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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Metonymy

【答案】 Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by 也e name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance , “Washington ”，as the capital of the United States, can be used as a metonym （an instance of metonymy） for the United States government.

2． 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”.

3． Embedding

【答案】 It refers to the inclusion of a clause within a phrase or another clause, or of a phrase into another phrase. An example of embedded clauses is: What I do is none of your business. （Nominal clause embedded as subject of another clause）

4． Slang :

【答案】 It refers to casual , very informal speech , using expressive but informal words and expressions.

For some people , slang is equivalent to colloquial speech but for others , it means “undesirable speech”. Usually , “colloquial speech” refers to a speech variety used in informal situations with colleagues , friends or relatives ，and “slang” is used for a very informal speech variety which often serves as an “in-group” language for a particular set of people such as teena gers , army recruits , pop-groups etc. Most slang is rather unstable as its words and expressions can change quite rapidly, for example , “Beat it!” “Scram!”，and “Rack off!” for “leave”.

5． 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.

6． Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived. It 【答案】

can be divided into three main areas of study articulatory phonetics , acoustic phonetics and perceptual/auditory phonetics.

7． 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.

8． The Innateness Hypothesis

【答案】 The innateness hypothesis was proposed by Chomsky. It says that the ability to acquire a human language is part of the biologically innate equipment of the human being, and that an infant is bom with this knowledge of basic grammatical relations and categories, and this knowledge is universal.

9． 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.

10．Presupposition

【答案】 A presupposition is a proposition （expressed in a sentence） that is assumed to be true in order to judge the truth or falsity of another sentence. For example , John didn't pass chemistry presupposes that John took chemistry.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．How does modem language define “object ”？ Provide an example.

【答案】 In modem language, object is defined as such an item that it can become a subject in passive transformation. For example, in sentence tcThe lion chased the tourist,, ? “the tourisf” acts as the object. In the passive voiced sentence “The tourist was chased by the lion”，“the tourist” acts as the subject of the sentence.

12．What is move-α rule?

【答案】 Move-α rule is a general movement rule accounting for the syntactic behavior of any constituent movement. It goes like this: any element may be moved to another place, or more generally changed in some way, as long as the relevant conditions （principles ） are satisfied. That is to say, the movements are constrained by the other modules of grammar in order to rule out ungrammatical forms, such as the kissed boy girl and were kissed the girl by the boy. It is the interaction of move-α with other syntactic principles that results in grammatical strings. It is responsible for the mapping between active and passive.

13．What are the major concerns of the Prague School theory?

【答案】 Three points of the Prague School theory are of special importance.

First , it was stressed that the synchronic study of language is fully justified as it can draw on complete and controllable material for investigation.

Second , there was an emphasis on the systemic character of language.

Third , language was looked on as functional in another sense. Based on these ideas, the Prague School practiced a special style of synchronic linguistics, and made great contribution to phonology and the distinction between phonetics and phonology. Its most important contribution is that it sees language in terms of function.

14．What are the three important points of the Prague School?

【答案】 The Prague School has three points of special importance , First , it stressed that the synchronic study of language is fully justified as it can draw on complete and controllable material for investigation. Second, it emphasised the systemic character of language, arguing that no element of any language can be satisfactorily analysed or evaluated if viewed in isolation. In other words, elements are held to be in functional contrast or opposition. Third , it looked on language as a tool performing a number of essential functions or tasks for the community using it.

15．What are the differences between simile and metaphor?

【答案】 Simile is a way of comparing one thing with another, of explaining what one thing is like by showing how it is similar to another thing , and it explicitly signals itself in a text, with the words as or like. For example, the phrase as cold as ice is a common simile.

Although metaphor also makes a comparison between two unlike elements , this comparison is implied rather than stated. That is , it differs from simile in that the words such as like or as do not appear. For example, uThe life is a stage” is a metaphor.

16．What is the definition of cognitive linguistics?

【答案】 Cognitive linguistics is a newly established approach to the study of language that emerged in the 1970s as a reaction against the dominant generative paradigm which pursues an autonomous view of language. Cognitive linguistics is based on human experiences of the world and the way they perceive and conceptualize the world.

三、Essay-question

17．What is the relationship between speech event and speech act? （Explain with an example）.

【答案】 Speech act refers to an utterance as a functional unit in communication. There are many kinds of speech acts, such as requests, orders, commands, complaints, and promises. A speech act that is performed indirectly is sometimes known as an indirect speech act. Speech event refers to a particular instance when people exchange speech , e.g. an exchange of greetings , an enquiry , a conversation. Speech events are governed by the rules and norms for the use of speech, which may be different in different communities. The structure of speech events varies considerably according to the genre they belong to.

Both speech act and speech event are concerned about the actual utterance of sentences. But speech act deals with a particular utteranceh that has locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. Speech event is related to certain speech situations that are composed of many utterances, though may be not speech act.