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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． MT

【答案】 It refers to machine translation, the use of machine （usually computers） to translate texts from one natural language to another

3． 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”.

4． Meaning shift

Meaning shift: In a narrow sense, meaning shift is used to refer to the change of meaning 【答案】

that has nothing to do with generalization or restriction such as broadening or narrowing of meaning.

5． functional morpheme

【答案】 This is a subtype of free morphemes, which one consists largely of the functional words in language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns, for example, “and, about when on , near, the” an so on.

6． The Innateness Hypothesis

【答案】 The innateness hypothesis was proposed by Chomsky. It says that the ability to acquire a human language is part of the biologically innate equipment of the human being, and that an infant is bom with this knowledge of basic grammatical relations and categories, and this knowledge is universal.

7． Presupposition

【答案】 A presupposition is a proposition （expressed in a sentence） that is assumed to be true in order to judge the truth or falsity of another sentence. For example , John didn't pass chemistry presupposes that John took chemistry.

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． How many types of data analysis have been employed in language acquisition research? How are these types of data analysis significant in SLA research?

【答案】 Four types of data analysis have been employed. They are contrastive analysis，error analysis , performance analysis, and discourse analysis.

Contrastive analysis （CA ） systematically compares native languages and target languages to find the interference of native language when acquiring target languages. It has a close relationship with behaviourism. Although contrastive analysis was faced with a downfall as behaviorism was challenged, as a methodological option it was not abandoned.

Error analysis （EA ） studies and analyzes the errors made by L2 learners and suggests that many learner errors are not due to the learner‟s mother tongue interference but reflect universal learning strategies such as overgeneralization and simplification of rules. Error analysis also fell into disfavor for

（1） its narrowness——focusing on errors only and having difficulty in identifying the unitary source of an error, and （2） its failure to account for all the areas of the SL in which learners have difficulty. Nevertheless error analysis was not doomed to death rather incorporated into performance analysis.

Performance analysis （PA ） is an analysis of the learners5 interlanguage performance. It is superior to error analysis in that it is not limited to analyzing the errors learners commit. Also like its predecessors , however, performance analysis was found to be too limiting; it did not take the input to the learner into consideration. And this limitation led to the emergence of discourse analysis.

Discourse analysis （DA ） recognizes the need to examine not only the leamer?s performance but also the input to the learner. Another quality of discourse analysis applied to SLA is that researchers are concerned not only with how IL forms evolve , but how learners learn how to use the forms appropriately for a particular discourse function as well.

10．In informal speech , people often omit sentence subjects because they are commonly understood. What are the omitted subjects in the following two sentences? Why do people know that these are the correct subjects?

a.Hope you like everything here.

b.Just imagine what has just happened here.

【答案】 The omitted subject in sentence a is “I ” and the omitted subject in sentence b is usually “You”. This is a matter of sentence comprehension in language comprehension. Psycholinguists have proposed principles interpreting sentence comprehension with respect to the grammatical constraints. The most popular principle is “Minimal attachment” which defines “structurally simpler”，and it claims that structural simplicity guides all initial analyses in sentence comprehension.

In this view , the sentence processor constructs a single analysis of a sentence and attempts to interpret it. The first analysis is the one that requires the fewest applications of grammatical rules to attach each incoming word into the structure being built; it is the automatic consequence of an effort to get some analysis constructed as soon as possible. In the first sentence, when “hope” as a verb is used to express the speaker‟s desire and expectation for something to happen, it conveys the will of the speaker. So , the subject of “hope” is usually the speaker her/himself and can be omitted when the two are talking to each other. When the speaker is making a statement and using “hope” to express other‟s will , the subject will not be omitted.

Therefore , according to “minimal attachment” principle, when the hearer interprets this sentence, they automatically interpret “I”—the speaker, as the subject of “hope”. Sentence b can be said to be an

imperative sentence which is a sentence that gives advice or instructions or that expresses a request or a command. This instruction or request is always aimed to the hearer or the reader, so the subject of an imperative is always “you”. When the hearer interpret this sentence , he/she will interpret the verb “imagine”, as a request or advice through which the speaker tries to make he/she involved in this action, so it is easier for he/she to consider “you” as the subject.

Context is another important factor for people to understand the subjects. The subjects will be more clear in particular context although they are omitted.

11．Semantic change plays a very important role in widening the vocabulary of a language.

【答案】 Semantic change plays a very important role in widening the vocabulary of a language. Since language is symbolic, each word serves as a symbol in relation to a specific meaning. In this sense, we need infinite numbers of words or symbols to code the physical entities and our experiential concepts. But this is impossible for communication. Therefore, users give a new concept to an old form, thus the meaning of a form is multiplied. There are three kinds of semantic changes , namely , broadening , narrowing , and meaning shift. Class shift and folk etymology also contribute to change in meaning.

Semantic broadening refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation. For example, the word holiday used to mean “holy day” in religious English. It means “a day for rest” today regardless of its r eligious nature , and hence its meaning is widened.

Semantic narrowing is a process in which the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. For example, the Old English word “hund” （“hound”）was once used for any breed of dog; whereas in Modem English its meaning has been narrowed to a particular kind of dog.

Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new , sometimes related ，meaning. For example , the word “silly” meant “happy” in Old English , and “naive” in Middle English，but “foolish” in Modem English.

12．What is communicative competence?

【答案】 Communicative competence includes:

（1）Knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language;

（2）knowledge of rules of speaking （e.g. knowing how to begin and end conversations, knowing what topics may be talked about in different types of speech events , knowing which address forms should be used with different persons one speaks to and in different situations ）;

（3）knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts, such as requests, apologies, thanks , and invitations;

（4）knowing how to use language appropriately.

When someone wishes to communicate with others, they must recognize the social setting, their relationship to the other person （s ） , and the types of language that can be used for a particular occasion. They must also be able to interpret written or spoken sentences within the total context in which they are used, or marked expression without reason; on the hearer‟s side, if the speaker used a prolix or marked expression, he did not mean the same as he would have had he used the unmarked expression. That is to say, in the normal situation, in a bus stop as the example above has shown, the intention of that the speaker asks others whether they wear the watch or not is not merely to care about the recipient has a watch or not, but has some other reason, because it would be bizarre to ask a stranger in the bus stop about such a personal staff.