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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Displacement

Language can be used to refer to what is present, what is absent, what happens at present, 【答案】

what happened in the past, what will happen in the future or what happens in a far-away place. This property of language enables language users to overcome the barriers caused by time and place. For example , we can talk about Sapir, who is already dead; we can even talk about next week, which is in the future.

2． constituent

【答案】 Constituent is a term used in structural sentence analysis for every linguistic unit, which is a part of a larger linguistic unit. Several constituents together form a construction: for example, in the sentence The boy ate the apple, S , the boy , ate the apple , each part is a constituent. （A ）（B ）（C ）

Constituents can be joined together with other constituents to form larger units. If two constituents, in the case of the example above , B （the boy ） and C （ ate the apple ） , are joined to form a hierarchically higher constituent A （“S”，here a sentence） , then B and C are said to be immediate constituents of A.

3． grammatical word

【答案】 It refers to those which mainly work for constructing group , phrase , clause , clause complex , or even text , such as , conjunctions , prepositions , articles , and pronouns. Grammatical words serve to link together different content parts. So they are also known as Function Words.

4． Achievement test

【答案】 Achievement test is a test which measures how much of a language someone has learned with reference to a particular course of study or program of instruction.

5． Category

Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in 【答案】

a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb.

6． Register

【答案】 It is a speech variety used by a particular group of people , usually sharing the same occupation （e.g. doctors, lawyers） or the same interests. A particular register often distinguishes itself from others by having a number of distinctive words, by using words or phrases in a particular way, and sometimes by special grammatical constructions （e.g. legal language）.

7． IPA

【答案】 IPA is the abbreviation of International Phonetic Alphabet , which is devised by the International Phonetic Association in 1888. IPA is a set of symbols which can be used to represent the phones and phonemes of natural languages.

8． Homonymy

【答案】 In any language there are words which have the same linguistic form but are different in meaning. These words are called homonyms. For example, bank （of a river） , and bank （financial institution ）.

二、Essay-question

9． Read the following quote from Chomsky. What do you think about Chomsky^ criticism and the revival of corpus linguistics?

It seems clear that the description which is of greatest psychological relevance is the account of competence , not that of performance, for anyone concerned with intellectual processes, or any question that goes beyond mere data arranging, it is the question of competence that is fundamental. ...

These rather obvious comments apply directly to study of language, child or adult. This it is absurd to attempt to construct a grammar that describes observed linguistic behaviour directly ，…a direct record —an actual corpus —is almost useless as it stands , for linguistic analysis of any but the most superficial kind. ...

【答案】 Regarding linguistics as a branch of psychology, Chomsky insisted that what should be studied is linguistic competence , not performance. As he has claimed , the description of language performance only tells what is there, and is very inadequate in telling why language performs in the way as it does, or rather, how the intellectual processes affects it.

What ＇s more, language performance is more than often degenerated; there are false statements, hesitations , and so on. Therefore, the corpus linguistics which is based on the language performance is somewhat distorted from the goal of linguistics. Because , according to Chomsky , what linguistics is aimed for , should be the discovering of the constants , the general principle which all languages are constructed and operated as systems of communication in societies in which they are used.

Therefore , he suggested the construction of universal grammar, which is the ideal knowledge of language , is what linguists should be concerned with , and the postulation of grammar based on the observed behavior is also a distortion.

10．Shakespeare has Juliet say:

Whats in a name? That which we call a rose.

By any other name would smell as sweet.

What do the above lines say to you about the relationship between the form and meaning （sounds ）

（concept ） of a word in spoken language? Explain with positive evidence as well as exceptions from the English language.

The lines said above show that the relationship between the form （sounds ） and meaning 【答案】

（concept ） of a word in spoken language is arbitrary in nature. That means there is no logical connection between forms （sounds ） and meaning （concept ） . Different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages.

Sounds are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. In this example, the rose can be called by many names in different languages but its smell never changes. Another example, different languages have different forms for referring to “dog” in English, such as Chinese “狗 ”，French “chien （n.m. ） 5”While language is arbitrary by nature, there are some （gou ）

exceptions as well. The best examples in English are the onomatopoetic words and compound words. For example, some onomatopoetic words “rumble”，“ crash”， “crackle” “ bang” are uttered like the sounds they describe, thus seem to have a natural basis. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. For example while “photo” and “copy” are both arbitrary , the compound word “photocopy” is not entirely arbitrary, thus seem to be motivated. Anyhow, non-arbitrary words make up only a small percentage of the vocabulary of a language.

11．Think of the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle proposed by P. Grice, and explain the violation of maxims in the cases below.

1）A : Have you seen my watch?

B : Look in the drawer.

2）A : Reno s the capital of Nevada.

B : Yeah, London s the capital of New Jersey.

3）A : I really liked that dinner.

B : Tm a vegetarian.

4）A : Let‟s dine out with the kids this weekend

B : Okay, but not M-c-D-o-n-a-l-d-s.

【答案】 The four maxims of the Cooperative Principle proposed by P. Grice are the maxim of quantity , the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner.

In （1） , B violates the maxim of quantity, for his/her not giving enough information to A9s question. B does not answer “yes” or “no” to a yes-no question，so A doesn‟t know whether B is sure it is in the draw. But B says this way may imply he/she is unsure about it （look at the drawer, maybe it is there ）, or he/she is sure （just go get it, it is in the drawer）.

In （2）, B violates the maxim of quality. Apparently London is not the capital of New Jersey. What

B says is a false statement, and B knows it is false. But B says it to imply that A9s statement is also false, that is, Reno is not the capital of Nevada.

In （3） , B violates the maxim of relations. B does not talk about “that dinner” directly but with “I‟m a vegetarian instead. Although the two utterances are not relevant superficially, yet what B says may imply that "there is meat in that dinner, and I am a vegetarian, so I don‟t like it.” which makes the conversation coherent.

In （4） , B violates the maxim of manners. B may be deliberately obscure by saying in that way so that the children will not be able to understand what they are talking about.

12．In interpreting utterances such as（1）and （2），the hearer generally treats the events described in the two sentences in each group as causally related even though such relationship is not encoded in the meanings of the sentences. That is . the hearer tends to think that Helen fell on the ground because of Torn's pushing and that the vase broke because it was dropped. Explain why.

（1）Tom pushed Helen. Helen fell on the ground.