目 录2007年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解2006年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解2005年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解2004年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解2003年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解2002年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解2007年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解I. Fill in the blanks with the right linguistic concepts (10 points). 1.Human language is arbitrary. This refers to the fact that there is no logical or intrinsic connection between a particular sound and the ______ it is associated with. 2. ______ s a type of word-formation by which a shorter word is coined by the deletion of a supposed affix of a longer form already present in the language. For example，the verb edit was formed from editor by dropping the supposed derivational suffix -or. 3.Some morphemes like –ish,-ness，-ly，-dis，trans-.un- are never words by themselves but are always parts of words. These affixes are ______ morphemes. 4. ______ an be defined as the study of language in use. Sociolinguistics, on the other hand, attempts to show the relationship between language and society. 5. One of the important distinctions in linguistics is ______ and parole. The former is the French word for “language”, which is the abstract knowledge necessary for speaking，listening，writing and reading. The lager is concerned about the actual use of language by people in speech or writing. Parole is more variable and may change according to contextual factors. 6. H.P.Grice believes that there is a set of assumptions guiding the conduct of conversation. This is what he calls the Cooperative Principle. According to the maximum of ______: Do not say what you believe to be false or for which you lack evidence. In other words，speak truthfully; do not lie. 7. ______ proposes that every speaker knows a set of principals which apply to all languages and also a set of parameters that can vary from one language to another, but only within certain limits. 8. ______ refers to varieties of a language used by individual speakers，with peculiarities of pronunciation，grammar and vocabulary. In fact，no two speakers speak exactly the same dialect. Each speaker has certain characteristic features of his own in his way of speaking. 9.According to ______ period hypothesis，in child development there is a period during which language can be acquired more easily than at any other time. The period lasts until puberty (around age 12 or 13 years), and is due to biological development.10. ______ refers to ties and connections which exist within texts. They are also called formal links between sentences and between clauses.答案：I. 1. meaning2.Back-formation3.bound4.Pragmaticsngue6.quality7. Generative Grammar8.Idiolect9.Critical10.CohesionII. Give short answer to the following questions (10 points)I. Explain criterion-referenced and norm-referenced language tests.答案：Tests can be categorized into two major groups: norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests. These two tests differ in their intended purposes, the way in which content is selected, and the scoring process which defines how the test results must be interpreted.A test that measures student knowledge and understanding in relation to specific standards or performance objectives is called criterion-referenced testing (CRT). It measures students’ performance in relation to standards, not in relation to other students; all students may earn the highest grade if all meet the established performance criteria. CRTs report how well students are doing relative to a pre-determined performance level on a specified set of educational goals or outcomes included in the school, district, or state curriculum.A test designed to measure and compare individual students’performances or text results to those of an appropriate peer group (that is,norm group) at the classroom, local or, national level is called norm-referenced testing (NRT). Students with the best performance on a given assessment receive the highest grades. It is generally used to help teachers select students for different ability level reading or mathematics instructional groups.2. Explain the seven types of meaning and use examples to illustrate your ideas.答案：The seven types of meaning were first postulated by G. Leech. They are respectively illustrated as follows:(1) Conceptual meaning, which refers to logical, cognitive, or denotative content. This type of meaning is “denotative” in that it is concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to. It overlaps to a large extent to the concept of reference, but Leech also uses the short form “sense” for the same indication. So Leech’s conceptual meaning contains two parts: sense and reference.(2) Connotative meaning, what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to. It refers to some additional, especially emotive, meaning.(3) Social meaning, referring to what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.(4) Affective meaning, which refers to what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer.(5) Reflected meaning, which refers to what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression.(6) Collocative meaning, what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word.The five types of meanings from (2) to (6) are collectively known as Associative meaning in the sense that an elementary associationist theory of mental connections is enough to explain their use.