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2018年中国矿业大学(徐州)外国语言文化学院859专业英语(英语语言学)之语言学教程考研基础五套测试题

  摘要

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1. Phatic function ( communion )

【答案】 Phatic function: The phatic function of language refers to the use of the language which often consists of small , seemingly meaningless expression for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts rather than for exchanging information or ideas. For example , greetings , farewells , and comments on the weather in English could serve this function.

2. division of pragmatic labor

【答案】 Horn observes that the Q-based and R-based principles often directly collide and suggests the resolution comes from a division of pragmatic labor,which reads “The use of a marked (relatively complex and/or prolix) expression when a corresponding unmarked (simpler ,less “effortful”)alternate expression is available tends to be interpreted as conveying a marked message (one which the unmarked alternative would not or could not have conveyed) .

3. Idiolect

【答案】 Just as every speech community has a dialect, every speaker has his own pet words and expressions and special way of expressing his ideas in language. This language variety of individual users is called “idiolect”

4. Metonymy

【答案】 Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by 也e name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance , “Washington ”,as the capital of the United States, can be used as a metonym (an instance of metonymy) for the United States government.

5. Performatives

【答案】 Performatives are sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state. They cannot be said to be true or false. The uttering of these sentences is, or is part of, the doing an action. The judge‟s imprisonment sentence, the president‟s war or independence declaration, etc., are performatives.

6. Conversational implicature

【答案】 Conversational implicature refers to a type of implied meaning, which is deduced on the basis of the conventional meaning of words together with the context, under the guidance of the CP and

its maxims. For example, the implicature of He is a tiger could probably be he has some characteristics of a tiger.

7. Applied linguistics

【答案】 It is a branch of linguistics which studies the application of linguistics in reality. For example , there are studies on multilingualism, language acquisition, first and second language teaching and learning.

8. bound root

Bound root refers to the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total 【答案】

loss of identity, and this base form could not occur alone, such as “-ceive” in “receive”.

9. 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”.

10.Relational opposites

【答案】 This is a type of antonymy , in which the members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities. For example, “buy/sell” is such a pair. X buys something from Y means Y sells something from X.

二、Short-answer-questions

11.What are closed-class words and open-class words?

A word that belongs to the closed-class is one whose membership is fixed or limited. New 【答案】

members are not regularly added. Therefore, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc., are all closed items.

The open-class is one whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited. With the emergence of new ideas , inventions , etc. , new expressions are continually and constantly being added to the lexicon. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs are all open-class items.

However , the distinction between closed-class words and open-class words is not quiet as clear-cut as it seems. Preposition,though a closed-class,is relatively open one in English. Expressions such as “regarding”,“throughout”, “out of” are now recognized as prepositions or complex prepositions. In respect of open-class items,auxiliary verbs,which used to be ranked as open-class words, are relatively closed in number.

12.What is assimilation? Is it similar to coarticulation? What dose it include?

【答案】 Assimilation is a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighbouring sound. It is often used synonymously with coarticulation. Nasalization, dentalization and velarization are all instances of assimilation. There are two possibilities of assimilation: if a following sound is influencing a preceding sound, it is regressive assimilation; the converse process, in which a preceding sound is influencing a following sound, is known as progressive assimilation.

13.What is your opinion on “true synonymy is non-existent”?

【答案】 Generally speaking , synonyms are the words which have different forms but similar meaning. There are several types of synonyms: dialectal synonyms, such as lift/elevator, flat/apartment; synonyms of different styles , as shown in gentleman/guy; synonyms of different registers , such as salt/sodium chloride ; synonyms differing in affective meaning , such as attract/seduce; synonyms differing in collocation, such as beautiful/handsome, able/capable.

14.How to analyze dramatic language?

【答案】(1) Turn quantity and length

How much a character talks can be indicative either of their relative importance in the play, or of how important they appear to think they are. Generally speaking , central characters have longer and more speeches than minor characters.

(2)Exchange sequence: The patterns of exchange of a dramatic dialogue which are considered appropriate by speakers of English. For example , the two-part exchanges such as greeting-greeting , question-answer.

(3)Production errors: Deliberately used forms such as hesitation to convey something about the character

(4)The cooperative principle : this principle is proposed by Grice. He asserted people used to make sense of their conversation by enabling them to distinguish between sentence meaning and utterance meaning. He also suggested that people actually break these maxims quite often when they talk.

(5)Status marked through language: Many of the properties of language discussed can be used to signal the relative status and changes in status , of characters. Particularly , language can be used to signal to what extent the relationship between an addresser and addressee is based on a social power difference , and to what extent it is based on solidarity.

(6)Register : It is the term used in linguistics to describe the relationship between a particular style of language and its context of use. An example of a linguistic register is legal discourse, we recognize a legal document when we see one, but lawyers are the only people who are trained to produce them using appropriate linguistic choices.

(7)Speech and silence: Concerning female characters in plays, there is evidence that men tend to talk more than women in mixed sex conversations.

15.How would you describe this short exchange in terms of the ardors performed by the speakers?

Motorist : My car needs new exhaust system.

Mechanic : Fll be busy with this other car all day.

【答案】 In the motorist‟s utterance ,there are two types of speech acts performed , namely representative and directive,and as to the latter one, it is recognized as an indirect speech act, which is performed through the performance of the former one. Thus, by stating that his car needs new exhaust system , the motorist has in fact asked the mechanic to equip a new exhaust system for him.

Similarly ,in the mechanic‟s utterance , there are two types of speech acts performed ; one is representative , the other commissive. The commissive speech act in fact is an indirect one since it is recognized through the performance of representative action. That is to say, by stating that he will be