语言学名词解释和问答题

语言学I. Directions: Explain the following terms.1. Parole: Parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use; parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules; parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.2. Broad transcription is the transcription with letter symbols only. It is the transcription normally used in dictionaries and teaching textbooks.3. International phonetic alphabet: It is a standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.4. Historical linguistics studies language change ( or historical development of language).5. Phonology: Phonology studies the system of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.6. Langue: Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community; Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow; Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently7. Suprasegmental features: the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features. The main suprasegmental features include stress, intonation and tone.8. language: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.9. Minimal pair: When two different forms are identical in every way except one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string, the two words are said to form a minimal pair, such as /pig/ and /dig.10. Phonetics: the linguistic study of how speech sounds are produced and classified.11. Arbitrariness: It is one of the design features of language. It means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds12. Duality: Duality means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structures, or two levels. At the lower or the basic level there is a structure of sounds, which are meaningless. But the sounds of language can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning at the higher level of the system.13. Syntax: Syntax is a subfield of linguistics that studies the sentence structure of language.14. Pragmatics: Pragmatics can be defined as the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication. It is a discipline of studying meaning not in isolation, but in context15. Competence: Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user's knowledge of the rules of his language. It is a set of rules internalized in the mind of a language user which enables him to produce and understand an indefinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ungrammatical and ambiguous.16. Tones are pitch variations caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. As a suprasegmental feature, it can distinguish meaning. For example, in Chinese, the same sound combination “ma” can have four different tones: maª (妈) má（麻）mǎ （马）mà（骂）. 17. A phone is a speech sound people use when speaking a language. For example, [p], [ⅰ] and [t] are phones; they are the phonetic realizations of the phonemes in [pit]. A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. It does not necessarily distinguish meaning.18. Allophones: The different phones that can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme. For example, [p] and [p h] are two allophones of the same phoneme /p/.19. Linguistics: Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language.20. Psycholinguistics: The study of language with reference to the workings of mind is called psycholinguistics.21. Morphology: The study of the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words is called morphology.22. Sociolinguistics: The study of language with reference to society is called sociolinguistics,.23. Applied linguistics: In a narrow sense, applied linguistics refers to the application of linguistic principles and theories to language teaching and learning, especially the teaching of foreign and second languages. In a broad sense, it refers to the application of linguistic findings to the solution of practical problems such as the recovery of speech ability.24. Productivity: Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.25. Displacement: Displacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker26. Design features: Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication27. Performance: performance is the actual realization of the knowledge of the rules in linguistic communication.28. Phoneme: The basic unit in phonology is called phoneme; it is a unit of distinctive value. But it is an abstract unit. To be exact, a phoneme is not a sound; it is a collection of distinctive phonetic features.29. Auditory phonetics: It studies the speech sounds from the hearer's point of view. It studies how the sounds are perceived by the hearer.30. Acoustic phonetics: It studies the speech sounds by looking at the sound waves. It studies the physical means by which speech sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another.31. Phonemic contrast: Phonemic contrast refers to the relation between two phonemes. If two phonemes can occur in the same environment and distinguish meaning, they are in phonemic contrast.II. Answer the following questions.1. What are the design features of human language? Illustrate them with examples.1) ArbitrarinessAs mentioned earlier, the arbitrary property of language means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. For instance, there is no necessary relationship between the word elephant and the animal it symbolizes. In addition, different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages , and even within the same language, the same sound does not refer to the same thing. However, language is not entirely arbitrary. There are words which arecreated in the imitation of sounds by sounds, such as crash, bang in English. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. But the non-arbitrary words are quite limited in number.The arbitrary nature of language makes it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions.2) ProductivityLanguage is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. This is why they can produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences, including sentences that they have never said or heard before. They can send messages which no one else has ever sent before.Productivity is unique to human language. Most animal communication systems appear to be highly restricted with respect to the number of different signals that their users can send and receive.3) DualityThe duality nature of language means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structure, or two levels, one of sounds and the other of meanings. At the lower or the basic level, there is the structure of sounds, which are meaningless, discrete, individual sounds. But the sounds of language can be combined according to rules into units of meaning such as morphemes and words, which, at the higher level, can be arranged into sentences. This duality of structure or double articulation of language enables its users to talk about anything within their knowledge. No animal communication system has duality or even comes near to possessing it.4) DisplacementDisplacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker. Animal calls are mainly uttered in response to immediate changes of situation.5) Cultural transmissionHuman beings were born with the ability to acquire language, but the details of any language are not genetically transmitted or passed down by instinct. They have to be taught and learned, but animal call systems are genetically transmitted .2. What are the differences and similarities between Saussure’s distinction of langue and parole and Chomsky’s distinctio n of competence and performance?