the last

phoneme of the noun, which the suf?x -er is added to, should be a consonant.

(4) The rule in (3) doesn‘t work in the word discoverer because the last phoneme of discoverer is a vowel /2/.

7. (1) in?ection (2) derivation (3) in?ection (4) in?ection (5) derivation

Chapter 4

Syntax

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) syntax: the term used to refer to the structure of sentences and to the study of sentence

structure.

(2) word class: a group of words which are similar in function; words which are grouped into

word classes according to how they combine with other words, how they change their forms, etc.

(3) prescriptive approach: This view regards grammar as a set of rules for

the 8“proper‖ use of a language, that‘s to say, it tries to lay down rules to tell people how to use a language.

(4) descriptive approach: the approach of linguistic studies, with which linguists collect

samples of the language they are interested in and attempt to describe the regular structures of the language as they are used, not according to some view of how they should be used.

(5) IC analysis: the approach to divide the sentence up into its immediate constituents

by using binary cutting until obtaining its ultimate constituents. For example, the immediate constituents of ―The man bought a car‖ are the man and bought a car. The immediate constituents of the man are the and man, and so on until no further cuts can be made. The ultimate constituents of ―The man bought a car‖ at the word level are the, man, bought, a, and car.

(6) structural analysis: a type of descriptive approach to study the distribution of linguistic

forms in a language through such methods as the use of ―test frames‖.

(7) immediate constituent: Linguistic units can be divided into small constituents, which

can be further analyzed into smaller constituents. This process continues until no further divisions are possible. The ?rst division or units are known as immediate constituents.

(8) ultimate constituent: Linguistic units can be divided into small constituents, which can

be further analyzed into smaller constituents. This process continues until no further divisions are possible. The ?nal division or units are known as ultimate constituents.

(9) constituent structural grammar: It refers to a grammar which analyzes sentences using

only the idea of constituency, which reveals a hierarchy of structural levels.

(10) transformational grammar: a type of grammar which attempts to de?ne and describe by a

set of rules or principles all the grammatical sentences (without ungrammatical ones) of a language.

(11) ideational function: the use of language as a means of giving structure to our experience of

the real or imaginary world.

(12) interpersonal function: the use of language for maintaining social roles and interacting

with others.

(13) textual function: to create written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves and

which ?t the particular situation in which they are used.

2. Yes. As we know, morphology is the study of the internal structure, forms and 9classes of words, while syntax focuses on the structure and ordering of components within a sentence. The major distinction between morphology and syntax is that the former is concerned with the internal composition of a word, while the latter is concerned with the combination of words.

3. (2) Instead of using the form ―suggest somebody to do something‖, we usually

use ―suggest + that-clause‖ or ―suggest doing‖, here we‘d better substitute “advise‖ for ―suggest‖

(4) The word ―request‖ is a transitive verb which should take an object directly, so the word

―for‖ should be omitted.

(6) The word ―donate‖ cannot be followed by double objects as ―donate somebody

something‖. Instead we always use ―donate something to somebody‖.

(10) The subject of the verb ―write‖ is usually a human; an ―article‖ cannot write itself. In this

case the passive construction is normally used: The article was very well writen.

(11) Usually we don‘t use ―be bored of something/somebody‖, but ―be bored with

something/somebody‖ which means losing interest in somebody/something.

(13) Here ―myself ‖ is a re?exive pronoun, which can‘t be used as subject, and it should

be replaced by ―I‖.

(14) The word ―surprise‖ is usually used as a transitive verb, so the expression

“?surprise for you‖ is ungrammatical, and it can be replaced by ―surprise somebody (with something)‖ or ―I was surprised by your getting married.‖

(15) The word ―sleep‖ is usually used as an intransitive verb, which can‘t take an object.

The cases of ―sleep‖ being used as a transitive verb are semantically limited, as in ―to sleep a good sleep‖ or ―the room can sleep 3 people‖.

4. It‘s ungrammatical, because ―us‖ is the objective case which can‘t serve as the subject, while

―she‖ is the subjective case which can‘t serve as the object. The sentence should be ―We visit her on Sundays‖. The personal pronouns ―you‖ and ―it‖ have the same form whether

used as the subject or object.

5. (1) NP: A Guns ―N‖ Roses concert, an arena, some 2500 fans, a full-?edged riot, A Guns ―N‖ Roses concert at an arena , A Guns ―N‖ Roses concert at an arena near ST. Louis ,The trouble, venue security, a camera, the front, the stage, the front of the stage. PP: at an arena, at an arena near ST. Louis, near ST. Louis, in disaster, near the front, of the stage, near the front of the stage. VP: staged a full-?edged riot, asked venue security, con?scate a camera.