(7) Thematic meaning, what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis. It is more peripheral since it is only determined by the order of the words in a sentence and the different prominence they each receive.III. Read the following passage carefully and then state your own position concerning the use of knowing some linguistics. (10 points) One famous scholar says that language is an interesting subject to study on its own right, for the simple reason that everybody uses it every day. It is unbelievable that we know very little about something we are so familiar with. Just a few questions will arouse our interest in language. Why should we call the thing we sit on chair? Can’t we call chair table and table chair? How is it that children don’t seem to make a big effort in learning their first language while we adults have to work very hard to learn a second language? Why can we talk about yesterday and last year while cats and dogs never seem to make noises about their past experience? Do you think we can think as clearly without language as with language? Does language determine what we think or thought determines what we say? These questions make us curious about language and linguistics can satisfy our curiosity. To seek the answer to any of these questions is a good reason for studying linguistics.答案：Language is essential to human beings; it plays a central role in our lives as individual and social beings. We have to be fully aware of the nature and mechanism of our language, or we will be ignorant of what constitutes our essential humanity. Therefore, there is every necessity to study language. And Linguistics serves as a way for us to learn more about language, and to explain some phenomena which we have taken granted for but which in fact is quite interesting or puzzling. For example, with the help of linguistics, people could explain why we call the thing we sit on a “chair”but not a “cat” or “dog”, or why we can talk about yesterday and even tomorrow while animals can not. These two kinds of phenomena are all attributed to the design features of language which make it unique from and advantageous over animal languages. The linguists have found that human language is arbitrary because there is no “natural” connection between a linguistic and its meaning. What’s more, human language has also the property of displacement which enables the language users to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment.Linguistics does not only try to explain the phenomena of language itself, but also try to study the interrelation between it and other aspects of the whole human society. Thus, we have sociolinguistics, which studies the relation of language with society, and which tries to clear out the relationship of language to the society and culture; psycholinguistics, which aims to answer such questions as how the human mind works when we use language, how we as infants acquire our mother tongue, how we memorize, and how we process the information we receive in the course of communication; applied linguistics, which relates some findings in linguistic studies to the solution of such practical problems as the recovery of speech ability, foreignlanguage teachings.Of course, the present linguistic studies can not explain adequately all the phenomena concerned with language, for example, whether it is language determines culture or that culture determines language. Even with the theories which seem to work well on certain aspects of language we should not stay satisfied; for the theory is now accepted as true only because it haven’t been proved wrong.2006年中国人民大学816英语语言学与英语教学考研真题及详解I. Fill in the blanks with the right linguistic concepts (22 points).1. Saussure distinguished the linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or data of linguistics (utterances) as (1) and (2) . The former refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and the latter is the concrete manifestation of language either through speech or through writing.2. (3) grammars attempt to tell what is in the language, while (4) grammars tell people what should be in the language. Most contemporary linguists believe that whatever occurs naturally in the language should be described.3. (5) studies how the speech sounds are made, transmitted, and received, and (6) studies the rules governing the structure, distribution and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables.4. Words which have different meanings but are written differently and sound alike are called (7) .5. One of the important distinctions in linguistics is (8) and performance.6. There are two fields of morphology: the study of (9) and the study of (10) .7. “The world is like a stage” is an example of (11) , and “All theworld is a stage” is an example o-f (12) . They are often used in analyzing features of literary language.8. (13) studies meaning in language, (14) s about principles of forming and understanding correct English sentences, and (15) is concerned with the internal organization of words. They are all among the main branches of linguistics.9. (16) is the study of the language-processing mechanisms. It is concerned with the storage, comprehension, production and acquisition of language; (17) , on the other hand, attempts to show the relationship between language and society. They both belong to branches of macrolinguistics.10. The part of linguistics that studies the language of literature is called (18) . It focuses on the study of linguistic features related to literary style.11. Children frequently say tooths and mouses, instead of teeth and mice. These are examples of (19) .12. (20) is a relatively complex form of compounding in which a new word is formed by joining the initial part of one word and the final part of another word.For example, the English word smog is made from (21) and (22) .