西南大学《英语文体学引论》复习思考题及答案
(0099) 《英语文体学引论》复习思考题
I. Explain in brief the following terms. (10 points; in test it contains 10 terms)
1. stylistics
2. style
3. dialect
4. morpheme
5. phoneme
6. language
7. register 8. acoustic phonetics 9. auditory phonetics
10. syllable 11. general stylistics 12. literary stylistics
13. form 14. content 15. phonological analysis
16. lexical analysis 17. syntactical analysis 18. discoursal analysis
19. paralinguistic features 20. social dialect 21. taboo
22. whispery voice 23. breathy voice 24. creaky voice
25. falsetto 26. common core words 27. technical words
28. standard words 29. non- standard words 30. spoken words
31. literary words 32. extension 33. specialization
34. elevation 35. degradation 36. metaphor
37. litotes 38. irony 39. compound sentence
40. periodic sentence 41. loose sentence 42. elliptical sentence
43. inverted sentence 44. antithesis 45. parallelism
46. repetition 47. deviation 48. cataphora
49. progressive conjunction 50. field of discourse
II. Answer the following questions. (50 points; in test it contains 5 questions)
1. What is the relationship between form and content?
2. What are the differences between language and speech?
3. What is the methodology of stylistic analysis? What are the levels of stylistic analysis?
4. Define paralinguistic features. What are they?
5. What are the three ways of studying the sound of language?
6. What are the four typical meters in English poetry?
7. What is the relationship between sound and meaning?
8. What is the relationship between style and the choice of words, according to the
stylisticians?
9. How many kinds of word meanings may be classified? And what are they?
10. What are the three basic components of the English vocabulary?
11. Functionally speaking, what are the four types of English sentences?
12. What are the conjunctions used in combining English sentences?
13. What are the gestures may be used in a casual conversation?
14. What are the three types of substitution? Can you give some examples?
15. What is the relationship between dialect and register?
16. Name at least five kinds of figures of speech in English.
17. Can you give some examples of rhetorical questions?
18. What are the stylistic features of the Bible?
19. What are the five kinds of reference in the English language?
20. What are the three factors of register?
21. Give examples to illustrate power relationship and solidarity relationship.
22. What are the non-linguistic features of casual conversation?
23. What are the linguistic features of the language of news reporting?
24 .What are the linguistic features of the language of advertisement?
25. What is the relationship between literary language and ordinary language?
III. Stylistic analysis (20 points):
1. Explain the connotative meaning of the italicized words or expressions in the following
sentences (12 points; in test it may or may not appear; it contains 3 words or expressions):.
1) Don’t trust her; she is a snake in the grass.
2) The enemy will attack us tomorrow morning, but we are still not well prepared. The
Da mocles’ sword is hanging over us.
3) We have to consult him, you know, he is the real Titan in our class.
4) News from Pentagon today says …
5) She knows nothing about the cruelty of the world. She is a lily.
6) Hamlet, according to some psycho-analysis theory, is a character who has the
Oedipus complex.
7) He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Don’t believe what he says.
8) The doctor told him it is not cancer, however, it is only a white lie.
9) He is always ready to help people when they are in need. He’s a real Robin Hood.
10) Their policy is all sticks and no carrots.
11) 0China never stands on the side of Chauvinism.
12) Children are flowers of our country.
2. What possible social relationships exist between the participants in the following
sentences? (12 points; in test it may or may not appear)
1) Excuse me, could you tell me the right time, please?
2) What time is it, please?
3) What’ the time?
3. Indicate what kind of figures of speech is used in the following examples? (8 points; in
test it may or may not appear; it contains 2 items)
The young hunter was as strong as a lion.
Life is but a brief candle.
from the cradle to the grave
Many hands make light work.
She’s as old as a mountain.
A victorious defeat
He is a fool. He never knows where his personal interest lies. His whole heart is concerned about the interest of other people.
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.
The drunkard loves his bottle better than his wife.
My love is a red, red rose.
4. Try to analyze the following sentence and point out its stylistic value (12 points; it may
or may not appear in test; if it appears, it contains one sentence)
1) It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune
must be in want of a wife. (J. Austin. Pride and Prejudice)
2) I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)
3) O, my luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O, my luve is like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
(Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose)
4) A grief ago (Dylan Thomas)
5) “Don’t be such a harsh parent, father!”
