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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Audiolingual method

【答案】 Audiolingual method refers to the teaching of a second language through imitation , repetition , and reinforcement. It emphasizes the teaching of speaking and listening before reading and writing and the use of mother tongue in the classroom is not allowed.

2． Coarticulation

Coarticulation refers to the phenomenon of sounds continually show the influence of their 【答案】

neighbors. For example , as in lamb , when a is followed by m , the velum will begin to lower itself during the articulation of a so that it is ready for the following nasal. When such simultaneous or overlapping articulations are involved, we call the process coarticulation. If the sound becomes more like the following sound, it is known as anticipatory coarticulation. If the sound displays the influence of the preceding sound, it is preservative coarticulation.

3． Categorization

Categorization is the process of classifying our experiences into different categories based 【答案】

on commonalities and differences. There are three levels in categories: the basic level，the superordinate level ，and the subordinate level.

4． Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

【答案】 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis consists of two parts : linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. Linguistic determinism refers to the notion that a language determines certain nonlinguistic cognitive processes. Different languages offer people different ways of expressing around , they think and speak differently. Linguistic relativity refers to the claim that the cognitive processes that are determined are different for different languages. Thus, speakers of different languages are said to think in different ways. The hypothesis is now interpreted mainly in two different ways: a strong version and a weak one. The strong version believes that the language patterns determine peopled thinking and behavior ; the weak one holds that the former influence the later. So far , many researches and experiments conducted provide support to the weak version.

5． Surface structure

【答案】 It is a term used in generative grammar to refer to the final stage in the syntactic representation of a sentence, which provides the input to the phonological component of the grammar, and which thus most closely corresponds to the structure we articulate and hear. For instance, “John is easy to please.” and “John is eager to please.” are two sentences with the same surface structure.

6． 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.

7． 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.

8． Denotation

【答案】 The core sense of a word or a phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world. In the case of linguistic signs, the denotative meaning is what the dictionary attempts to provide. It is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning, opposite to connotation.

9． CMC

【答案】 It is computer-mediated communication , distinguished by its focus on language and language use in computer networked environments, and by its use of methods of discourse analysis to address that focus.

10．Open-class words

【答案】 Open-class words refer to words whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited and with the emergence of new ideas , inventions , and so on ; new expressions are continually and constantly being added to the lexicon. For example , nouns , verbs , and adjectives all belong to this class.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．How are the vowels described usually?

【答案】 Usually , the description of the vowels needs to fulfill four basic requirements:

（1）The height of tongue raising （high , mid, low）;

（2）The position of the highest part of the tongue （front , central, back）;

（3）The length or tenseness of the vowel （tense vs. lax or long vs. short） , and

（4）lip-rounding （rounded vs. unrounded）.

12．Language can change through blending, metanalysis and borrowing. Give two English words to illustrate each of them.

【答案】 1） blending : smog, brunch

2）metanalysis : an apron （which was originally “a napron”）； an adder （which was originally

“a nadder”）

3）borrowing : tea, encore

13．plowed 14. climbed 15. singed 16. hanged

【答案】

14．crushed 2. heaped 3. kicked 4. pitted

【答案】

15．Why do people take duality as one of the important design features of human language? Can you tell us what language will be if it has no such design feature?

【答案】 Duality makes our language productive. A large number of different units can be formed out of a small number of elements——for instance, tens of thousands of words out of a small set of sounds. And out of the huge number of words, there can be astronomical number of possible sentences and phrases, which in turn can combine to form unlimited number of texts. Most animal communication systems do not have this design feature of human language.

If language had no such design feature , then it would be like animal communicational system which consists of only a number of basic sounds and this would be highly limited. Then we would not be able to produce a very large number of sound combinations （e.g. words ） , which are distinct in meaning. In other words, the number of messages one can send would be restricted to the number of basic sounds.

16．How is language related to society?

【答案】 （1） While language is principally used to communicate meaning, it is also used to establish and maintain social relationships. This social function of language is embodied in the use of such utterances as “Good morning!”，“How is your family?' “Nice day today, isn‟t it?”

（2）Users of the same language in a sense all speak differently. The kind of language each of them chooses to use is in part determined by his social background. And language , in its turn , reveals information about its speaker.

（3）Language , especially the structure of its lexicon , reflects both the physical and social environment of a society. For example, while there is only one word in English for usnow, 9, there are several in Eskimo. This is a reflection of the need for the Eskimos to make distinctions between various kinds of snow in their snowy living environment.

三、Essay-question

17．What is the relationship between language and literature?

【答案】 Literature is closely related to language. Generally speaking, it is marked by careful use of language, such as creative metaphors, elegant syntax, and so on. It reaches to human beings mostly via language. It could be seen as a language in use. The existence of literature owes a lot to language. The language used in literature is quite often different from language used in other fields , such as everyday use.

In linguistics, the term “genre” is used to refer not only to types of literary works but also to any identifiable type of discourse , whether literary or not. Therefore , literature could be viewed as a