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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Predication analysis

【答案】 Predication analysis is an important step in the analysis of sentential meaning. The predication is the common category shared by propositions, questions, commands, etc. Such analysis is to break down the sentence into its smaller constituents: argument and predicate. The predicate is the major or pivotal element governing the argument. The argument is the logical participant.

2． Syllable

【答案】 Syllable : It refers to a unit of spoken language that is bigger than a speech sound. It consists of one or more vowel sounds alone or of a syllabic consonant alone or of either with one or more consonant sounds preceding or following.

3． distinctive features

a means of working out a set of phonological contrasts or oppositions to capture particular 【答案】

aspects of language sounds , first suggested by Roman Jacobson in the 1940s and then developed by numerous other people.

4． Broad and narrow transcription

【答案】 Broad and narrow transcription: In broad transcription, one letter symbol is used for one sound. In narrow transcription , there are diacritics added to the one letter symbols to show the finer differences between sounds.

5． Cognition

【答案】 Cognition is, in psychology, used to refer to the mental processes of an individual, with particular relation to a concept which argues that the mind has internal mental states （such as beliefs, desires and intentions ） and can be understood as information processing , especially when much abstraction or concretization is involved , or processes such as involving knowledge , expertise or learning for example are at work. Another definition of “cognition” is the mental process or faculty of knowing , including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.

6． Compound

【答案】 Compound refers to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form, such as the compound words “blackboard” and “well-known”.

7． figure-ground alignment

【答案】 Figure-ground alignment seems to apply to space with the ground as the prepositional object and the preposition expressing the spatial relational configuration. It also applies to human perception of moving objects. Since the moving object is typically the most prominent one, because it is moving , it is typically the figure, while the remaining stimuli constitute the ground.

8． Linguistic relativity

【答案】 This is one of two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It states that similarity between languages is relative , the greater their structural differentiation is , the more diverse their conceptualization of the world is. For example, not every language has the same set of words for the colors ; in Spanish there is no word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”.

二、Essay-question

9． Some comments on the following statement based on your own experience:

There exists a close relationship between language and culture. In other words, a successful master of a given language has much to do with an understanding of that culture.

【答案】 Language use is heavily tinted with its culture. A language does not only expresses facts, ideas , or events which represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the peopled attitudes , beliefs, world outlook, and so on. In a word, language expresses cultural reality. To dig it further , a language, as a system of signs with their own cultural substances and values, may be viewed as a symbol of social identity. People are identified via their use of language. In this sense, language symbolizes cultural reality.

On the other hand , as people‟s language uses express the culture ，to be more specific , their community culture represented by its social conventions, norms and social appropriateness, the culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically.

Historically , each culture has its past and tradition. A culture consists both of its ways how a social group represents itself, its technological achievements, monuments and works of art and of its historical identity recorded and passed down by the pop culture. It is language that has played a major role in socializing the people and in perpetuating culture, especially in print form.

In addition , culture also affects its peopled imagination or common dreams which are mediated through the language and reflected in their life. Language is not only intrinsically related to what the culture is and what it was, but also related to the culture of imagination governing people‟s decisions as well as actions. The interplay between language and culture may result in various forms of socialization and people with different cultures may be socialized in different ways with different acculturation.

Although language and culture are inextricably intertwined , this relationship is not analogous to that of structures and processes. Rather, culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. Linguistic competence is one variety of cultural competence and speech behavior is one variety of social behavior. The relation of language to culture is that of part to whole.

10．Shakespeare has Juliet say:

Whats in a name? That which we call a rose.

By any other name would smell as sweet.

What do the above lines say to you about the relationship between the form （sounds ） and meaning （concept ） of a word in spoken language? Explain with positive evidence as well as exceptions from the English language.

The lines said above show that the relationship between the form （sounds ） and meaning 【答案】

（concept ） of a word in spoken language is arbitrary in nature. That means there is no logical connection between forms （sounds ） and meaning （concept ） . Different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages.

Sounds are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. In this example, the rose can be called by many names in different languages but its smell never changes. Another example, different languages have different forms for referring to “dog” in English, such as Chinese “狗 ”，French “chien （n.m. ） 5”While language is arbitrary by nature, there are some （gou ）

exceptions as well. The best examples in English are the onomatopoetic words and compound words. For example, some onomatopoetic words “rumble”，“ crash”， “crackle” “ bang” are uttered like the sounds they describe, thus seem to have a natural basis. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. For example while “photo” and “copy” are both arbitrary , the compound word “photocopy” is not entirely arbitrary, thus seem to be motivated. Anyhow, non-arbitrary words make up only a small percentage of the vocabulary of a language.

11．How much does our language influence the way we think? How deeply do language and culture interpenetrate and influence one another? These questions about language have fascinated thinkers throughout the ages. For example, Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt in the German Romantic tradition regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the world so that each language reflects a different worldview. Write a short essay to explain your position on this view.

【答案】 Humans have a unique linguistic system for communication that serves as the primary vehicle for expressing thoughts. Language and thought may be viewed as two independent circles that develop along two different routes but overlap in some parts, where language and thought are consistent with each other. But language is not the only means of expressing thought. As for the relationship between language and the thought , we think that language does not determine the way we think but influence the way we perceive the world and recall things, and affects the ease with which we perform mental tasks. That is, language may be used to provide new ideas, bring about a change in beliefs and values , solve problems，and keep track of things in memory. For example, a well-developed vocabulary may well assist us in learning the concepts the lexis covers. We recall things more easily when they correspond to readily available words or phrases. It is certainly easier for us to make a conceptual distinction if it neatly corresponds to a particular lexical item available in our language. When we label our experience with linguistic symbols, our language will influence how we remember and think about those experiences ; otherwise the relationship between language and perception , memory or thinking will be greatly reduced.

In terms of relationship between language and culture , we can infer that a language not only expresses facts, ideas, or events that represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the people‟s attitudes, beliefs， world outlooks , and etc. Language expresses cultural reality. On the other hand, as peopled language uses express their culture represented by its social conventions, norms and social appropriateness, the culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically. Sharing a same community culture, people have acquired common ways of viewing the world through their speech interactions with other members of the same group. Although language and culture are inextricably intertwined , culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. The knowledge and beliefs that constitute a people‟s culture are habitually encoded and transmitted in the language of the people. Language as an integral part of human being, permeates his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality.

As for the relationship between language and world views , the language system does not