答案：(1) langue (2) parole (3) descriptive (4) prescriptive (5) phonetics(6) phonology (7) homophones (8) competence (9) inflectional (10) lexical/derivational (11) simile (12) metaphor (13) semantics(14) syntax(15) morphology (16) psycholinguistics (17) sociolinguistics (18) stylistics(19) overgeneralization (20) blending (21) smoke (22) fogII. Give brief definitions of the following terms (18 points).1. Phoneme2. CALL3. IC analysis4. Linguistic relativity5. Silent period6. Gradable antonym答案：1. Phoneme. It refers to the abstract element of sound, identified as being distinctive in a particular language. For example, in English, /p/ is described as a phoneme.2. CALL. It is the abbreviation of computer-assisted language learning, which refers to the use of a computer in the teaching or learning of a second or foreign language. In this kind of CALL programs, the computer leads the student through a learning task step-by-step, asking questions to check comprehension. Depending on the student’s response, the computer gives the student further practice or progresses to new material.3. IC analysis. IC analysis (immediate constituent analysis) refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents---word groups(orphrases),which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate constituents are reached. In practice, for the sake of convenience, we usually stop at the level of word.4. Linguistic relativity. 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”.5. Silent period. It refers to a period in the initial phase of the language acquisition process, during which children acquiring a new language in natural settings are silent and concentrate on comprehension. And they may respond, if necessary, only in a non-verbal way or by making use of a set of memorized phrases. This phenomenon is also observed when we see how children acquire their mother tongue.6. Gradable antonym. Gradable antonyms are antonyms that are gradable because there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair. For example, cold and warm constitute a pair of gradable antonyms.III. Give Short answers to the following questions (40 points):1. In what ways do people cooperate in their conversations?答案：In daily conversations people do not usually say things directly but tend to imply them, and according to Grice, they seem to observe willingly or unwillingly certain principle, which is called “cooperativeprinciple”: “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs，by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”. Under this principle, there are four maxims, namely, Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.2. How is the illocutionary act different from the perlocutionary act?答案：An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention; it is the act performed in saying something. Thus, if someone says “Morning”, we can ask questions like “What did he mean?” and the answer could be “He offered a greeting.”A perlocutionary act, however, is the effect of the utterance. By telling somebody something the speaker may change the opinion of the hearer on something, or mislead him, or surprise him, or induce him to do something, and so on. Therefore, the perlocutionary act of the saying “Morning” could be to keep friendly relations with the hearer.3. Why did Chomsky make the distinction between deep and Surface structures?答案：In generative grammar, deep structure is the abstract syntactic representation of a sentence, the underlying level of structural organization which specifies all the factors governing the way the sentence should be interpreted. On the other hand, surface structure is 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.According to Chomsky, it is necessary to make the distinction, since it ishelpful to differentiate and analyze syntactic structures such as “John is easy to please” and “John is eager to please”, and also to disambiguate structures like “the shooting of the hunters”. More importantly, it reflects two of the stages of how the language is processed through the generative grammar: the deep structure, which an underlying structure, has to be transformed to the surface structure via a set of transformational rules.4.What are the major concerns of pragmatics?答案：Pragmatics is the study of the language in use. It is mainly about how speakers use language appropriately and effectively in accordance with a given context. It is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader). It has more to do with participants of communication and context in which communication takes place. Hence the study of speaker meaning, that of contextual meaning, of what is unsaid but communicated.5. For the system of transitivity, Halliday identified six kinds of process, each with different types of participants. List four of the processes and comment on the effectiveness of such classification.答案：For the system of transitivity, Halliday has identified six kinds of process, and four of them are material process, relational process, behavioral process, and mental process.Such a classification has a lot to do with the systemic-functional approach of grammar interpretation. The classification of the system of transitivity helps reveal the functions of the components in relation to the whole clause; it is an interpretation of grammar in terms of ideationalfunction. These six types of process have divided up the semantic system of ideational function, by showing the various ways of language to react on the material world around us, and make sense of their experience of what goes on around them and inside them, or in other words, to perform the ideational function.IV. Answer the following questions, citing examples to support your ideas (40 points).1. What are the seven functions of human language?