(2) N: Guns, Roses, concert, arena, ST. Louis, disaster, fans, riot, trouble, Axl 10Rose, venue, security, camera, front, stage. Prep: at, near, in, of. V: end, stage, start, ask, con?scate, see.

6. (1) You mustn‘t end a sentence with a preposition. You mustn‘t split in?nitives 7. (i)

(ii)

8. (1) a. Terry loves his wife and I love his wife, too. b. I

love my wife as well as Terry loves his wife.

(2) a. It‘s yesterday that they said she would go. b. She

would go yesterday as they said.

(3) a. The governor is a street ?ghter who is dirty.b. The governor is a ?ghter in a dirty

street.

(4) a. The design has squares and circles, both of which are big. b. The design has big

squares, and it also has some circles. (The sizes of the circles are not mentioned.)

Chapter 5

Semantics

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) semantics: the study of linguistic meaning.

(2) truth-conditional semantics: an approach that knowing the meaning of the sentence

is the same as knowing the conditions under which the sentence is true or false, and knowing the meaning of a word or expression is knowing the part that it plays in the truth or falsehood of the sentence containing it.

(3) naming theory: the view that the meaning of an expression is what it refers to, or names. (4) behaviorist theory: the view that the meaning of a linguistic form is de?ned as observable

behaviors which is an approach drawing on psychology.

(5) use theory: the semantic theory according to which the meaning of an

expression is determined by its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction.

(6) sense: the inherent part of an expression‘s meaning, together with the context,

determines its referent. For example, knowing the sense of a noun phrase such as the president of the United States in 2004 allows one to determine that George W. Bush is the referent.

(7) reference: (in semantics) the relationship between words and the things,

actions, events and qualities they stand for. An example in English is the relationship between the word tree and the object ―tree‖ (referent) in the real world.

(8) conceptual meaning: It means the meaning of words may be discussed in terms of

what they denote or refer to, also called denotative or cognitive meaning. It is the essential and inextricable part of what language is and is widely regarded as the central factor in verbal communication. For instance, the conceptual meaning of ―he‖ in English is any male person or male animal.

(9) connotative meaning: It is the communicative meaning that a word or a

combination of words has by virtue of what it refers to, over its purely conceptual meaning. For example, the connotative meaning of ―woman‖ is emotional, frail, inconstant, irrational, etc.

(10) semantic field: the organization of related words and expressions into a

system which shows their relationship to one another. For example, kinship terms such as father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt belong to a semantic ?eld whose relevant features include generation, sex, membership of the father‘s or mother‘s side of family.

(11) lexical gap: the absence of a word in a particular place in a semantic ?eld of a language.

For instance, in English we have brother versus sister, son versus daughter, but no separate lexemes for ―male‖ and ―female‖ cousin.

(12) componential analysis: (in semantics) an approach to the study of meaning which analyzes

a word into a set of meaning components or semantic features. For example, the meaning of the English word boy may be shown as [+human][+male][-adult].

(13) semantic feature: the smallest units of meaning in a word. The meaning of word

may be described as a combination of semantic components or features. For example, the feature [+male] is part of the meaning of father, and so is the feature [+adult], but other features are needed to make up the whole meaning of father. Often, semantic features are established by contrast and can be stated in terms of [+] and [-], e.g. woman has the semantic features [+human], [-male] and [+adult].

(14) synonym: the sense relations of equivalence of meaning between lexical items,

e.g. small/little and dead/deceased.

(15) antonym: the sense relation of various kinds of opposing meaning between lexical items,

e.g. big/small, alive/dead and good/bad.

(16) hyponymy: the sense relation between terms in a hierarchy, where a more

particular term (the hyponym) is included in the more general one (the superordinate): X is a Y, e.g. a beech is a tree, a tree is a plant.

(17) meronym: the sense relation between body and its parts which are not only sections of

the body but de?ned in terms of speci?c functions. For example, the head is the part of the body which carries the most important sense organs, i.e. eyes, ears, nose and tongue.

(18) semantic role: the way in which the referent of a noun phrase is involved in the situation

described or represented by the clause, for example as agent, patient, or cause.