“Don’t father me!”
(0099) 《英语文体学引论》复习思考题答案
I. Explain in brief the following terms (10 points; in test it contains 10 terms):
1. stylistics: the study or the investigation of style.
2. style: the linguistic habit of a particular person(s) or characteristic of typical situations.
3. dialect: a subtype of language which may be determined by geographical locality or
particular social groupings.
4. morpheme: the smallest unit in a language that carries meaning.
5. phoneme: the smallest sound unit in a specific language capable of semantic distinction.
6. language: a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.
7. register: language determined by situation.
8. acoustic phonetics: a branch of phonetics dealing with the physical properties of the
speech sounds of a language.
9. auditory phonetics: the study of how the sound of speech is received by the hearer.
10. syllable: a vowel sound either with or without a consonant or consonants in clusters.
11. general stylistics:the investigation of the linguistic features of all kinds of language use.
12. literary stylistics: the study of the linguistic features of literature in particular, such as
those of poetry, novels and dramas.
13. form: the particular way of expressing the message.
14. content: the message or information or the communicative value that is encoded or
loaded in a linguistic expression.
15. phonological analysis: it is chiefly concerned about the sound patterns of a piece of
literature, especially those of poetry.
16. lexical analysis: it is chiefly concerned about the internal structure and the stylistic
coloring and the semantic relationship of the words in the text.
17. syntactical analysis: it is chiefly concerned about how the words in a text are put
together to produce meaning and other kinds of message.
18. discoursal analysis: it is concerned about how sentences are joined together to produce a
cohesive and coherent text.
19. paralinguistic features: the vocal effects caused by different shaping of the vocal cords
and openings
20. social dialect: it is determined by the social groupings that a person belongs to.
21. taboo: words forbidden to be used in public because of their being dirty or offensive
22. whispery voice: utterance without any vocal cord vibration at all. Emphasizing contrast.
23. breathy voice: utterance where there is too much breath for the needs of the articulation.
24. creaky voice: a slow crackle of vocal cord vibrations at a low pitch, like a stick being run
along a fence.
25. falsetto: a switch of the voice from one vocal register to a higher one; usually found only
in males.
26. common core words: refer to those words used in everyday life.
27. technical words: refer to those words used in special professions.
28. standard words: words that are used in the standard dialect.
29. non-standard words: words labeled as slangs, vulgarisms and colloquialisms in the
dictionary. the cultural and social implications of a word simile: a comparison between two things with emphasis on the similarity or likeness between them
30. spoken words: words that most often used in face-to- face, casual and everyday
conversations.
31. literary words: words used in formal writings or literature.
32. extension: a specific word comes to mean a general idea.
33. specialization: the change of the word meaning may move in the opposite direction, a
word with general reference is narrowed to a specific reference.
34. elevation: words of derogatory association become words of favorable association.
35. degradation: neutral words or words of favorable association degenerated into
derogatory words.
36. metaphor: a covert comparison
37. litotes: understatement
38. irony: a figure of speech that takes the form of saying or implying the opposite of what
one feels to be the case
39. compound sentence: a sentence made up of two or more simple sentences, joined
together by conjunctions or punctuations
40. periodic sentence: one that is not grammatically complete until the end is reached
41. loose sentence: one that may be brought to a grammatical close before the end is reached
42. elliptical sentence: one in which either the subject or the predicate or part of the
predicate is missing
43. inverted sentence: one in which the subject position is filled by other sentence elements
44. antithesis: a figure of speech in the formula of X conj. Y with a contrast between them
45. parallelism: a rhetorical device in which two or more than two similar syntactic
structures with different words are placed side by side
46. repetition: a rhetorical device in which identical words are used but not necessarily in
identical position
47. deviation: violation of standard use of the language
48. cataphora: If the referred item comes after the referring item in a text, then it is a case of
cataphora.
