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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． 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.

2． 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.

3． IC analysis

【答案】 IC analysis: IC analysis （immediate constituent analysis） refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents---word groups （or phrases ） , which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own , and the process goes on until the ultimate constituents are reached. In practice, for the sake of convenience, we usually stop at the level of word.

4． 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 representation 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.

5． Cross-cultural communication

【答案】 Cross-cultural communication is an exchange of ideas , information , etc , between persons from different cultural backgrounds. The cultural conventions of the participants may widely different , and misinterpretation and misunderstanding can easily arise , even leading to a total communication breakdown.

6． 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.

7． Linguistic relativity

【答案】 This is one of two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It states that similarity between

languages is relative , the greater their structural differentiation is , the more diverse their conceptualization of the world is. For example, not every language has the same set of words for the colors ; in Spanish there is no word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”.

8． Phatic function （ communion ）

【答案】 Phatic function: The phatic function of language refers to the use of the language which often consists of small , seemingly meaningless expression for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts rather than for exchanging information or ideas. For example , greetings , farewells , and comments on the weather in English could serve this function.

二、Essay-question

9． Illustrate “Immediate Constituent Analysis”.

The relation between a sentence and its component elements is generally referred to as the 【答案】

relation between a construction and its constituents , in which a very important notion is immediate constituent analysis, IC Analysis for short.

The immediate constituent analysis may be defined as： the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents—word groups （or phrases ） , which are in turn analyzed in to the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate constituents are reached.

The immediate constituent analysis of a sentence may be carried out with brackets or with a tree diagram. The criterion for the immediate constituent analysis is substitutability: whether a sequence of words can be substituted for a single word and the structure remains the same. Through IC analysis, the internal structure of a sentence may be demonstrated clearly, and ambiguities, if any, will be revealed.

For example: the IC structure for the sentence “The boy ate the apple.” is:

1）

Tree diagram

10．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.

11．There are two kinds of grammar based on different linguistic points of view. They are prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. A grammar may describe how language is actually spoken and/ or written , and may not state or postulate how it ought to be spoken or written. But a grammar may also state the rules for what is considered the best or most correct usage. Which grammar is descriptive grammar , and which grammar is prescriptive grammar? Cite some examples to give your reasons.

【答案】 The first one is typical of descriptive grammar , while the second one is prescriptive grammar. The descriptive grammar aims to describe how people speak and detail the underlying knowledge. It is believed in descriptive grammar that whatever occurs in natural speech , such as hesitation , incomplete utterance, should be described in the analysis, and not be marked as incorrect, abnormal , or corrupt; modem linguistics is mostly descriptive. Whereas, the prescriptive approach aims to teach people how to speak, read, and write a particular language; in the 18th century, all the main European languages were studied prescriptively.

For example , the statement that “in standard English , a double negative is rarely used” is a description , showing how the language is used in standard English, regardless whether it is correct or not. <6You should never use a double-negative” is a typical grammar rule that prescribes what should be grammatically correct in the Standard English. As for the spelling , prescription says “judgment” is correct , but description accurately points out that “judgement” is considered by Edited English to be correct too, and a descriptive account for these two different spellings will show how the later one is used and who uses it.

12．What are the seven functions of human language?

【答案】 According to Hu Zhuanglin , language has at least seven functions , and they are illustrated as follows:

（1）Informative function. It means that language is the instrument of thought and language serves an informational function when used to tell something. It is also called ideational function in the framework of functional grammar. The declarative sentences such as “This is a book”, are the typical illustration of this function.