(19) entailment: the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (the

second) is inferred from the truth of the other, e.g. Corday assassinated Marat and Marat is dead; if the ?rst is true, the second must be true.

(20) presupposition: implicit assumptions about the world required to make an utterance

meaningful or appropriate, e.g. ―some tea has already been taken‖ is a presupposition of ―Take some more tea!‖

2. (1) He waited by the bank.

a. He waited by the ?nancial institution which people can keep their money in or borrow

from.

b. He waited by the bank of the river.

(2) Is he really that kind? a. Is he really that type of person? b. Is he really that kind-hearted? (3) We bought her dog biscuits. a. We bought dog biscuits for her. b. We bought biscuits for her dog. (4) He saw that gasoline can explode. a. He saw that gasoline container explode. b. He saw that gasoline may explode. (5) Fifty soldiers shot three wild foxes. a. Fifty soldiers shot three wild foxes in total. b. Each of the ?fty soldiers shot three wild foxes. (6) He saw her drawing pencils. a. He saw her pencils for drawing.

b. He saw her drawing the picture of pencils.

3. (2) (4) (5) (8) are antonyms; (1) (3) (6) (7) are synonyms. 4. charity: kindness, sympathy, church, helpful iron: strong, brave, hard, determined mole: traitor, betrayal, spy snow: pure, virgin, clean

street: homeless, living hard, pitiable

5. (1) a. hoard b. scribble c. barn, method d. olfactory (2) a. acquire b. tell c. way d. smell (3) a. buy, win, steal. b. talk, tell c. road, way, path d. smell

These words are less marked in their sets because they are more usual and tend

to be used more frequently. They consist of only one morpheme and are easier to learn and remember than others. They are also often broader in meaning and cannot be described by using the name of another member ofthe same ?eld.

6. homophones: sea-see, break-brake; polysemies: sea, break, prayer, mature, trace, house

homonyms: ear.

7. In a semantic ?eld, not all lexical items necessarily have the same status. The less marked

members of the same semantic ?eld (1) are usually easier to learn and remember than more marked members; (2) consist of only one morpheme in contrast to more marked members; (3) cannot be described by using the name of another member of the same ?eld; (4) tend to be used more frequently than more marked terms;

(5) broader in meaning than more marked members; (6) are not the result of the metaphorical usage of the name of another object or concept, but more marked are.

8. (1) a. bachelor, man, son, paperboy, pope, chief b. bull, rooster, drake, ram. The (a) and (b) words are male. The (a) words are human. The (b) words are animals. (2) a. ask, tell, say, talk, converse b. shout, whisper, mutter, drawl, holler The (a) and (b) words are realized by sounds. The (a) words are normal voice quality.

The (b) words are produced by modifying one‘s normal voice quality. (3) a. walk, run, skip, jump, hop, swim

b. ?y, skate, ski, ride, cycle, canoe, hang-glide The (a) and (b) words are sports (movement). The (a) words are sports without instruments. The (b) words are sports with instruments.

Chapter 6

Pragmatics

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) pragmatics: a branch of linguistics that studies language in use.

(2) deixis: the marking of the orientation or position of entities and situations with

respect to certain points of reference such as the place (here/there) and time (now/then) of utterance.

(3) reference: (in semantics) the relationship between words and the things, actions, events,

and qualities they stand for.

(4) anaphora: a process where a word or phrase (anaphor) refers back to another word or

phrase which was used earlier in a text or conversation.

(5) presupposition: implicit assumptions about the world required to make an

utterance meaningful or appropriate, e.g. ―some tea has already been taken‖ is a presupposition of ―Take some more tea!‖

(6) Speech Act Theory: The theory was proposed by J. L. Austin and has been developed

by J. R. Searle. Basically, they believe that language is not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to ―do things‖, to perform acts. In saying ―Sorry‖, you are performing an act of apology.

(7) indirect speech act: an utterance whose literal meaning (location) and

intended meaning (illocution) are different. For example, Can you pass the salt? is literally a yes/no question but is usually uttered as a request or polite directive for action.

(8) the Cooperative Principle: a principle proposed by the philosopher Paul Grice

whereby those involved in communication assume that both parties will normally seek to cooperate with each other to establish agreed meaning. It is composed of 4 maxims: quality, quantity, relation and manner.

(9) the Politeness Principle: politeness is regarded by most interlocutors as a means

or strategy which is used by a speaker to achieve various purposes, such as saving face, establishing and maintaining harmonious social relations in conversation. This principle requires speakers to ―minimize the expression of impolite beliefs‖. It is composed of 6 maxims: Maxims of Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy.

