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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Stem

A stem is a morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be 【答案】

added. For example, “friend-” in friends, and “friendship-” in friendships are both stems. The former shows that a stem can be equivalent to a root, whereas the latter shows that a stem may contain a root and a derivational affix.

2． 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.

3． Contrastive analysis

【答案】 Contrastive analysis is an approach to analysis of second language acquisition, based on a belief that a more effective teaching pedagogy would come out when the similarities and differences between native language and target language are taken into consideration. By such an analysis , it is supposed that some leaning difficulties could be predicted in terms of language transfer.

4． 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”

5． Entailment

【答案】 It refers to the relation between propositions one of which necessarily follows from the other. If X is true, Y is necessarily true，and if X is false, Y may be true or false. For example, the sentence “He has been to France” entails “He has been to Europe”.

6． Interlanguage

【答案】 It refers to the type of language constructed by second or foreign language learners who are still in the process of learning a language. It‟s a language system between the target language and the learner‟s native language, and imperfect compared with the target language, but not mere translation from the learner^ native language. For example, when the Chinese student is learning English, he may make errors like “to touch the society”.

7． Language acquisition

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

8． Innateness hypothesis

【答案】 The “Innateness Hypothesis” of child language acquisition was proposed by Noam Chomsky , who states that language are somewhat innate and that children are bom with what he calls a language acquisition device, which is a unique kind of knowledge that fits them for language learning.

9． 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/.

10．Glottal Stop

【答案】 V ocal tract is composed of oral cavity, nasal cavity and pharynx. When the vocal folds are totally closed, no air can pass between them. The result of this gesture is the glottal stop.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．What is your understanding of Systemic Functional Grammar?

【答案】 Systemic functional grammar , developed by M.A.K. Halliday , is a socially oriented functional linguistic approach and one of the most influential linguistic theories in the twentieth century. Systemic functional grammar is based on two facts:

Language users are actually making choices in a set of systems and trying to realize different semantic functions in social interaction.

Language is inseparable from social activities of man. Thus, it takes actual uses of language as the object of study. One point to notice is that it takes clause as the basic unit. It consist of two inseparable parts : systemic grammar and functional grammar.

12．What makes language unique to human beings?

The design features of language which refer to the defining properties of human language 【答案】

tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication.Arbitrariness is a core feature of language, which means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. Duality , which means the property of having 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. Creativity means language is resourceful because of its duality and its recursiveness. Because of duality the speaker is able to combine the basic linguistic unites to form an infinite set of sentences , most of which are never heard before. Displacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters, in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. So all these features make language unique to human beings.

13．What is indirect language use? How is it explained in the light of the speech act theory?

【答案】 When a speaker is using indirect language , he is performing two speech acts simultaneously : one is the primary speech act and the other is the second speech act. The primary one is the speaker's goal of communication and the second one is the means by which he achieves his goal.

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．How to distinguish root and stem?

【答案】 Root is that part of a word-form that remains when all the inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed. Thus in the word undesirables , the root is desire. Stem is the part of a word-form that remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed. So in the word undesirables, the stem is undesirable. The stem of a word may be: a） a simple stem consisting of only one morpheme or root , e.g. work ; b ） a root plus a derivational affix , e.g. worker ; c ） two or more roots , e.g. workshop.

16．What is blending theory?

【答案】 Fauconnier & Turner proposes and discusses blending or integration theory, a cognitive operation whereby elements of two or more “mental spaces” are integrated via projection into a new, blended space which contains its unique structure. They present examples of blending and analyze the blending process, provide taxonomy of blends, and argue for the ubiquity and importance of blending as a cognitive resource.

Blending operates on two input mental spaces to produce a third space , the blend. The blend inherits partial structure from the input spaces and has emergent structure of its own. There are some conditions needed when two input spaces one and two are blended: cross-space mapping, generic space, blend and emergent structure. The blending theory suggests a new way of thinking about what constitutes a novel inference. Because the mapping operation involves integrated frames rather than isolated predicates, the choice of one particular framing over another necessarily results in a different set of attendant inferences.

三、Essay-question

17．Make comments upon the relationship between arbitrariness, convention, and motivation.

【答案】 Arbitrariness of language makes it potentially creative ; a conventionality of language makes a language be passed from generation to generation, and makes learning a language laborious. The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention.

The terms motivation and constraint describe the extent to which the signified determines the signifies The form of the signifier of a generalized car or a traffic sign is determined by the convention that is accepted by the users of the code.

Motivated signs are iconic signs; they are characterized by a natural relation between signifier and