当前位置：问答库＞考研试题

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Paradigmatic relations

【答案】 Paradigmatic relation , Saussure originally called associative , is a relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular place in a structure , or between one element present and the others absent.

2． Hyponymy

Hyponymy. It refers to the sense relationship between a more general, more inclusive and 【答案】

a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordiante, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms. For example , the hyponymy relationship could be established between “animal” and “rabbit”.

3． 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.

4． Conceptualism

It is the view which holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it 【答案】

refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.

5． Morpheme

【答案】 Morpheme is the smallest unit of language in terms of relationship between expression and content , a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning , whether it is lexical or grammatical. For example , in boys , there are two morphemes : “boy” and “-s”； in international, there are three morphemes: “inter-” “nation” and “-al”.

6． Achievement test

【答案】 Achievement test is a test which measures how much of a language someone has learned with reference to a particular course of study or program of instruction.

7． Performatives

【答案】 Performatives are sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state. They cannot be said to be true or false. The uttering of these sentences is, or is part of, the doing an action. The judge’s imprisonment sentence, the president’s war or independence declaration, etc., are performatives.

8． 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.

二、Essay-question

9． Use examples to illustrate different ways to extend syntactic constituents.

【答案】 In this chapter , several ways to extend syntactic constituents are brought under the category of recursiveness , including coordination and subordination , conjoining and embedding , hypotactic and paratactic and so on. Coordination and conjoining are the different names for the same linguistic phenomenon , that is , to use and , but or or to join together syntactic constituents with the same [unction. For instance, the sentence A man got into the car could be extended into a sentence like this “[NP A man , a woman , a boy , a cat and a dog] got into the car”. While subordination and embedding can be understood as the extension of any syntactic constituent by inserting one or more syntactic elements with different functions, into another. I saw the man who had visited you last year is an extended sentence by changing the independent clause The man had visited you last year into a dependent element （here a relative clause）.

However , hypotaxis and parataxis are the two traditional terms for the description of syntactic relations between sentences. In the examples below , the former is hypotactic , while the latter is paratactic :

We live near the sea. So we enjoy a healthy climate. He dictated the letter. She wrote it.

10．Advantages and Disadvantages of Componential Analysis.

【答案】 The componential analysis is a way to analyze the lexical meaning , which treats the meaning of a word as a composite of some smaller semantic units , which are called semantic components , or semantic features.

One advantage of componential analysis is that by specifying the semantic features of certain words, it will be possible to show how these words are related in meaning. For example，the two words “man” and “woman” share the features of +HUMAN, + ADULT, and + ANIMATE, but differ in the features of MALE. Additionally , the sense relations could be better accounted for. Two words , or two expressions , which have the same semantic components, will be synonymous with each other; words which have a contrasting component are antonyms; and words which have all the semantic components of another are hyponyms of the latter.

The semantic components are also able to explain sense relations between sentences, for example, the contradictory relationship, and the entailing relationship.

However , as have been found, there are also difficulties in the approach to analyze the meaning of a word in terms of semantic components. First, many words are polysemous. They have more than one meaning ; consequently they will have different sets of semantic components. Second, some semantic components are seen as binary taxonomies. However , sometimes the distinction to differentiate two semantic components such as “ADULT” and “YOUNG”, is rather vague. Third, apart from the neatly organized parts of the vocabulary, there are words whose semantic components are difficult to ascertain. For example, the semantic components themselves, like HUMAN, ADULT, are not ordinary words of English ; they belong to a meta-language. To someone who does not know the meta-language , the

semantic components explain nothing.

11．How do you compare the traffic light system with a human linguistic system?

【答案】 Both the traffic light system and human linguistic system can symbolize some information in communication whereas the linguistic system is more complicated. However , the linguistic system has several distinctive features no other systems have , including the traffic light system.

（1）Language is arbitrary which means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. But in traffic light system , there are direct logical connections between the light signals and their meanings.

（2）Language is hierarchical, thafs to say linguistic system has two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization. However, the traffic light system has no hierarchical system and the structure is composed by a single level.

（3）Language is productive. By creativity we mean language is resourceful because of its duality and its excursiveness. Because of duality, speaker is able to combine the basic linguistic units to form an infinite set of sentences, most of which are never before produced or heard. But there is no recursive nature in traffic light system which means that it can not produce new meaning.

12．In what way are language and computer related , and how has their relationship affected language learning?

【答案】 With the development of the computer technology and internet system, more and more people touched upon the computer field. Computer has been used in the classroom for foreign language teaching and learning. CAI stands for computer-assisted instruction, which means the use of a computer in a teaching program. CAL stands for computer-assisted learning, which means the use of computer in both teaching and learning. Following CAI and CAL , CALL , acronym for Computer Assisted Language Learning, refers to the use of a computer in the teaching or learning of a second or foreign language. If CAI or CAL deals with teaching and learning in general, then CALL deals with language teaching and learning in particular. CALL provided a beneficial and convenient approach for language learners to improve their ability. For example, students can gain a quick access to any materials on the internet. The computer is not an individual resource for each student any more, instead, it is a trigger for interaction between the students and it is the focus for group work which allows some activities , such as the activity role-play interaction. The use of multimedia technology enables different information types to be simultaneously available on the computer, as a result, spoken language and moving video are produced other than mere presentation of written sentences.

13．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.

（2）Interpersonal function. The interpersonal function means people can use language to establish and maintain their status in a society. It is the most important sociological use of language. In the