(10) conversational implicature: the use of conversational maxims in the Cooperative

Principle to produce extra meaning during conversation.

2. Deictic expressions: I, now, you, that, here, tomorrow. 3. Anaphoric expressions: she, him, it. 4. (1) He bought the beer. (2) You have a watch.

(3) We bought a car.

5. Direct acts: (1)/(5); Indirect acts: (2)/(3)/(4)

6. (a) The Maxim of Quality: (1) Do not say what you believe to be false; (2) Do not say that

for which you lack adequate evidence.

(b) The Maxim of Quantity: (1) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the

current purpose of the exchange); (2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

(c) The Maxim of Relation: Be relevant.

(d) The Maxim of Manner: Be perspicuous (1) Avoid obscurity of expression; (2) Avoid

ambiguity; (3) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity); (4) Be orderly.

7. The speaker is particularly careful about the maxim of Agreement in PP. The

response begins with ―well‖ rather than ―no‖ in order to minimize disagreement between the speaker and hearer.

8. It is an indirect speech act. Carol invites Lara to a party, but Lara wants to decline the

invitation. To be polite, she doesn‘t choose a direct refusal, instead she says “I‘ve got an exam tomorrow‖ as a reasonable excuse to decline the invitation. In this way, she minimizes the expression of impolite beliefs, thus the utterance conforms to PP

Chapter 7

Discourse Analysis

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) discourse: a general term for examples of language use, i.e. language

pro-duced as the result of an act of communication. It refers to the larger units of language such as paragraphs, conversations and interviews.

(2) discourse analysis: the study of how sentences in written and spoken

language form larger meaning units such as paragraphs, conversations and interviews. (3) given information: the information that the addresser believes is known to

the addressee.

(4) new information: the information that the addresser believes is not known to the

addressee.

(5) topic: the main center of attention in a sentence.

(6) cohesion: the grammatical and/or lexical relationships between the different elements of

a text. This may be the relationship between different sentences or different parts of a sentence.

(7) coherence: the relationship that links the meanings of utterances in a

discourse or of the sentences in a text.

(8) discourse marker: the technical term for all the items that are used to help

construct discourse, such as signifying the beginning or ending of a paragraph or a turn in conversation. They are commonly used in the initial position of an utterance and are syntactically detachable from a sentence, such as well, I mean, now, then, ?rst, second, ?nally.

(9) adjacency pair: a set of two consecutive, ordered turns that ―go together‖ in a

conversation, such as sequences of question/answer, greeting/greeting, invitation/ acceptance, criticism/denial.

(10) preference structure: in the conversations there can be several second parts

related to one ?rst part, but they are not of equal status. The structural likelihood is called preference, and this likely structure is the preference structure that divides second parts into preferred and dispreferred. The former is the structurally expected and the latter unexpected. In answering the question “Have you got a light?‖, the reply ―Here you are‖ is preferred and ―Sorry, no, I don‘t smoke‖ is dispreferred.

(11 presequence: the opening sequences that are used to set up some special potential actions,

such as greetings before formal conversations. ―What are you doing tonight?‖ can be used

as a presequence if it is followed by ―If nothing special, come over and have dinner with us please.‖

(12) critical discourse analysis: the analysis of language use directed at, and committed to,

discovering the concealed ideological bias, injustice, inequality in the power relations among speakers and hearers.

2. In the study of discourse, cohesion refers to the grammatical and/or lexical relationships

between the different parts of a text. This may be the relationship between different sentences or different parts of a sentence. It concerns the question of how sentences are explicitly linked together in a discourse by different kinds of overt devices. Such cohesive devices include reference, substitution, ellipses, conjunction and lexical cohesion. 3. one→the look-out

4. them (line 4)→plant and animal species (line 3)

that (line 7)→“Every ecosystem everywhere can’t be preserved intact.” it (line 7)→“Every ecosystem everywhere can’t be preserved intact.” it (1st one, line 8)→how can it be made consistent with the earlier objective?

it (2nd one, line 8)→to deprive some people in some parts of the world of a piece of their

ecosystem but not others.