49. progressive conjunction: one sentence that joined by the use of conjunctive words of
addition or progression
50. field of discourse: the topic under discussion or the nature of the activity in which
language is involved
II. Answer the following questions (50 points; in test it contains 5 questions):
1. What is the relationship between form and content?
One way of talking about style is to make a distinction between form and content.
Content is the message or information or the communicative value that is encoded or loaded in a linguistic expression. Form is the particular way of expressing the message.
The form is the style which may be different from case to case although the meaning may remain the same. For example, the Chinese term 开始may be expressed in
different English words, such as start, begin and commence, but each suggests a different style.
2. What are the differences between language and speech?
Another way of talking about style is to make a distinction between language and speech, which may be translated in Chinese as 语言and 言语. This distinction was first proposed by Saussure, the founder of the modern linguistics. According to Saussure, there are four major differences between language and speech.
A. Language is abstract whereas speech is concrete. Language is abstract in the sense
that it has only psychological instead of physical existence. Language is not
something that you can bring to the classroom and examine under the microscope,
not something you can hear, see, smell , touch or taste. Speech is concrete in the
sense that it has physical properties. Either can be heard in the spoken form or seen
in the written form.
B. Language is potential whereas speech is actual. Language is potential in the sense
that it is a kind of can-mean system, while speech is something that has an actual
meaning.
C. Language is code whereas speech is message(语言是一个代码系统，言语才是信
息). Language is a set of symbols that can be used to transmit information. Speech
is the actual use of the language in an act of communication in a particular situation
for a particular purpose. It carries a real message.
D. Language is stable and systematic whereas speech is subject to personal and
situational constraint. For example, the word book in the English language always
refers to some printed matter. But in speech it may be used to refer to anything that
the speaker wants to refer to by the use of it as long as it is understandable. The
common example is the sentence: He is a walking dictionary(a kind of book)
meaning that he is very knowledgeable.
3. What is the methodology of stylistic analysis? What are the levels of stylistic analysis?
The major methodology for stylistic analysis is linguistic analysis. It tries to be objective or scientific in its analysis. According to the advocates of this methodology, anyone using this methodology to analyze a given text of literature will reach roughly the same conclusion.
Levels of analysis
Since stylistic analysis is a kind of linguistic analysis, naturally, how many levels of structure we have in a language correspondingly how many levels of structure at which we may do stylistic analysis.
1) Phonological
Phonological analysis is chiefly concerned about the sound patterns of a piece of literature, especially those of poetry.
2) Lexical
Lexical analysis is chiefly concerned about the internal structure and the stylistic coloring and the semantic relationship of the words in the text.
3) Syntactical
Syntactical analysis is chiefly concerned about how the words in a text are put together to produce meaning and other kinds of message.
4) Discoursal
Discoursal analysis is concerned about how sentences are joined together to produce
a cohesive and coherent text.
4. Define paralinguistic features. What are they?
Definition: the vocal effects caused by different shaping of the vocal cords and openings.
Kinds and the corresponding stylistic effects.
1) Whispery voice: utterance without any vocal cord vibration at all. Emphasizing
contrast.
2) Breathy voice: utterance where there is too much breath for the needs of the
articulation, the effect being one of mild ‘puffing and blowing’. Expressing surpri se and astonishment.
3) Creaky voice: a slow crackle of vocal cord vibrations at a low pitch, like a stick
being run along a fence.
4) Falsetto: a switch of the voice from one vocal register to a higher one; usually found
only in males.
5. What are the three ways of studying the sound of language?
A. articulatory phonetics
The study of the sounds of a language with special attention to the speaker: the movement of the lungs, vocal cords, tongue, the lips and other organs which produce and control the noisy outward breathing.
B. acoustic phonetics
The study of the physical properties of the sound waves in the air when being transmitted from the speaker to the hearer.
C. auditory phonetics
The study of how the sound of speech is received by the hearer
6. What are the four typical meters in English poetry?
In English poetry, stress is usually used in the realization of meter. The followings are
the four most typical meters.
1) Iamb: Iamb is a metric foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable.
2) Trochee: Trochee is a metric foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an
unstressed syllable.
3) Anapest: Anapest is a metric foot composed of two unstressed syllables followed by
one stressed one.
