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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． Design features

【答案】 Design features : It refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication.

3． Assimilation

【答案】 It is a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound. It is often used synonymously with coarticulation. Nasalization, dentalization and，velarization are all instances of assimilation. There are two possibilities of assimilation: if a following sound is influencing a preceding sound, it is regressive assimilation;

the converse process, in which a preceding sound is influencing a following sound, is known as progressive assimilation. For example, in “mink”，“n”，

which is originally pronounced aswill be velarized by the following “k”/k/，

and therefore the word will be pronounced as

4． Displacement

Language can be used to refer to what is present, what is absent, what happens at present, 【答案】

what happened in the past, what will happen in the future or what happens in a far-away place. This property of language enables language users to overcome the barriers caused by time and place. For example , we can talk about Sapir, who is already dead; we can even talk about next week, which is in the future.

5． 1-narrator

【答案】 The person who tells the story may also be a character in the fictional world of the story, relating the story after the event. In this ease the critics call the narrator a FIRST-PERSON NARRATOR or I- NARRATOR because when the narrator refers to himself or herself in the story the first person pronoun I is used. First-person narrators are often said to be “limited” because they don‟t know all the faces or “unreliable” because they trick the reader by withholding information or telling untruths. This often happens in murder and mystery stories.

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． Locutionary Act, Illocutinary Act and Perlocutionary Act

【答案】 According to Austin , a speaker might be performing three acts simultaneously when speaking.

A locutionary act is the uttering of words, phrases, and clauses, which conveys meaning by giving out meaningful sounds. Therefore, when somebody says „„Morning‟‟，we can ask a question like “What did he do?‟‟，and the answer could be “He offered a greeting.”

An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker‟s intention; it is the act performed in saying something. Therefore, for the same example，we can say “He meant it as a greeting”.

A perlocutionary act is the effect of the utterance. Thus，by saying “Morning!” the speaker has made it clear that he wants to keep friendly relations with the hearer.

8． Conceptualism

It is the view which holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it 【答案】

refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.

二、Essay-question

9． Research has found that two-year-old English children produce negative sentences such as a） tod ） , but note）:

a ）He doesn‟t like cabbage.

b ）Doesn‟t like cabbage.

c ）Him no like cabbage.

d ）No like cabbage.

e ）*Him doesn‟t like cabbage.

How can you account for this?

【答案】 This founding firstly demonstrates one point that the acquisition of auxiliary verbs comes later than that of comparatively “simpler” morphemes such as pronouns. Therefore , it is unUkely for children to make mistakes as shown in e） . The reason for this phenomenon could be explained by the fact that in the early stage of children^ language acquisition, the speech at first only contains content words and lacks the function elements.

This founding also shows that children have a certain process of learning the negative form. There are generally three stages.

1） At first, the negative element is not part of the structure of the sentences. It is simply attached to the beginning, as shown in d）.

2 ） The negative element is inserted into the sentence. The additional negative forms don't and can't are used, and with no and not, begin to be placed in front of the verb rather than at the beginning, as shown in c ）.

3） Children begin to produce the appropriate part of do, be or the model verbs, to suit the person or tense, as shown in b） and a）.

10．What is communicative competence?

【答案】 Communicative competence includes:

（1）Knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language;

（2）knowledge of rules of speaking （e.g. knowing how to begin and end conversations, knowing what topics may be talked about in different types of speech events , knowing which address forms should be used with different persons one speaks to and in different situations ）;

（3）knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts, such as requests, apologies, thanks , and invitations;

（4）knowing how to use language appropriately.

When someone wishes to communicate with others, they must recognize the social setting, their relationship to the other person （s ） , and the types of language that can be used for a particular occasion. They must also be able to interpret written or spoken sentences within the total context in which they are used, or marked expression without reason; on the hearer‟s side, if the speaker used a prolix or marked expression, he did not mean the same as he would have had he used the unmarked expression. That is to say, in the normal situation, in a bus stop as the example above has shown, the intention of that the speaker asks others whether they wear the watch or not is not merely to care about the recipient has a watch or not, but has some other reason, because it would be bizarre to ask a stranger in the bus stop about such a personal staff.

Therefore , the hearer has to assume that the expression is related to the situation , and this expression is not what it literally means. Following this, the hearer reaches a connection between the bus stop and the watch, which is the time. As a consequence, he knows what the speaker intends is the inquiring of the time.

11．Explain one of the teaching approaches that you’re familiar with and discuss its advantages and disadvantages.

【答案】 The functional language teaching, which emerged during the 70s, is a reaction against both the structurally and situationally based approaches to language teaching. Its main feature is that we should teach people what functions the various linguistic forms fulfill. We should teach people not only what the language is but what the language does. Linguistic forms should not be presented as abstract structures but should always be presented as fulfilling a particular language function. For example, if the simple present tense is to be taught, it should not just be a matter of learning to accurately repeat the structure , but also a matter of knowing what the structure is actually used for.

Organizing language teaching functionally emphasizes what we can do with language. The basic units of language are seen as short exchanges. Linguistic forms are presented and learned in close relation to their function. Such teaching encourages appropriateness of language in terms of the respective roles of speaker and hearer and also in terms of the topic of conversation. Fluency is stressed and developed.

The teaching of language functions also presents problems. For example , what is exactly a language function? How many functions are there? In what order should they be taught?

While functions are a very significant aspect of language use, too great an emphasis on them may ignore other aspects of language, not least its structure. There is also no rigid correspondence between function and form, so some people object that we lose too much control over grammatical complexity if the syllabus is entirely organized on the basis of functions. What?s more, some argue that fluency and appropriate use of language may be encouraged but this should not be achieved at the cost of formal accuracy.