5. It is not a coherent discourse. Although it has connection words such as a Ford –– a

car and black –– Black, which look like cohesive devices, they refer to entirely different things. There is a total lack of internal relation among the sentences. A text can‘t be only based on super?cial connections between the words to pursue coherence; there must be some relationship that links the meanings of the sentences in a text, too. This text is not in line with our real experience of the way the world is. Thus, we can‘t make sense of it directly unless we are laborious to create meaningful connections which are not actually expressed by the words and sentences. So it‘s not a coherent discourse. 6. Coherence is the relationship that links the meanings of utterances in a discourse or of the

sentences in a text. This extract is coherent. All the sentences (questions in fact) are organized around the topic ―interview‖, and they are arranged from the general to the more speci?c in a logical order so that the text is easy to follow.

Chapter 8

Sociolinguistics

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) sociolinguistics: the study of the relationship between language and society, that is,

how social factors in?uence the structure and use of language.

(2) standard language: the variety of a language which has the highest status in a community

or nation and which is usually based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of the language.

(3) dialect: a language variety characteristic of a particular social group; dialects can be

characteristic of regional, social, temporal, occupational or gender groups. (4) register: a language variety associated with a particular situation of use, e.g. baby talk

and legal language.

(5) pidgin: a variety of language that is not a native language of anyone, but is

learned in contact situations.

(6) creole: a language that begins as a pidgin and eventually becomes the ?rst

language of a speech community through its being learned by children.

(7) language planning: planning, usually by a government or government agency,

concerning choice of national or of?cial language(s), ways of spreading the use of a language, spelling reforms, the addition of new words to the language, and other language problems.

(8) diglossia: a situation when two distinct varieties of the same language are

used, side by side, for two different sets of functions.

(9) bilingualism: the use of at least two languages either by an individual or by a group of

speakers, such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation.

(10) code-switching: the movement back and forth between two languages or dialects

within the same sentence or discourse.

(11) taboo: a word or expression that is prohibited by the polite society from general use. (12) euphemism: a word or phrase that replaces a taboo word or is used to avoid reference to

certain acts or subjects, e. g. ―powder room‖ for ―toilet‖.

2. Idiolects are varieties of a language used by individual speakers, with peculiarities of

pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

3. A president who did not have an accent may refer to a president who speaks the standard

language. The standard language is a particular variety of a language that is of?cially given a status higher than any other, and therefore a dominant or prestigious

variety. The standard language is usually based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of the language and is generally used in government documents, education, broadcasting and printing. A good president is expected to speak the prestigious variety of his language.

4. Language planning is usually done by a government or government agency which concerns

the choice of national or of?cial language(s), ways of spreading the use of the language(s), spell reforms, the addition of new words to the language, and other language problems. In order to carry it out effectively, the of?cial attempt may concentrate on either the status of a language with regard to some other language or variety or its internal condition with a view to changing it. Language planning usually involves two aspects: status planning and corpus planning. Status planning changes the function of a language or a variety of a language and the right of those who use it. And corpus planning seeks to develop a variety of language or a language, usually to standardize it, that is, to provide it with the means for serving most language functions in society. Governments may take both sides into consideration.

5. A pidgin is a special language variety that mixes or blends languages and it is used by people

who speak different languages for restricted purposes such as trading. Pidgin arose from a blending of several languages such as Chinese dialects and English. Typically pidgins have a limited vocabulary and a much reduced grammatical structure characterized by the loss of in?ections, gender and case. When a pidgin has become the primary language of a speech community, and is acquired by the children of that speech community as their native language, it is said to have become a creole. The structure of the original pidgin is expanded to enable it to ful?ll its new functions. The vocabulary is vastly enriched, and new syntactic-semantic concepts developed. Notable examples of creole are the English-based creole of Haiti.

6. There are many euphemisms for toilet, such as WC, powder room, Men‘s room, Ladies‘

room, Gentlemen, bathroom, restroom and so on. In many cultures, people avoid referring to this place by ―toilet‖ or ―lavatory‖ because they are unpleasant to the ear. The use of euphemisms re?ects social attitudes or social customs. We choose the words or expressions of euphemism because they are more polite or pleasant to use without embarrassing others. 7. There are two possible reasons. One reason is that women are usually more

status-conscious than men and they are aware of their lower status in society and as a result, they may use more standard speech forms in their attempt to claim equality or even achieve a higher social status. The other reason might be attrib-uted to the education. Women are educated to behave ―like a lady‖ when they are little girls, and

such education may in?uence their speech as well. (The answers are quite open) 8. a—S b—F c—L d—K e—Q f—T g—A h—P i—N j—G k—E l—C m—H n—R o—D p—I q—B r—J s—M t—O

Chapter 9

Psycholinguistics

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) psycholinguistics: the study of the relation between language and mind: the mental

structures and processes which are involved in the acquisition, comprehension and production of language.

