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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Construal and construal operations

【答案】Construal is the competence to conceive and portray the same situation in alternate ways through specificity, different mental scanning, directionality, vantage point, figure-ground segregation etc. Construal operations are conceptualizing processes applied in language process by human beings. That is, construal operations are the underlying psychological processes and resources employed in the interpretation of linguistic expressions.

2． grammatical word

【答案】 It refers to those which mainly work for constructing group , phrase , clause , clause complex , or even text , such as , conjunctions , prepositions , articles , and pronouns. Grammatical words serve to link together different content parts. So they are also known as Function Words.

3． Corpus

【答案】 Corpus is a collection of linguistic data , either compiled as written texts or as a transcription of recorded speech. The main purpose of a corpus is to verify a hypothesis about language~~for example , to determine how the application of a particular sound , word , or syntactic construction varies.

4． Prefix

【答案】 In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. Prefixes are bound morphemes （they cannot occur as independent words ） . While most languages employ both prefixes and suffixes, prefixes are less common. Some languages employ mostly suffixes and almost no prefixes at all. The use of prefixes has been found to correlate statistically with other linguistic features, such as a verb-object word order and the use of prepositions.

5． Register

【答案】 It is a speech variety used by a particular group of people , usually sharing the same occupation （e.g. doctors, lawyers） or the same interests. A particular register often distinguishes itself from others by having a number of distinctive words, by using words or phrases in a particular way, and sometimes by special grammatical constructions （e.g. legal language）.

6． Language Acquisition Device （LAD ）

【答案】 Language Acquisition Device: LAD refers to an innate faculty of language in general with which children are bom. It is posited by Chomsky , who argues that LAD probably consists of three elements : a hypothesis-maker, linguistic universal, and an evaluation procedure.

7． Idiolect

【答案】 Just as every speech community has a dialect, every speaker has his own pet words and expressions and special way of expressing his ideas in language. This language variety of individual users is called “idiolect”

8． inflectional morpheme

【答案】 Inflectional morpheme: It is also called inflectional affixes, which attaches to the end of words. Inflectional affixes only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem. The plural suffix is a typical example of this kind.

二、Essay-question

9． For each of the following pairs of sentences, discuss how the two sentences are different from each other.

（1）A. His carelessness I can‟t bear.

B. I can‟t bear his carelessness.

（2）A. A dagger killed the tourist.

B. The tourist was killed with a dagger.

（3）A. A hurricane killed eight people.

B. Eight people died in a hurricane.

These two sentences are different in the sense that the thematic structures are different. 【答案】（1）

The theme of a sentence is often the known information, which the sentence is mainly about. Sentence A provides some information about “his carelessness”, since “his carelessness” serves as the theme. Whereas , Sentence B is a statement about “I ” and from the remainder of the sentence the recipient could know some information about me.

（2）In sentence A，“A dagger” serves as the theme, with which the sentence could be seen as an answer of “What did the dagger do?” In sentence B, “The touris” is treated as the given information, around which the sentence develops ; thus , the corresponding question of this sentence as an answer could be “What happened to the tourist?”

（3）There are still differences of thematic structures between these two sentences, with the first one about “A hurr icane” and the second one about “eight people”. What‟s more, in sentence A, the verb „„kill” emphasizes a direct relationship between the hurricane and the eight people , that is , it is the hurricane that caused the people to die. Whereas, in sentence B, a meaning like above is not entailed.

10．Read the following sentence and illustrate the ideas behind this statement: "'Register is the term used in linguistics to describe the relationship between a particular style of language and its context of use.99

【答案】 The register is what you are speaking at the time, depending on what you are doing and the nature of the activity in which the language is functioning. A register can be defined as a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode , and tenor. Therefore, a register must also include the expressions, the lexico-grammatical and phonological features , which typically accompany or realize these meanings. Text can be seen as an instance of a register.

Register is seen as the linguistic consequence of interacting aspects of context , which Halliday calls “field, tenor, and mode.” Field refers to the topics and actions which language is used to express.

Tenor denotes the language users, their relationships to each other, and their purposes. Mode refers to the channel through which communication is carried out. These three contextual variables are intended to help the linguist tie linguistic analysis to the relevant contextual variables. By understanding the semiotic properties of a situation （i.e. , the values for field, tenor, and mode） , language users can predict the meanings that are likely to be exchanged and the language likely to be used. And while people are communicating they make predictions by using the values of field , tenor and mode to understand register and that their assessment facilitates their own participation.

11．What are phonemes, phones and allophones? Explain their relationship with examples from English or Chinese.

【答案】 A phoneme is a minimally distinctive set of sounds in a language that can signal a difference in meaning. It is an abstract phonological unit represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.

A phone is an individual phonetic unit or segment that occurs in speech. The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. Each of the set of phones which correspond to a single phoneme of a language is called an allophone.

Phonemes are placed between slant

lines and phones are placed between square

brackets Allophones of the same phoneme generally occur in different contexts and never distinguish one word from another.

For example, when we pronounce the two words peak and speak, we are aware that the soundis pronounced differently, in the word peak, the soundis pronounced with a strong puff of air stream; but the same stop sound is pronounced slightly differently in the word speak, the puff of air is withheld

a little. Thesound in peak is called an aspiratedand thesound in speak is an unaspirated

There is a slight difference in the way they are pronounced, but such a difference dose not give rise to difference in meaning.

So a phoneme in the English sound system , and it can be realized differently as aspirated or unaspirated in different contexts. The phoneme /p/ in English can be realized as aspiratedand unaspirated which are allophones of the phoneme

stressed than the other. The more stressed syllable is the primary stress while the less stressed syllable is known as the secondary stress.

Tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. Different rates of vibration produce what is known as different frequencies , and in auditory terms as different pitches. Pitch variations may be distinctive like phoneme, that is, when they may contribute to distinguish between different words.

When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as intonation. When we speak, we change the pitch of our voice to express ideas. The same sentence uttered with different intonation may express different attitude of the speaker. In English , there are four intonation patterns: the falling tone, the rising tone, the fall-rise tone, and the rise-fall tone.

12．Some comments on the following statement based on your own experience:

There exists a close relationship between language and culture. In other words, a successful master of a given language has much to do with an understanding of that culture.

【答案】 Language use is heavily tinted with its culture. A language does not only expresses facts, ideas , or events which represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the peopled attitudes , beliefs, world outlook, and so on. In a word, language expresses cultural reality. To dig it further , a language, as a system of signs with their own cultural substances and values, may be viewed as a symbol of social identity. People are identified via their use of language. In this sense, language