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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Lingua franca

【答案】 It is language that is used for communication between different groups of people, each speaking a different language , lhe lingua franca could be an internationally used language of communication （e. g. English） , it could be the native language of one of the groups, or it could a language which is not spoken natively by any of the groups but has a simplified sentence structure and vocabulary and is often a mixture of two or more languages.

2． 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 ）.

3． Relational opposites

【答案】 This is a type of antonymy , in which the members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities. For example, “buy/sell” is such a pair. X buys something from Y means Y sells something from X.

4． Concatenation

【答案】 What makes a word separate from other words is that all the letters are lined up together with no intervening spaces. That is, in a word, all letters are concatenated. Sometimes new words can be made by concatenating two existing words—for example, “airline” is a concatenation of the words “air” and “line” into a new word.

5． 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.

6． 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.

7． Stem

A stem is a morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be 【答案】

added. For example, “friend-” in friends, and “friendship-” in friendships are both stems. The former

shows that a stem can be equivalent to a root, whereas the latter shows that a stem may contain a root and a derivational affix.

8． Speech community

【答案】 Speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon , distinct social groups like high school students or hip-pop fans. In addition, online and other mediated communities, such as many internet forums, often constitute speech communities. Members of speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve the group's special purposes and priorities.

二、Essay-question

9． The British linguist F.R. Palmer argues that 44there is no absolute distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms. ” Do you believe so? Support your view with examples.

【答案】 I would prefer not to agree with this argument that there is no absolute distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms. The common way to distinguish gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms could be to see the forms they could occur: adjective gradable antonyms could be modified by “very”，and could have comparative forms and superlative forms; while the complementary counterparts could not. For example, we could say “very warm”, “warmer”, but we could not say “very absent ” or “more absent ” （absent here is opposed to present）.

The expressio ns with “very” or “more” modifying complementary antonyms are in fact not true comparatives and have a clear indication of either this one or the other one in the pair of complementary antonyms. For example, expression like “He is more dead than alive” actually means “It is more correct to say that he is dead than to say he is alive”. And this sentence could only be used when he is still alive; after all, we do not say someone is more dead than other.

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．Categorize the following pairs: child-kid, alive-dead, big-small, husband-wife.

【答案】 Child-kid can be categorized under synonymy , alive-dead complementary antonymy , old-young gradable antonymy, and husband-wife converse antonymy.

Synonymy is the technical term for the sameness relation.

The members of a pair of complementary antonymy are complementary to each other. They divide up the whole of a semantic field completely, which means not only the assertion of one means the denial of the other, and the denial of one also means the assertion of the other.

Pairs of words of gradable antonymy have three characteristics :（1） they are gradable —the members of a pair differ in terms of degree. As such, they can be modified by “very”. And they may have comparative and superlative degrees. （2） Antonyms of this kind are graded against different norms. The criterion varies with the object described.One member of a pair, usually the term for the （3）

higher degree, serves as the cover term.

Converse antonymy shows the reversal of a relationship between two entities. It is the same relationship seen from two different angles, and there is always two entities involved, which makes the major difference between this type and the above two types of antonymy.

12．A discussion on Saussure as the father of modem linguistics.

【答案】 Saussure was the first to notice the complexities of language. He believed that language is a system of signs. To communicate ideas, signs must be part of a system of signs, called conventions. He held that the sign is the union of a form （signifier ） and an idea （signified ） , and it is the central fact of language.

By providing answers to questions concerning many aspects of language, Saussure made clear the object of study for linguistics as a science. Saussure exerted two kinds of influence on modem linguistics. First , he provided a general orientation , a sense of the task of linguistics which has seldom been questioned. Second, he influenced modem linguistics.

Many of the developments of modem linguistics can be described as his concepts, i. e. his ideas on the arbitrary nature of sign, on the relational nature of linguistic units, on the distinction of langue and parole and of synchronic and diachronic linguistics , etc. Saussure^ fundamental perception is of revolutionary significance, and it is he that pushed linguistics into a brand new stage and all linguistics in the twentieth century is Saussurean linguistics. That‟s why Saussure is considered being the father of modem linguistics.

13．Make comments upon the relationship between arbitrariness, convention, and motivation.

【答案】 Arbitrariness of language makes it potentially creative ; a conventionality of language