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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． 1-narrator

【答案】 The person who tells the story may also be a character in the fictional world of the story, relating the story after the event. In this ease the critics call the narrator a FIRST-PERSON NARRATOR or I- NARRATOR because when the narrator refers to himself or herself in the story the first person pronoun I is used. First-person narrators are often said to be “limited” because they don’t know all the faces or “unreliable” because they trick the reader by withholding information or telling untruths. This often happens in murder and mystery stories.

2． Glottal Stop

【答案】 V ocal tract is composed of oral cavity, nasal cavity and pharynx. When the vocal folds are totally closed, no air can pass between them. The result of this gesture is the glottal stop.

3． 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.

4． Syllable

【答案】 Syllable : It refers to a unit of spoken language that is bigger than a speech sound. It consists of one or more vowel sounds alone or of a syllabic consonant alone or of either with one or more consonant sounds preceding or following.

5． Minimal pairs

The two words which are identical in every way except for one sound segment that occurs 【答案】

in the same place in the string. For example，the English words bear and pear constitute a minimal pair as they differ in meaning and in their initial phonemes /b/ and /p/.

6． CALL

【答案】 It is the abbreviation of computer-assisted language learning, which refers to the use of a computer in the teaching or learning of a second or foreign language. In this kind of CALL programs, the computer leads the student through a learning task step-by-step , asking question to check comprehension. Depending on the student^ response, the computer gives the student further practice or progresses to new material.

7． Prefix

【答案】 In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. Prefixes are bound morphemes （they cannot occur as independent words ） . While most languages employ both prefixes and suffixes, prefixes are less common. Some languages employ mostly suffixes and almost no prefixes at all. The use of prefixes has been found to correlate statistically with other linguistic features, such as a verb-object word order and the use of prepositions.

8． Semantic field

【答案】 It is the organization of related words and expressions into a system which shows their relationship to one another. For example, kinship terms such as father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt belong to a semantic field whose relevant features include generation , sex , membership of the father's or mother's side of the family.

二、Essay-question

9． What is linguistic relativity and why is it so important in linguistic studies?

【答案】 Linguistic relativity is one of the two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states that distinctions encoded in one language are unique to that language alone , and “there is no limit to the structural diversity of language”. Therefore, similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. For example, in English, the boundaries among the color spectrum are made in this way: red, orange, violet, blue, and yellow. In fact, these discriminations are arbitrary, and in other language the boundaries are indeed different. In neither Spanish, Italian nor Russian is there a word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”.

Linguistic relativity is important in linguistic studies because it recognizes the fact of linguistic diversity , which stands as the base which descriptive linguistics lies on. Linguistic diversity also triggers out the study of the linguistic similarity.

The study of the linguistic relativity has shed light on two important insights: there is nowadays recognition that language, as a code, reflects cultural and preoccupations and constrains the way people think.

10．Saussure puts forward the concept of langue and parole , and Chomsky puts forward the concept of competence and performance. Please dwell upon the differences and similarities, if any, of the two pairs: langue and parole vs. competence and performance.

【答案】 According to F. de Saussure, langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community; while parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use.

For Chomsky, a fundamental distinction between linguistic competence and performance should be made. A language user’s underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called linguistic competence. And performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations. In light with this , competence enables a speaker to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. A speaker’s competence is stable but his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors, and thus would involve imperfections such as slips of tongue , false starts , unnecessary pauses , and so on. Thus , the point is that a speaker’s performance does not always match his competence.

Saussure’s distinction is somewhat similar with Chomsky’s in the sense that they both refer to the constant factor which underlies the utterances that constitute parole/ performance. However , their

difference is quite obvious. Saussue’s language is a social product, a set of conventions for a speech community. Chomsky regards competence as a property of the mind of each individual. Saussrue looks at language more from a sociological point of view while Chomsky looks at it more from a psychological point of view.

11．What kind of linguistic phenomenon can you identify in the following dialogue? Define, analize and explain the phenomenon.

甲：上车请买票。

乙：三张天安门。

甲：您拿好。

【答案】 This conversation consists of the linguistic phenomenon which is called the “Cooperative Principle”，proposed and formulated by P . Grice , based on such a pragmatic hypothesis that the participants must first of all be willing to cooperate; otherwise, it would not be possible to carry on talk. It goes as follows:

Make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. To be more specific, there are four maxims under this general principle:

The maxim of quantity

a ）Make your contribution as informative as is required （for the current purpose of the exchange）. b ）Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

The maxim of quality

a ）Do not say what you believe to be false.

b ）Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

The maxim of relation

Be relevant.

The maxim of manner

a ）Avoid obscurity of expression.

b ）Avoid ambiguity.

c ）Be brief （avoid unnecessary prolixity） •

d ）Be orderly.

There are circumstances where speakers may not follow the maxims of the cooperative principle. For example , in this conversation , the speaker may violate the maxim expectations by using an expression like “ 三张天安门” in response to a question. Although it is typically “more informative than is required” in the context, it is naturally interpreted as communicating more than is said （i.e. the speaker knows the answer）. This typical reaction （i. e. there must be something “special” here） of listeners to any apparent violation of the maxims is actually the key to the notion of conversational implicature. When we violate any of these maxims, our language becomes indirect. In this way, we can convey more than is literally said.

12．State about ONE of the two topics given below （ minimally 200 words ）

（1）In English, the plurality of countable nouns can be represented in several forms, or suffixes. The following are examples of some of such forms. Are these suffixes of plurality the allomorphs of one and the same morpheme , or are they different morphemes? State the reasons for your answer to the