(2) language production: the process involved in creating and expressing meaning through

language, such as the four successive stages provided by Levelt (1989): conceptualization, formulation, articulation and self-regulation.

(3) language comprehension: From a psycholinguistic point of view, we store a great deal of

information about the properties of the language, and retrieve this information when we understand language. Besides, language comprehension can be treated in four levels: sound, word, sentence and text comprehensions.

(4) Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: It refers to the view that the language system could in?uence or

even determine one‘s thought, and a particular language imposes particular ideas of nature or beliefs of one‘s culture.

(5) linguistic determinism: One‘s language structure determines his cognitive structure.

That is, learning a language may change the way a person thinks or perceives the objective world.

(6) linguistic relativity: As one‘s language influences one‘s cognitive system,

speakers of different languages perceive the world differently.

2. Psycholinguistics is the study of psychological aspects of language; it usually

investigates the psychological states and mental activities associated with the use of language. Most problems in psycholinguistics are comparatively more concrete, involving the study of language acquisition especially in children and linguistic performance such as producing and comprehending utterances or sentences among adults. However, theoretical linguistics is more objective. It usually investigates the existing phenomena about languages and its investigations are usually carried out in the branches of microlinguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary study of language and psychology, with structural linguistics and cognitive psychology as itsroots while theoretical linguistics solely focuses on aspects of language.

3. (1) The correct form is ―They swam across the lake‖, which is caused by

exchange.

(2) The correct form is ―The spy was bound and gagged‖ , which is caused by

exchange.

(3) The correct form is ―I will see you in the park‖, which originates from substitution. 4. The slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon described above can be explained by the

parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach in word comprehension. The PDP approach holds that people use several separate and parallel processes at the same time to understand spoken or written language. In the slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, people have already conceptualized his/her idea (thought), but can not ?nd a proper word to express the idea. This shows that thought precedes language. According to linguistic determinism, language shapes one‘s thought. If there isn‘t language, there should be no thought. Thus, this phenomenon goes against linguistic determinism and shows that thought can exist with or without language.

5. The fact mentioned here ?ies at the face of linguistic determinism which says that one‘s

language structure determines one‘s cognitive structure. That‘s to say, a particular language can not shape one‘s world view. Language changes along social changes. And social changes can lead to the changes of people‘s view. At the same time, one‘s world view can affect a particular language. For example, Xiaojie was used to refer to the daughter of rich and important families before 1949. Then, since 1949, great changes have taken place in China. The world view of Chinese people has changed radically but the language has changed little. During the Cultural Revolution, Xiaojie became very much culturally loaded — young women not belonging to ?the revolutionary rank‘ and people not to be politically trusted. After 1979, it gradually became popular again, and now it has taken on a derogatory meaning (hooker). As it is mentioned above, it is social changes that shape one‘s world view, and it is cognitive structure that affects language.

Chapter 10

Cognitive Linguistics

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) cognitive linguistics: a new approach to the study of language and mind. According to

this approach, language and language use are based on our bodily experience and the way we conceptualize it.

(2) categorization: the mental process of classi?cation.

(3) prototype: what members of a particular community think of as the best example of a

lexical category, e.g. for some English speakers ―cabbage‖ (rather than, say, ―carrot‖) might be the prototypical vegetable.

(4) category: the products of categorization.

(5) prototype theory: a theory of human categorization that was posited by Eleanor Rosch.

Following this theory, natural categories are organized according to prototypes which are considered as the most typical or representative of the category. A robin or sparrow is regarded as a prototype of the category of ―bird‖. People decide whether an entity belongs to a category by comparing that entity with a prototype.

(6) metaphor: an extension of a word‘s use beyond its primary meaning to include

referents that bear some similarity to the word‘s primary referent, as in “eye of a needle‖, or ―cream of the age group‖.

(7) metonymy: also called conceptual/cognitive metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics.

It refers to a conceptual operation in which one entity, the vehicle, can be employed in order to identify another entity, the target, with which it is associated, such as the use of ―Hemingway‖ for ―Hemingway‘s works‖ and “White House‖ for ―government of the USA‖.

(8) iconicity: a feature of a language which means that the structure of language re?ects in

some way the structure of experience, that is, the structure of the world, including the perspective imposed on the world by the speaker. Caesar‘s historic words ―Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)‖ is a good case to prove the iconicity of order (the similarity between temporal events and the linear arrangement of elements in a linguistic construction).

