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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． cohort model

【答案】 The cohort model is a supposed doctrine dealing with the spoken word recognition postulated by Marslen-Wilson and Welsh in 1990. It is suggested that the first few phonemes of a spoken word activate a set or cohort of word candidates that are consistent with the input. These candidates compete with one another for activation. As more acoustic input is analyzed , candidates that are no longer consistent with the input drop out of the set. This process continues until only one word candidate matches the input- the best fitting word may be chosen if no single candidate is a clear winner.

2． figure-ground alignment

【答案】 Figure-ground alignment seems to apply to space with the ground as the prepositional object and the preposition expressing the spatial relational configuration. It also applies to human perception of moving objects. Since the moving object is typically the most prominent one, because it is moving , it is typically the figure, while the remaining stimuli constitute the ground.

3． Linguistic relativity

【答案】 This is one of two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It states that similarity between languages is relative , the greater their structural differentiation is , the more diverse their conceptualization of the world is. For example, not every language has the same set of words for the colors ; in Spanish there is no word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”.

4． Transformational-Generative grammar

【答案】 Transformational-generative grammar is proposed by Noam Chomsky. He postulated a syntactic base of language （called deep structure ） , which consists of a series of phrase-structure rewrite rules, i.e., a series of （possibly universal） rules that generates the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence. The end result of a transformational-generative grammar is a surface structure that is identical to an actual sentence of a language , after the mediating of a series of rules （called transformations ） that act upon the deep structures.

5． Government

【答案】 Government is another type of control over the forms of some words by other words in certain syntactic constructions. It differs from concord in that this is a relationship in which a word of a certain class determines the forms of others in terms of certain category. In English, for example, the pronoun after a verb or a preposition should be in the object form as in She gave him a book. She gave a book to him. In other words , the verb , or the preposition , determines , or governs , the form of the pronoun after it.

6． Conceptualism

It is the view which holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it 【答案】

refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.

7． Presupposition

【答案】 A presupposition is a proposition （expressed in a sentence） that is assumed to be true in order to judge the truth or falsity of another sentence. For example , John didn't pass chemistry presupposes that John took chemistry.

8． Concord （or : Agreement）

【答案】 It may be defined as the requirement that the forms of two or more words of specific word classes that stand in specific syntactic relationship with one another shall also be characterized by the same paradigmatically marked category （or categories ） . For example, the syntactic relationship between that girl and she in the following dialogue: A: Who is that girl? B: Oh, she is my sister.

二、Essay-question

9． What is the relationship between speech event and speech act? （Explain with an example）.

【答案】 Speech act refers to an utterance as a functional unit in communication. There are many kinds of speech acts, such as requests, orders, commands, complaints, and promises. A speech act that is performed indirectly is sometimes known as an indirect speech act. Speech event refers to a particular instance when people exchange speech , e.g. an exchange of greetings , an enquiry , a conversation. Speech events are governed by the rules and norms for the use of speech, which may be different in different communities. The structure of speech events varies considerably according to the genre they belong to.

Both speech act and speech event are concerned about the actual utterance of sentences. But speech act deals with a particular utteranceh that has locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. Speech event is related to certain speech situations that are composed of many utterances, though may be not speech act.

For example, when you ask for the time at a bus stop with the sentence, “What time is it?” your meaning is that you want to know the time. This speech act takes place within a speech event, which could be called asking for the time. Such an event is very brief and usually has three speech acts: asking the time, giving the time, and thinking.

Speech events usually take place within the larger context of speech situations. Based on the differences between speech act and speech event, the former is usually studied in pragmatics while the latter is the focus of socio-linguistics.

10．Discuss the following advertisement extensively: “ 你不理财，财不理你”.

【答案】 This advertisement is an interesting one, for its witty use of pun words. There are two places of punning. First, “理财” could be interpreted in two different ways : one is “to manage one‟s money‟‟，the other is “not to ignore money”. Second, in the second part of the sentence, “财 ” is punned through homophony: it could be interpreted as “财 ”，therefore , the whole part “财不理你” could mean “fortune will ignore you‟‟，or rather，“fortune will pass you away”. This character could also

interpreted as “才”，therefore , the whole part “财不理你” could mean “I will ignore you”，or rather, “I will show you my cold shoulder” （Here UF, refers to the company which put out this advertisement）.

Therefore , this utterance could be possibly interpreted in the following ways. 1） If you do not handle your money in a proper way, then money will pass you by. 2 ） If you do not handle your money properly , then I won‟t take care of any of your business. 3 ） If you ignore money, and do not pay any attention to it, then money will pass you by. 4） If you ignore money, then I will ignore you, too, and I won5t take care of any of your business. In these four interpretations, it is clear to see that in 1 and 4, the advertiser conveyed the messages to the readers as if he was having a face-to-face talk to a friend. This has in some way made the piece of ad interesting to read.

It is known the punning is by nature ambiguous. Therefore, according to Grice, the advertisement has violated the principle of avoiding ambiguity under Manner Maxim. By such a violation , the advertiser has possibly intended to make the potential consumers pay more attention to it, and spend more time on it, since it is known that ambiguity will increase the time for processing the sentence; and by interpreting it in additional ways, the readers are also expected to get another interesting message from this ad. All of these could eventually come to a higher memorability of the advertisement.

11．The British linguist F.R. Palmer argues that 44there is no absolute distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms. ” Do you believe so? Support your view with examples.

【答案】 I would prefer not to agree with this argument that there is no absolute distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms. The common way to distinguish gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms could be to see the forms they could occur: adjective gradable antonyms could be modified by “very”，and could have comparative forms and superlative forms; while the complementary counterparts could not. For example, we could say “very warm”, “warmer”, but we could not say “very absent ” or “more absent ” （absent here is opposed to present）.

The expressions with “very” or “more” modi fying complementary antonyms are in fact not true comparatives and have a clear indication of either this one or the other one in the pair of complementary antonyms. For example, expression like “He is more dead than alive” actually means “It is more correct to say that he is dead than to say he is alive”. And this sentence could only be used when he is still alive; after all, we do not say someone is more dead than other.

12．Discuss the following sentences in terms of violation of maxims in the cooperative principle.

a.I think he was married and had a lioness at home.

b.A : What do you intend to do?

B : I have a terrible headache.

c.A : Where‟ve you been?

B : Out.

【答案】 In sentence a, the speaker has violated the first Quality maxim, which says c'do not say what you believe to be false99. In the literal sense , no human being would marry a lioness , and therefore at this level, it is a false statement. However, the deliberate violation of the maxim will lead us to interpret it as a metaphor, meaning that his wife had a bad temper.

In sequence b, B has flouted the maxim of Relation, since he did not answer A5s question directly. However , assuming that B was co-operative, A was likely to derive the implicature that since B had a terrible headache, he would probably just lie in bed and do nothing.