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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Language acquisition

【答案】 It refers to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations.

2． 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.

3． 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.

4． computational linguistics

【答案】 Computational linguistics is a branch of applied linguistics , dealing with computer processing of human language, h includes programmed instruction, speech synthesis and recognition, automatic translation, and computer mediated communication.

5． 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.

6． 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 ）.

7． Linguistic determinism

【答案】 Linguistic determinism , is one of the two points of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis , and has developed into the strong version of this hypothesis. It could be summarized as follows: （1） One’s thinking is completely determined by his native language because one cannot but perceive the world in terms of the categories and distinctions encoded in the language. （2） The categories and distinctions

encoded in one language system are unique to that system and incommensurable with those of other systems. Therefore , the following statement could represent this hypothesis 4tIf Aristotle had spoken Chinese , his logic would have been different”.

8． Arbitrariness

【答案】 Arbitrariness : Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs have no natural relationship to their meaning. Arbitrariness of language makes it potentially creative , a conventionality of language makes a language be passed from generation to generation. For example, it is unable to explain why a book is called a /buk/ and a pen a /pen/.

二、Essay-question

9． How much does our language influence the way we think? How deeply do language and culture interpenetrate and influence one another? These questions about language have fascinated thinkers throughout the ages. For example, Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt in the German Romantic tradition regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the world so that each language reflects a different worldview. Write a short essay to explain your position on this view.

【答案】 Humans have a unique linguistic system for communication that serves as the primary vehicle for expressing thoughts. Language and thought may be viewed as two independent circles that develop along two different routes but overlap in some parts, where language and thought are consistent with each other. But language is not the only means of expressing thought. As for the relationship between language and the thought , we think that language does not determine the way we think but influence the way we perceive the world and recall things, and affects the ease with which we perform mental tasks. That is, language may be used to provide new ideas, bring about a change in beliefs and values , solve problems，and keep track of things in memory. For example, a well-developed vocabulary may well assist us in learning the concepts the lexis covers. We recall things more easily when they correspond to readily available words or phrases. It is certainly easier for us to make a conceptual distinction if it neatly corresponds to a particular lexical item available in our language. When we label our experience with linguistic symbols, our language will influence how we remember and think about those experiences ; otherwise the relationship between language and perception , memory or thinking will be greatly reduced.

In terms of relationship between language and culture , we can infer that a language not only expresses facts, ideas, or events that represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the people’s attitudes , beliefs， world outlooks , and etc. Language expresses cultural reality. On the other hand, as peopled language uses express their culture represented by its social conventions, norms and social appropriateness, the culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically. Sharing a same community culture, people have acquired common ways of viewing the world through their speech interactions with other members of the same group. Although language and culture are inextricably intertwined , culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. The knowledge and beliefs that constitute a people’s culture are habitually encoded and transmitted in the language of the people. Language as an integral part of human being, permeates his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality.

As for the relationship between language and world views , the language system does not necessarily provide specifics of one’s world view. All humans share a general conceptualizing capacity; Speakers of different languages are capable of distinguishing and recognizing experiences according to their respectively different linguistic coding systems for the same objective world. On the one hand , people speaking the same language may have different world views , including political , social ,

religious , scientific and philosophical views. On the other hand , people speaking different languages may share similar world views on above aspects. Moreover, one language can describe many different worldviews , as is evident in the case of successful translation.

According to the theories shown above, we can infer that Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt^ view has both merits and limitations. First , they see clearly that there exists a relationship between language and thoughts. Second, they assume that language influences so much the way people think that people who think in different ways will have different world views. Based on the theoretical views above we think this view is not rational in this aspect.

10．State about ONE of the two topics given below （ minimally 200 words ）

（1）In English, the plurality of countable nouns can be represented in several forms, or suffixes. The following are examples of some of such forms. Are these suffixes of plurality the allomorphs of one and the same morpheme , or are they different morphemes? State the reasons for your answer to the

question.

（2）State about any speech production model that you are familiar with. Use an utterance example to illustrate your understanding of the chosen model and explain how it accounts for the exchange error of 44This is the happiest life of my day”.

【答案】（1） These suffixes of plurality are allomorphs of one and the same morpheme.

Some morphemes have a single form in all contexts, such as dog, bark, cat, but in other instances, a morpheme may have different shapes or phonetic forms.

From the above examples , it is clear that plural sememe in English can be represented by the voiceless /s/ , the voiced /z/, the vowel-consonant structure /i:z/, the diphthong /ai/ found in the word stimuli , the nasal sound /n/ in oxen, and others. Each would be said to be an allomorph of the plural morpheme.

Thus , morpheme, like phoneme, as held by American structuralists, is an abstract unit, but at a different linguistic level. It consists of a sequence of phonemes and either lexical or helps construct grammatical structure. In morphemic transcription, morphemes are put between braces like {}. Take the plural morpheme for example,

it can be expressed in the form ofBut , they are the allomorphs of the same morpheme only in different shapes.

It should be noted that some morphemic forms represent different morphemes and thus have different sememes. For example , the morphemic shape -s , can express

plurality and ,

person/finiteness

case

Therefore , all the above examples of suffixes are the allomorphs of the same morpheme.

（2） Garrett argued that producing speech is a much more complex matter than it might appear to be from our everyday experience. According to his model, there are altogether five different levels of representation involved in speaking a sentence, and they occur in the following sequence:

①The message-level representation: this is an abstract, pre-linguistic representation of the idea or ideas that the speaker wants to communicate.

②The functional-level representation : this is an outline of the proposed utterance having grammatical structure ; in other words , the slots for nouns , adjectives , and so on are allocated , but