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一、Fill-in-the-blanks

1． _____ is a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences.

【答案】Syntax

【解析】句法学是语言学的一个分支，它研宂词是如何被组合成句子的，以及支配句子构成的规则。

2． The syllable structure in Chinese is_____or_____or_____.

【答案】CVC ，CV ，V

【解析】普通话的音节中节首位置最多有一个辅音，结尾只能是鼻音

以写为（C ）V （C ）.

3． The qualities of vowels depend upon the position of the_____and the lips.

【答案】tongue

4． The description of a language as it changes through time is a_____ study.

【答案】Diachronic linguistic

【解析】历时语言学集中研究几十年或几百年的时期内两个或比两个更多的语言状况的差异。

5． _____is a method of foreign or second language teaching which makes use of translation and grammar study as the main teaching and learning activities.

【答案】Grammar-translation Method

【解析】语法翻译法即在外语教学中主要运用翻译和语法学习为教学活动的方法.

6． In English, the two words cut and gut differ only in their initial sounds and the two sounds are two different and the two words are a_____pair.

【答案】phonemes ; minimal

【解析】/k/、/g/在cut 和gut 是两个不同的音位，这两个词，除了出现在同一位置上的一个音外，其余的音 都一样，因此这两个词就构成了一个最小的对立体。

7． Terms like “desk ” and “stool ” are_____ of the term “furniture ”.

【答案】（co-） hyponyms

【解析】在上下义关系中，一个坐标词通常有很多下义词。同类中的成员叫做同下义词。题

所以汉语的音节可

中“桌子”和“凳 子”都是“家具”的下义词。

二、Short-answer-questions

8． What is reference?

Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with 【答案】

the relationship between linguistic elements and non-linguistic world of experience.

Reference in its wider sense would be the relationship between a word or phrase and an entity in the external world. For example, the word tree refers to the object “tree”.

Reference in its narrower sense is the relationship between a word or phrase and a specific object, e.g. a particular tree or a particular animal. For example, Peter's horse would refer to a horse which is owned , ridden by, or in some way associated with Peter.

9． What are the four obvious barriers to adult L2 acquisition?

【答案】 A variety of explanations have been put forward for the apparent decline in adults:

Physical factors such as the loss of “plasticity” in the brain and “lateralization” of the brain; social factors such as the different situations and relationships that children encounter compared to adults ; cognitive factors such as the interference with natural language learning by the adulfs more abstract mode of thinking; and input factors that adults spend only a few hours each week of school time, rather than via the constant interaction experienced by a child, with a lot of other occupations.

10．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.

11．Explain with an example that the evaluation of language is social rather than linguistic.

【答案】 As a social phenomenon, language is closely related to the structure of the society in which it is used, and the evaluation of a linguistic form is entirely social.

To a linguist , all language forms and accents are equally good as far as they can fulfill the communication functions they are expected to fulfill. Therefore, judgments concerning the correctness and purity of linguistic varieties are social rather than linguistic.

A case in point is the use of the postvocalic [r]. While in England accents without postvocalic [r] are considered to be more correct than accents with it, in New York city, accents with postvocalic [r] enjoys more prestige and considered more correct than without it.

12．Analyze the following dialogue with reference to Grice’s Cooperative Principle

A : Oh I like this popular song so much How about you?

B : I often hear classical music, especially, the symphonies composed by Beethoven His Symphony No.9 is my favorite.

【答案】 B has obviously violated Maxim of Relation: A was asking B‟s opinion about a particular popular song , but B‟s response was actually about classical music. By such a violation , B probably wanted to imply that he did not like that popular song.

三、Essay-question

13．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 particular range of genres or discourse types; that is, as a particular subset of the repertory of genres, existing in a given speech community. For example, written literature is discourse that may be read at a far distance in time a place from its origin. More generally speaking, literary discourse has many other general linguistic characteristics , such as certain kinds of phonological , syntactic , and semantic phenomena , occuring with much greater frequency in literature than in other kinds of discourse.

What‟s more, studying the language of literature text as language can enhance our appreciation of the different systems of language organization, because the literary texts often reveal the nature of the language in which they are written.

14．What is linguistic relativity and why is it so important in linguistic studies?

【答案】 Linguistic relativity is one of the two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states that distinctions encoded in one language are unique to that language alone , and “there is no limit to the structural diversity of language”. Therefore, similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. For example, in English, the boundaries among the color spectrum are made in this way: red, orange, violet, blue, and yellow. In fact, these discriminations are arbitrary, and in other language the boundaries are indeed different. In neither Spanish, Italian nor Russian is there a word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”.

Linguistic relativity is important in linguistic studies because it recognizes the fact of linguistic diversity , which stands as the base which descriptive linguistics lies on. Linguistic diversity also triggers out the study of the linguistic similarity.

The study of the linguistic relativity has shed light on two important insights : there is nowadays recognition that language, as a code, reflects cultural and preoccupations and constrains the way people think.

15．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