当前位置：问答库＞考研试题

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Contextual meaning

【答案】 It is also called speaker‟s meaning, or utterance meaning, which is more closely related to the context. For example, when a person says “My bag is heavy”，what he actually means may be asking the hearer to help him carry the bag.

2． Surface structure

【答案】 It is a term used in generative grammar to refer to the final stage in the syntactic representation of a sentence, which provides the input to the phonological component of the grammar, and which thus most closely corresponds to the structure we articulate and hear. For instance, “John is easy to please.” and “John is eager to please.” are two sentences with the same surface structure.

3． Diglossia

【答案】 When two languages or language varieties exist together in a community and each one is used for different purposes, this is called diglossia. Usually, the more standard variety can be called the high variety or H-variety , which is used in government , the media , education , and for religious services. The other one is usually a non-prestige variety, the low variety or L-variety used in the family, with friends, when shopping, etc.

4． distinctive features

a means of working out a set of phonological contrasts or oppositions to capture particular 【答案】

aspects of language sounds , first suggested by Roman Jacobson in the 1940s and then developed by numerous other people.

5． CMC

【答案】 It is computer-mediated communication , distinguished by its focus on language and language use in computer networked environments, and by its use of methods of discourse analysis to address that focus.

6． Broad and narrow transcription

【答案】 Broad and narrow transcription: In broad transcription, one letter symbol is used for one sound. In narrow transcription , there are diacritics added to the one letter symbols to show the finer differences between sounds.

7． subordination

【答案】 Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. Thus the subordinate constituents are words which modify the Head. Consequently, they can be called modifiers. In the phrase swimming in the lake , swimming is the head and in the lake are the words modifying the head.

8． Categorization

Categorization is the process of classifying our experiences into different categories based 【答案】

on commonalities and differences. There are three levels in categories: the basic level，the superordinate level ，and the subordinate level.

9． Speech Act Theory

【答案】 Speech act theory was proposed by J. L. Austin and has been developed by J. R. Searle. Basically , they believe that language is not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to “do things”，and to perform acts.

10．Slang :

【答案】 It refers to casual , very informal speech , using expressive but informal words and expressions.

For some people , slang is equivalent to colloquial speech but for others , it means “undesirable speech”. Usually , “colloquial speech” refers to a speech variety used in informal situations with colleagues , friends or relatives ，and “slang” is used for a very informal speech variety which often serves as an “in-group” language for a particular set of people such as teenagers , army recruits , pop-groups etc. Most slang is rather unstable as its words and expressions can change quite rapidly, for example , “Beat it!” “Scram!”，and “Rack off!” for “leave”.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．Analyze the following dialogue with reference to Grice’s Cooperative Principle

A : Oh I like this popular song so much How about you?

B : I often hear classical music, especially, the symphonies composed by Beethoven His Symphony No.9 is my favorite.

【答案】 B has obviously violated Maxim of Relation: A was asking B‟s opinion about a particular popular song , but B‟s response was actually about classical music. By such a violation , B probably wanted to imply that he did not like that popular song.

12．What are the major concerns of the Prague School theory?

【答案】 Three points of the Prague School theory are of special importance.

First , it was stressed that the synchronic study of language is fully justified as it can draw on complete and controllable material for investigation.

Second , there was an emphasis on the systemic character of language.

Third , language was looked on as functional in another sense. Based on these ideas, the Prague School practiced a special style of synchronic linguistics, and made great contribution to phonology and

the distinction between phonetics and phonology. Its most important contribution is that it sees language in terms of function.

13．For the following words, state the conditions under which the different forms of the past tense appear. What determines

whether

or is used? What distinctive features define conditioning environment?

【答案】

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

Carol : Are you coming to the party tonight?

Lara : I've got an exam tomorrow.

【答案】 In this short exchange, obviously Lara breaks the maxim of relation of CP by talking about something totally irrelevant with CaroFs question. However , we can understand her meaning perfectly. Lara is conveying an indirect meaning by giving out an utterance containing a conversational implicative. Her aim is to refuse Carol‟s invitation in a polite and less harsh manner.

15．What is the view of the environmentalist theories of language acquisition? What are the representatives?

【答案】 Environmentalist theories of learning hold that an organism^ nurture, or experience, is of more importance to development than its nature, or innate contributions. The best known examples are the various forms of behaviourist and neo-behaviourist stimulus-response learning theories.

Schumann ＇s pidginization hypothesis and acculturation model is among the current claims in this line. Schumann proposed that pidginization in L2 acquisition results when learners fail to acculturate to the target-language group, which is clue to social distance and psychological distance.

16．What does the concept morphophoneme mean? What is the relationship between phoneme and morphophoneme?

【答案】 Morphophoneme refers to the phoneme （or string of phonemes ） that constitutes the various allomorphs of a morpheme.

Relationship between phoneme and morphophoneme : Generally speaking , the concept of morphophoneme adds a grammatical meaning to the concept of phoneme. For example , as to the phoneme /s/, it is in fact a configuration of allomorphs of different morphemes , such as the plural morpheme and the 3rd person present simple morpheme. Therefore, we would regard this phoneme as a morphophoneme , represented as /s/.

三、Essay-question

17．Is it possible to separate semantics and pragmatics? Why or why not? What are the implications of your answer for second language teaching?

【答案】 Though both semantics and pragmatics have to do with the meaning of language, and link language to the world , we think it is possible to separate semantics and pragmatics in linguistic study. Semantics is the study of literal meaning of linguistic expressions, particularly meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In using the term sense rather than reference, the focus of semantics is on the way people relate words to each other within the framework of their language. Pragmatics starts from the