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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． Minimal pairs

The two words which are identical in every way except for one sound segment that occurs 【答案】

in the same place in the string. For example，the English words bear and pear constitute a minimal pair as they differ in meaning and in their initial phonemes /b/ and /p/.

3． 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.

4． Category

Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in 【答案】

a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb.

5． Foregrounding

【答案】 This term is meant for what is unusual, attractive, unconventional, salient. In literature, foregrounding is often achieved through unconventional expressions which attract the readers9 attention. The main manifestations of foregrounding are deviation and parallelism.

6． Applied linguistics

【答案】 It is a branch of linguistics which studies the application of linguistics in reality. For example , there are studies on multilingualism, language acquisition, first and second language teaching and learning.

7． 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.

8． Inflection

【答案】 Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationship through the addition of inflectional affixes , such as number , person , finiteness , aspect and case , which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached. For example, the past form of the verb work is realized by the addition of the inflectional suffix: „„-ed‟‟； the plural form of the noun child is realized by the inflectional suffix: „„-ren‟‟.

二、Essay-question

9． 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 symbolizes cultural reality.

On the other hand , as people‟s language uses express the culture ，to be more specific , their community culture represented by its social conventions, norms and social appropriateness, the culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically.

Historically , each culture has its past and tradition. A culture consists both of its ways how a social group represents itself, its technological achievements, monuments and works of art and of its historical identity recorded and passed down by the pop culture. It is language that has played a major role in socializing the people and in perpetuating culture, especially in print form.

In addition , culture also affects its peopled imagination or common dreams which are mediated through the language and reflected in their life. Language is not only intrinsically related to what the culture is and what it was, but also related to the culture of imagination governing people‟s decisions as well as actions. The interplay between language and culture may result in various forms of socialization and people with different cultures may be socialized in different ways with different acculturation.

Although language and culture are inextricably intertwined , this relationship is not analogous to that of structures and processes. Rather, culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. Linguistic competence is one variety of cultural competence and speech behavior is one variety of social behavior. The relation of language to culture is that of part to whole.

10．How do you understand the role of linguistic research in social and economic development?

【答案】 To see the role linguistics plays in social and economic development , we could specifically consider the integration of linguistic research with other fields of social life , such as computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropological linguistics.

As to the applied linguistics , it is undeniable that linguistic research has greatly influenced the language teaching and learning. For example , various linguistic schools have shed insight into the methodology of language teaching , especially foreign language teaching. Those different models of language teaching are all aimed at a more successful and effective language teaching.

As is known , for a human being in the society , communication is very important. In the social communication , linguistic research also made some important interpretations and explanations. Such as Grice‟s Cooperative Principle, Brown& Levinson‟s face and politeness theory, etc, those theories have

good inspirations as to how to create a successful communication , and how to avoid and deal with miscommunication

In a word, although without linguistic research society and economics could still develop in their own way , yet linguistics with its effort to explain what is the nature of the activities concerning language , and how these activities works, has undoubtedly made it easier for the social and economic development.

11．Is it possible to separate semantics and pragmatics? Why or why not? What are the implications of your answer for second language teaching?

【答案】 Though both semantics and pragmatics have to do with the meaning of language, and link language to the world , we think it is possible to separate semantics and pragmatics in linguistic study. Semantics is the study of literal meaning of linguistic expressions, particularly meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In using the term sense rather than reference, the focus of semantics is on the way people relate words to each other within the framework of their language. Pragmatics starts from the observation that people use language to accomplish many kinds of acts, broadly known as speech acts thus it is the study of how to do things with words or of the meaning of language in context. This kind of meaning in pragmatics usually refers to as speaker‟s meaning , utterance meaning , or contextual meaning. Its interpretation depends more on who the speaker of the sentence is, who the hearer is, when and where it is used. Thus the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is clear: the former is more closely related to the words used , the more constant , inherent side of meanings ; the latter is more closely related to the context, the more indeterminate side, or something extra.

The first implication for second language study involves the appropriate use of the target language. The teaching of a foreign language in a classroom involves two types of instruction: one is informational and analytical and can be diagrammed on the axis of general semantic information about the language. But language learning also has a crucially important skill component, which involves the development of the ability to use the language, actively through speaking and writing and passively through listening and reading. This is the pragmatic turn in second language teaching. The language use should be analyzed in relation to the context of communication, and that language teaching and learning should focus on the appropriate use of the target language, oral and written, according to situational and wider social context.

The second implication is concerned with vocabulary learning and translation. The learning of second language‟s vocabularies involves the understanding and memory of their meanings. Since the differences betwe en the first and second language‟s culture , there may be no corresponding meaning underlying the same sayings. Teachers should explain the different usage or implication of the target language‟s items. This is of much importance for cross-cultural translation practices.

12．Imagine you were at a bus stop and two people approached you one after the other.

The first said:

“哎，几点了？”

and the second said:

“不好意思，打搅一下，请问您戴表了吗？”

What assumptions would you make if you were addressed in these two ways and why would you make them?

【答案】 As to the first one, an immediate assumption coming to our mind would be the person is asking for the time. The assumption that the hearer gets arises out of the conventional meaning of the expression. The conventional meaning is related to the existing knowledge of the world , and is the