4) Dactyl: Dactyl is a metric foot composed of one stressed syllable followed by two
unstressed ones
7. What is the relationship between sound and meaning?
According to Saussure, the relationship between sound and meaning is arbitrary in the sense that why a certain meaning takes a particular sound has no reason and it is completely accident. But in literature, the writers always try to arrange the words in such
a way as to make the patterns of sound to directly suggest the meaning.
8. What is the relationship between style and the choice of words, according to the
stylisticians?
The stylisticians’ attitude: they lay emphasis on the adaptability to the situation.
Standard, non-standard, black, dialectal, slang, archaisms are equally good in their expressiveness. There is no distinction of one being superior and other being inferior.
9. How many kinds of word meanings may be classified? And what are they?
According to the linguists, a word has various kinds of meaning. The first kind of meaning is denotative meaning.
1) Denotative (概念意义)
The kind of meaning we can get from the dictionary. It can also be termed as dictionary meaning, conceptual meaning, logical meaning and referential meaning.
This is the most basic meaning that we understand a word has.
2) Stylistic = social (社会意义)
The kind of meaning associated with a particular social situation in which a particular word is often used. e.g begin, start, commence
3) Affective meaning(情感意义)
It is the emotional, attitudinal and evaluative coloring of a word. e.g. cunning and clever. Both mean the skillful handling of a delicate or difficult situation. But they reveal different attitudes and evaluation of the speaker.
4) Collocative (搭配意义)
Some words may have the same dictionary meaning, but they collocate with
different words, as shown by the pair or synonyms of pretty and handsome.
5) Connotative (内涵意义)
the cultural and social implications of a word.
10. What are the three basic components of the English vocabulary?
The three basic components of the English vocabulary
A Anglo-Saxon
a. Members of the family
b. Parts of the body
c. Nature
d. Time
e. One-syllabled verbs
B French
a. Government and Law
b. Army and military activities
c. Religion
d. Costumes
C Latin
a. Medicine
b. Law
c. Theology
d. Science
e. Literature
11. Functionally speaking, what are the four types of English sentences?
1) Declarative 2) Interrogative
3) Exclamatory 4) Imperative
12. What are the conjunctions used in combining English sentences?
1) Progressive conjunction (推进性连接): by the use of conjunctive words of addition
or progression, such as and, furthermore, moreover, etc.
2) Contrastive conjunction (对照性连接): by the use of conjunctive words of contrast
or transition, such as but, whereas, while, on the contrary, on the other hand, etc.
3) Temporal conjunction (时间性连接): by the use of conjunctive words of temporal
sequence, such as then, later, afterwards, at last, or finally, etc
13. What are the gestures may be used in a casual conversation?
Facial expressions, eye-contact, body positions, distance, physical touch, sound
modification, clothing, and environment
14. What are the three types of substitution? Can you give some examples?
A. Nominal substitution (名词性替代)
1) The meaning of one/ones e.g. You bought a red pencil, I’d like a blue one.
2) The use of the “same”
Example:
A: I want a cup of tea
B: The same.
3) The use of “kind, sort”. e.g. American food is not the same as the English kind.
B. Verbal substitution (动词性替代)
Do you like Chinese food?
Yes, I do.
He likes Chinese food. So do I.
C. Clausal substitution (分句性替代)
1) The use of “so” “not”
Example: A: Do you think he will come tomorrow?
B: Yes, I think so./ No, I think not.
2) Limitation
Clausal substitution applies only to sentences, where the predicate verb of a
main clause is one of the following verbs:
believe, be afraid, expect, fear, hope, imagine, say, tell, think, suppose.
15. What is the relationship between dialect and register?
Another way of talking about style, is to make a distinction between dialects and registers.
A: Speaker oriented
Dialects are speaker oriented. What kind of speaker speaks what kind of dialect.
Dialects may be regional or social. Regional dialect (地域方言)is determined by the geographical locality the speaker lives in. The social dialect is determined by the social groupings that a person belongs to.
B: Situation oriented
Register is situational oriented. Register is the language determined by situation, and because of this we have such registers as formal English, informal English, classroom English, legal English, etc.
16. Name at least five kinds of figures of speech in English.
Simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, overstatement, etc.