英语语言学复习资料

英语语言学复习资料

一：名词解释

1. Language (语言) is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

2. Linguistics(语言学) is generally defined as the scientific study of language.

3. General linguistics(普通/一般语言学)

The study of language as a whole is often called general linguistics.

4. Phonetics(语音学) the study of sounds used in linguistic communication led to the establishment of phonetics.

5. Phonology(语音体系) how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning in communication.

6. Morphology(形态学) these symbols are arranged and combined to form words has constituted the branch of study called morphology.

7. Syntax(句法学) then the combination of words to form grammatically permissible sentences in languages is governed by rules. The study of these rules constitutes a major branch of linguistic studies called syntax.

8. Semantics(语意学) the study of meaning is known as semantics.

9. Pragmatics(语用学) when the study of meaning is conducted, not in isolation, but in the context of language use, it becomes another branch of linguistic study called pragmatics.

10. Phone(音素) is a phonetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones.

11. Phoneme(音位) is a phonological unit; it is a unit that is of distinctive value. It is an abstract unit. It is not any particular sound, but rather it is represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.

12. Allophones(音位变体) the different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones.

13. IPA(International Phonetic Alphabet国际音标) It’s a standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription. The basic principle of the IPA is using one letter selected from major European languages to represent one speech sound.

14. Diacritics(变音符) it is a set of symbols which are added to the letter-symbols to bring out the finer distinctions.

15. broad transcription(宽式标音) one is the transcription with letter-symbols only.

16. narrow transcription(严式标音) the other is the transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacritics.

17. open class words(开放类词) In English , open class words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. We can regularly add new words to these classes. 18. closed class words(封闭类词) In English , closed class word are conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. New words are

not usually added to them.

19. Morpheme(词素) the most basic element of meaning is traditionally called morpheme.

20. bound morpheme(黏着词素) morphemes which occurs only before other morphemes. They cannot be used alone.

21. free morpheme(自由词素) it is the morphemes which can be used alone.

22. suprasegmental features(超音段特征) the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features.

23. Category(畴) it refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language such as a sentence ,a noun phrase or a verb.

24. Phrases(短语) Syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrases.

二：简答题

1. Three distinct of phonetics(语音学的三个分支？)

Articulatory phonetics发音语音学; auditory phonetics听觉语音学; acoustic phonetics声光语音学.

2. Main features of language(语言的主要特征？)

Language is a system. Language is arbitrary. Language is vocal. Language

is human-specific.

3. Synchronic vs. diachronic(共识语言学与历史语言学的区别？)

Language exists in time and changes through time. The description of

a language at some point of time in history is a synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study.

A diachronic study of language is a historical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time.

4. Speech and writing (言语与文字的区别？)

Speech and writing are the two major media of linguistic communication. From the point of view of linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing. The writing system of any language is always “invented” by its users to record speech when the need arises. Then in everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed, speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongue, and writing is learned and taught late r when he goes to school. Written language is only the “revised” record of speech.

5. What are the branches of linguistic study?(语言学研究领域中的主要分支有哪些？)

1) sociolinguistics; 2) psycholinguistics; 3)applied linguistics and so on.

6. Traditional grammar and modern linguistics(传统语法与现代语言学的区别？) Firstly, linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive. Second, modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written. Traditional grammarians, tended to emphasize,

maybe over-emphasize, the importance of the written word.

Modern linguistics differs from traditional grammar also in that it does not force languages into a Latin-based framework.

7. Prescriptive vs. descriptive (语言学中描写性与规定性的特征是什么？) Prescriptive and descriptive represent two different types of linguistic study. If a linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; if the linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct and standard” behavior in using language, it is said to be prescriptive. 8. Design features of language (语言的识别特征？)

Arbitrariness随意性，productivity生产性, duality 二重性, displacement 不受时空限制的特征, cultural transmission 文化传递系统. 9. Competence and performance (语言能力与语言行为的区别？) Competence is defined as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language, and performance the actual realization of this knowledge

in linguistic communication. Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual. 10. Organs of speech (发音器官)

Pharyngeal cavity—the throat, oral cavity—the mouth, nasal cavity—the nose. 11. Word-level categories(决定词畴的三个标准) To determine a word’s category, three criteria are usually employed, namely meaning, inflection and distribution.

三：问题回答

1. Some rules in phonology(音位学规则)

sequential rules(序列规则)；assimilation rule (同化规则) ；deletion rule(省略规则)。

2. Suprasegmental features(超音段特征)

stress(重音)；tone(声调)；intonation(语调)。

3. Classification of English speech sounds(英语语音分类)

The classification will divide the speech sounds in English into 20 vowels and28 consonants.

4. Phrase categories and their structures (短语的畴和类型)

noun phrase(NP), verb phrase(VP), adjective phrase(AP), prepositional phrase(PP).

5. Morphological rules of word formation(形态学的规则)

The ways words are formed are called morphological rules. These rules determine how morphemes combine to form words.

Some of the morphological rules can be used quite freely to form new words. They are productive morphological rules.

Another way to form new words are compound words, is by stringing words together.

1.1. What is language?

“Language is system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human

communication. It is a system, since linguistic elements are arranged systematically, rather than randomly. Arbitrary, in the sense that there is usually no intrinsic connection between a work (like “book”) and the object it refers to. This explains and is explained by the fact that different languages have different “books”: “book” in English, “livre” in French, in Japanese, in Chinese, “check” in Korean. It is symbolic, because words are associated with objects, actions, ideas etc. by nothing but convention. Namely, people use the sounds or vocal forms to symbolize what they wish to refer to. It is vocal, because sound or speech is the primary medium for all human languages, developed or “new”. Writing systems came much later than the spoken forms. The fact that small children learn and can only learn to speak (and listen) before they write (and read) also indicates that language is primarily vocal, rather than written. The term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is human specific.

1.2. What are design features of language?

“Design features” here refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication. They are arbitrariness, duality, productivity, displacement, cultural transmission and interchangeability

1.3. What is arbitrariness?

By “arbitrariness”, we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds (see I .1). A dog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had used it for a pig. Language is therefore largely arbitrary. But language is not absolutely seem to be some sound-meaning association, if we think of echo words, like “bang”, “crash”, “roar”, which are motivated in a certain sense. Secondly, some compounds (words compounded to be one word) are not entirely arbitrary either. “Type” and “write” are opaque or unmotivated words, while “type-writer” is less so, or more transparent or motivated than the words that make it. So we can say “arbitrariness” is a matte r of degree.

1.4.What is duality?

Linguists refer “duality” (of structure) to the fact that in all languages so far investigated, one finds two levels of structure or patterning. At the first, higher level, language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningful units (such as morphemes, words etc.); at the second, lower level, it is seen as a sequence of segments which lack any meaning in themselves, but which combine to form units of meaning. According to Hu Zhanglin et al. (p.6), language is a system of two sets of structures, one of sounds and the other of meaning. This is important for the workings of language. A small number of semantic units (words),