答案：According to Hu Zhuanglin, language has at least seven functions, and they are illustrated as follows:1) Informative function. It means that language is the instrument of thought and language serves an informational function when used to tell something. It is also called ideational function in the framework of functional grammar. The declarative sentences such as “This is a book.” are the typical illustration of this function.2) Interpersonal function. The interpersonal function means people can use language to establish and maintain their status in a society. It is the most important sociological use of language. In the framework of functional grammar, this function is concerned with interaction between the addresser and addressee in the discourse situation and the addresser's attitude toward what he speaks or writes about. For example, the ways in which people address others and refer to themselves (such as Dear Sir, Dear Professor, Johnny, yours, your obedient servant) indicate the various grades of interpersonal relations.3) Performative function. The performative function of language is primarily to change the social status of persons, as in marriage ceremonies, the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children, the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, and the cursing of enemies. The kind of language employed in performative verbal acts is usually quite formal and even ritualized. The performative function can extend to the control of reality as on some magical or religious occasions. For example, in Chinese when someone breaks a bowl or a plate the host or the people present are likely to say sui sui ping an (every year be safe and happy) as a means of controlling the forces which the believers feel might affect their lives.4) Emotive function. The emotive function is one of the most powerful uses of language because it is so crucial in changing the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or something. It is a means of getting rid of the nervous energy when people are under stress, for example, swear words, obscenities, involuntary verbal reactions to beautiful art or scenery; conventional words/phrases, for example. God, My, Damn it, Wow, Ugh, Ow, etc.5) Phatic communion. The phatic communion refers to the social interaction of language. People always use some small, seemingly meaningless expressions such as Good morning, God bless you, Nice day, etc., to maintain a comfortable relationship between people without any factual content.6) Recreational function. The recreational function means people use language for the sheer joy of using it, such as a baby’s babbling or a chanter’s chanting.7) Metalingual function. The metalingual function refers to the fact that people can use language to talk about itself. For example, I can use the word “book” to talk about a book, and I can also use the expression “the word book” to talk about the sign “b-o-o-k” itself.2. What are the major types of semantic Changes?答案：There are mainly three kinds of semantic changes, namely, broadening, narrowing, and meaning shift. Class shift and folk etymology also contribute to change in meaning (1) BroadeningBroadening is a process to extend or elevate the meaning from its originally specific sense to a relatively general one．For instance，the word holiday used to mean“holy day”in religious English. Today it means“a day for rest”regardless of its religious nature.(2) NarrowingContrary to broadening，the original meaning of a word can be narrowed or restricted to a specific sense．A typical example is the word meat which originally meant "food". In the course of time, the range of meaning was narrowed to mean specifically "the flesh of animals used as food".(3) Meaning shiftAll semantic changes involve meaning shift．Yet, in its narrow sense, meaning shift refers to the change of meaning, which has nothing to do with generalization or restriction. What makes the meaning of a word different isits departure from its original domain as a result of its metaphorical usage. For instance，the word bead originally means “prayer”, but later it refers to “the prayer bead”, the visible manifestation of a prayer, finally “small, ball-shaped piece of glass, metal or wood”.(4) Class shiftBy shifting the word class one can change the meaning of a word from a concrete entity or notion to a process or attribution. This process of word formation is also known as zero-derivation, or conversion. The word engineer as a noun means “a person trained in a branch of engineering”, but it means “to act as an engineer” or “to plan, to maneuver” when used as a verb.(5) Folk etymologyIt refers to a change in form of a word or phrase resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term or from the influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous. As a result of this modification，the word sparrowgrass in English derived from asparagus; the Spanish cucaracha changed into English cockroach．V. Translate the following into Chinese (30 points). Suppose that John Smith, happily married to Mary Smith, addresses his wife as “Mary, Smith, how many times have I asked you not to flip through the TV channels?” There would be reason to took beyond the words for the “meaning” of this unusual form of address. Mr. Smith may address his wife as “Mary Smith” to show his exasperation, as in this example. By addressing her as “Mary Smith” instead of the usual “Mary”, he conveys frustration and annoyance. His choice of name thus “means” that he is exasperated. Contrast the tone of that Sentence With a similar one in whichJohn Smith addressed Mary Smith as “dear”. The level of meaning that conveys the language user’s feelings, including his attitude or evaluation in shaping his use of language is Called affective meaning or emotive meaning. It is largely a parasitic category in the sense that to express our emotions we depend on the mediation of other categories of meaning as conceptual, connotative or social. For example, nigger, originally a word denoting a certain race, has virtually become a term of abuse or contempt; and a similar development has occurred with part of the political vocabulary, such as fascist.【参考译文】假设约翰·史密斯开心地娶了玛丽小姐后却这样称呼他的妻子：“玛丽·史密斯，我告诉过你多少次了，换台时不要老那么快！”撇开字面意思，这不寻常的称呼的出现是有理由的。