(9) grammaticalization: the shift of an independent word to the status of

agrammatical element. A famous example in English is the transition of the lexical verb ―go‖ into an auxiliary used to express the future tense.

2. Some tips for the tests: according to the prototype theory, prototypes are the best examples of

a category and natural categories are organized around prototypes. Therefore, names of category prototypes tend to come to mind before those of peripheral examples, but many factors (such as culture, individual experience and context) may in?uence the choice of prototypes of categories.

3. In the English preposition list, the spatial prepositions, such as in, on, at, might be the

commonest prepositions in grammar books. The reason is that spatial prepositions are closest to our bodily experience, thus they may be highest in frequency of use. 4. (1) The marriage is rather fragile without enough attention and patience. Their wedding is splendid, while their marriage is rather fragile. (2) Their marriage is on the rocks.

They have walked more smoothly since they had a child.

(3) They love each other so much that nothing can separate them apart. The more objection there is, the tighter they are to each other.

5. (1) His wife is a lovely bird. The source domain is ―(a lovely) bird‖ and the target domain

is ―his wife‖. This expression uses the features of a bird to describe the woman, which invites us to conceptualize that she must be lovely, small and mild.

(2) She is a sheep in front of his husband, while a lion in her career. The source domain is

―sheep/lion‖ and the target domain is ―she‖. The word ―sheep‖ suggests that the woman is gentle, mild and obedient as a wife, while the word “lion‖ creates the impression that she is ambitious, energetic and in?uential in her work.

(3) My mother was a tiger when we were in danger. The source domain is ―tiger‖ and the

target domain is ―my mother‖. The word ―Tiger‖ conveys the idea that ―my mother‖ is brave, intrepid, strong and fearless.

6. De?nitions of these words in dictionaries help us a lot to conceptualize them,

most of which are descriptions of the causes, processes and properties of these emotions. We take ―anger, love and fear‖ for example: (1) anger: the strong feeling you have when something happened you think is bad and unfair (from Oxford Dictionary); a strong feeling of wanting to hurt or criticize someone because they have done something bad to you or been unkind to you (from Longman Dictionary). (2) love: to have a strong feeling of affection for someone, combined with sexual attraction (from Longman Dictionary); a strong feeling of deep affection for

somebody/something, especially a member of your family or a friend, or for somebody you are sexually attracted to (from Oxford Dictionary). (3) fear: the bad feeling that you have when you are in danger, when something bad might happen, or a particular thing frightens you (from Oxford Dictionary); the feeling you get

when you are afraid or worried that something bad is going to happen (from Longman Dictionary). In these de?nitions, a conceptual metonymy is extensively used, that is, THE BODILY SYMPTOMS OF AN EMOTION STAND FOR THE EMOTION (part for whole). Bodily symptoms are helpful for description of the concept of an emotion since generally they are peculiar to a particular emotion.

Chapter11

Language Acquisition

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) ?rst language acquisition: the learning and development of a person‘s native language. (2) behaviorist approach: The approach views language as behavior and believes that

language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation.

(3) innateness approach: This approach holds that the ability to acquire a

human language is part of the biologically innate equipment of the human being, and that an infant is born with this ability just as it is born with two arms, two legs, and a beating heart.

(4) second language acquisition: the acquisition of another language or languages after the

?rst language is on the way or completed.

(5) contrastive analysis: a method of analyzing languages for instructional purposes

whereby a native language and target language are compared with a view to establishing points of difference likely to cause dif?culties for learners.

(6) error analysis: the study and the analysis of the errors made by second andforeign

language learners in order to identify causes of errors or common dif?culties in language learning.

(7) language aptitude: the natural ability to learn a language, not including intelligence,

motivation, interest, etc.

(8) field dependence: a learning style in which a learner tends to look at

the whole while overlooking the many parts it contains. The learner has dif?culty in studying a particular item when it is embedded within a ?eld of other items.

(9) ?eld independence: a learning style in which a learner is able to identify or

focus on particular items and is not distracted by other items in the background or context.

(10) learning strategy: It refers to the particular approaches or techniques that

learners use to try to learn a second language. 2. Omitted. 3. Omitted.

