当前位置：问答库＞考研试题

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Stylistics

【答案】 Stylistics is a branch of linguistics studies the features of situationally distinctive uses （varieties ） of language , and tries to establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individual and social groups in their use of language.

2． stream of consciousness writing

【答案】 The term was originally coined by the philosopher William James in his Principle of Psychology （1890） to describe the free association of ideas and impressions in the mind. It was later applied to the writing of William Faulkner, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and others experimenting early in the 20th century with the novelistic portrayal of the free flow of thought. Note, however, that the majority of thought presentation in novels is not stream of consciousness writing. The examples we have discussed above are not stream of consciousness writing because they are too orderly to constitute the free association of ideas. Perhaps the most famous piece of stream of consciousness writing is that associated with Leopold Bloom in Joyce‟s Ulysses. Here he is in a restaurant thinking about oysters.

“Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. （sic ） He was in the Red bank this morning. Was he oyster old fish at table. Perhaps he young flesh in bed. No. June has no ar （sic ） no oysters. But there are people like tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old , blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery.66 This cognitive meandering is all in the most free version of direct thought. It is also characterised by a highly elliptical sentence structure , with as many grammatical words as possible being removed consistently allowing the reader to be able to infer what is going on. The language is not very cohesive ，and breaks the Gricean maxims of Quantity and Manner. But we must assume that apparently unreasonable writing behaviour is related to a relevant authorial purpose. It is the assumption that Joyce is really cooperating with us at a deeper level , even though he is apparently making our reading difficult, that leads us to conclude that he is trying to evoke a mind working associatively.

3． Endocentric construction

【答案】 Endocentric construction : An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent, or approaching equivalence, to that of one or more of its constituents, i.e. a word or a group of words , which serves as a definable center , or head. Hence an endocentric construction is also known as a headed construction. Noun phrases l ike “Lovely Lucy” are typical endocentric constructions.

4． Design features

【答案】 Design features : It refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication.

5． Speech and thought presentation

【答案】 Speech and thought presentation: These two terms are used for the language in fiction, referring to the presenting forms for indicating the narrator‟s speech or thought. The speech presentation may have the following four possibilities : direct speech , indirect speech , narrator‟s represen tation of speech acts, and narrator‟s representation of speech. The Thought presentation can also be categorized into : narrator‟s representation of thought , narrator‟s representation of thought acts , indirect thought , free indirect thought, and direct thought.

6． Entailment

【答案】 It refers to the relation between propositions one of which necessarily follows from the other. If X is true, Y is necessarily true，and if X is false, Y may be true or false. For example, the sentence “He has been to France” entails “He has been to Europe”.

7． Ferdinand de Saussure

【答案】 Ferdinand de Saussure is a Swiss linguist who is often described as “father of modem linguistics”. The great work , Course in General Linguistics , which was based on his lecture notes , marked the beginning of modem linguistics. Saussure^ idea on the arbitrary nature of sign , one the relational nature of linguistic units , on the distinction of langue and parole and of synchronic and diachronic linguistics, etc. pushed linguistics into a brand new stage.

8． 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） .

9． basic level category

【答案】 Basic level category is the most economical level at which you can find the most relevant information. The information on our interactions with objects in the real world are stored at this level. It is at this level that we conjure up the general gestalt of the category.

10．Gradable antonym

【答案】 Gradable antonym. Gradable antonyms are antonyms that are gradable because there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair. For example, cold and warm constitute a pair of gradable antonyms.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．deeded 6. bagged 7. killed 8. nabbed

【答案】

12．The following is a statement by a Japanese businessman: “You buy in your own language, but you sell in your customer’s language.” How do you understand it?

【答案】 This reflects some features of pidgin which is a special language variety that mixes or blends languages and it id used by people who speak different languages for restricted purposes such as trading. And also, it reflects the tendency of intercultural communication from the aspect of language.

13．In English, the phonemeis pronounced differently in pat, spat, and tap, can you form a rule that can generalize this linguistic phenomenon?

【答案】 In English , there is a rule that a is unaspirated

after but aspirated in other places. So in pat , tap

is aspirated but unaspirated in spat since it is

after To bring out the phonetic difference , an aspirated sound is transcribed with a raised “h” after the symbol of the sound. So a

phonetic transcription for peak isand that for speak isSo are two different phones and are variants of the phonemeSuch variants of a phoneme are called allophones of the same phoneme. The allophones are said to be in complementary distribution because they never occur in the same context :

occurs after

while occurs in other places. We can present this rule as:

elsewhere

（note :

is the position in whichappears. ）

In addition, sometimes a phoneme may also have free variants. The final consonant of tap may not be released by some speakers so there is no audible sound at the end of this word. Such phenomenon is called free variation.

14．Write the international phonetic alphabet for the following words.

（1） hypothesis （2） academician （3）verbatim （4） technique

（5） capacity （6） standardize （7）guarantee （8） paradigm

（9） primarily （10） rhetoric （11）procedure （12） originate

【答案】（1）

（5）

（9） （6） （10） （2） （7） （11

） （3） （8） （12） （4）

15．Why do we say language is primarily vocal?

【答案】 Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is primarily 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.