4. This is called ―overgeneralization‖ in second language learning. If second language learners

produce forms such as goed, sheeps and coulds, they may know some regular rules of English but apply them in the wrong place. Here they mistakenly copy the general rules of forming the past forms with ―ed‖, plurals with ―s‖ and third person singulars

with ―s‖. This kind of errors is caused largely due to the nonnative speaker‘s incomplete knowledge of the rules of the target language. For example, an English learner may produce sentence like *“He speaked English‖ , or use *mans instead of men for the plural of man.

5. Mandarin Chinese will interfere with our English studies in the following ways: The

commonest way is the interference of Mandarin Chinese grammar. Some English learners may produce sentence like ―He comes from China, Bejing‖ following the word order of Mandarin Chinese instead of the correct English word order ―He comes from Beijing, China‖, or produce sentence like ―Yesterday I went to town‖ instead of ―I went to town yesterday‖. The interference also shows up in pronunciation. Many speech sounds in English do not appear in Chinese, such as /!/, /8/. Thus it is dif?cult for us to pronounce them correctly. More interference can also be found in semantics and pragmatics. 6. (1) The choice of the word ―hinder‖ here is not appropriate. This kind of error

isintralingual. It originates from faulty or partial learning of the target language. In this situation we may say ―Please don‘t disturb me.‖

(2) The answer to this question is incorrect. The correct answer should be ―No, certainly not.‖

This kind of error is interlingual. It originates from the negative transfer of Chinese. (3) The correct sentence should be ―During the meeting we talk about/discuss the

research project.‖ This kind of error results from cross-association, one kind of intralingual errors. Meanings of the two words (talk and discuss) are alike, but their usage is different. Their similarity leads to confusion.

(4) The correct sentence structure should be ―She catches cold easily.‖ This kind of error is

called interlingual error which is produced according to the word order of Chinese (“他容易感冒”).

(5) The correct answer should be ―The light can impress the ?lm and in this way ?x the

image of the ?lm.‖ This kind of error is intralingual error. It originates from faulty or partial learning of the target language.

(6) The correct form should be ―The scenery is too beautiful to describe.‖ This is

intralingual error which is caused by the in?uence of one target language item upon another.

7. If some learners‘ interlanguage is said to have ―fossilized‖, they have developed a

fairly ?xed repertoire of L2 forms, containing many features which do not progress any further. Aspects of pronunciation, vocabulary usage, and grammar may become fossilized in second or foreign language learning. However, an interlanguage is not designed to fossilize. It will naturally develop and become a more effective means of communication,

given appropriate conditions.

8. It is true that some people are more likely to fossilize than others. It is

believed that certain personality traits are important predictors of success in second language learning, such as introversion versus extroversion. Extroverts are generally more sociable and gregarious. If they are learning in the L2 environment, extroverts will be more actively involved in the language than their introvert classmates. They will be more responsive to the input they get, be keener to try producing their own L2 utterances, so they have more opportunities to build up and test the language structures, making them less likely to fossilize. In language learning environments the tendency for fossilization might be reversed.

Chapter 12

Applied Linguistics

1. De?ne the following terms brie?y.

(1) applied linguistics: the study of language and linguistics in relation to practical issues,

e.g. speech therapy, language teaching, testing, and translation. More often than not nowadays, it is used in the narrow sense, and refers to language teaching in particular.

(2) grammar-translation method: a method of foreign or second language teaching

which makes use of translation and grammar study as the main teaching and learning activities.

(3) audiolingual method: the teaching of a second language through imitation,

repetition, and reinforcement. It emphasizes the teaching of speaking and listening before reading and writing and the use of mother tongue in the classroom is not allowed.

(4) communicative language teaching: an approach to foreign or second

language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is to achieve communicative competence.

(5) testing: the use of tests, or the study of the theory and practice of their use, development,

evaluation, etc.

(6) achievement test: a test which measures how much of a language someone has learned

with reference to a particular course of study or program of instruction.

(7) validity: (in testing) the degree to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure,

or can be used successfully for the purposes for which it is intended. A number of different statistical procedures can be applied to a test to estimate its validity. Such procedures generally seek to determine what the test measures, and how well it does so.

(8) reliability: (in testing) a measure of the degree to which a test gives consistent

results; a test is said to be reliable if it gives the same results when it is given on different occasions or when it is taken by different people.

(9) pro?ciency test: a test which measures how much of a language someone has learned

without considering the syllabus, duration and manner of learning.

(10) subjective test: a test which is scored according to the personal judgment of the marker,

such as essay writing or translation.

(11) objective test: a test that can be marked without the use of the examiner‘s

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