(1) Saussure’s langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s kn owledge of the rules of his language, and performance the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. (2) Similarity: both Saussure and Chomsky distinguish the abstract language system from the actual use of language. Their purpose is to single out the language system for serious study. (3) Difference: Saussure’s distinction is made from the sociological point of view and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions, while Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him, competence is a property of the mind of each individual.3. Explain with examples the major rules in phonology.Sequential rules refer to those rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language. For example, in English, if a word begins with a [l] or a [r], the next sound must be a vowel. That why [lbik] is a impossible combination in English. (2) The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar. Assimilation of neighbouring sounds is, for the most part, caused by articulatory or physiological processes. For example, the [i:] sound is nasalized in words like bean, team, etc. This is because in the sound combination, the [i:] sound is followed by the nasal sound [n] or [m]. When we are pronouncing the [i:] sound, we are getting ready to pronounce the subsequent nasal sound. To make the pronunciation easier, we actually nasalize the vowel, thus making similar the pronunciation of the two sounds. (3) Deletion rules refer to the rules that govern the deletion of a sound in a certain phonetic context although it is orthographically represented (represented in spelling). For example, in the pronunciation of such words as sign and design, there is no [ ɡ] sound although it is represented in spelling by the letter g.4. How is phonology related to and different from phonetics?Both phonology and phonetics are studies of speech sounds. The two words have the same root phono-, meaning sounds. But while both are related to the study of sounds, they differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified, etc. On the other hand, phonology is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication. Thus these two are at once related and distinct branches of linguistic studies. For example, a phonetician would be more interested in the difference between [p] and [p h] because such difference will not cause the difference in meaning.5. Language is generally defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Explain it in detail.First of all, language is a system, because elements of language are combined according to rules. Secondly, language is arbitrary because there is no intrinsic connection between form and meaning, or between the sign and what it stands for. Different languages have different words for the same object in the world. This fact is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. This also explains the symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. Thirdly, language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for all languages, no matter how well - developed their writing systems are.The term "human" in the definition indicates that language is possessed by human beings only and is very different from the communication systems of other living creatures. The term "communication" means that language makes it possible for its users to talk to each other and fulfill their communicative needs.6. How is modern linguistics different from traditional grammar?Traditional grammar is prescriptive; it is based on "high "(religious, literary) written language. It sets grammatical rules and imposes the rules on language users. But Modern linguistics is descriptive; It collects authentic, and mainly spoken language data and then it studies anddescribes the data in an objective and scientific way.7. How do you understand the distinction between a synchronic study and a diachronic study?The description of a language at some point in time is a Synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A synchronic study of language describes a language as it is at some particular point in time, while a diachronic study of language is the study of the historical development of language over a period of time.8. Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written?First, the spoken form is prior to the written form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of language.Second, the spoken form plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed and it serves a wider range of purposesFinally, the spoken form is the medium through which we acquire our mother tongue.9. What are the major distinctions between langue and parole?The distinction between langue, and parole was made by the famous Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early this century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow while parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use, but parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.10. How do you understand competence and performance?American li nguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950’s proposed the distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language. This internalized set of rules enables the language user to produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ungrammatical and ambiguous. According to Chomsky, performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. Although the speaker’s knowledge of his mother tongue is perfect, his performances may have mistakes because of social and psychological factors such as stress, embarrassment, etc... Chomsky believes that what linguists should study is the competence, which is systematic, not the performance, which is too haphazard.11. Do you think human language is entirely arbitrary? Why?Language is arbitrary in nature; it is not entirely arbitrary, because there are a limited number of words whose connections between forms and meanings can be logically explained to a certain extent, for example, the onomatopoeia, words which are coined on the basis of imitation of sounds by sounds such as bang, crash, etc... Take compounds for another example. The two elements “photo” and “copy” in “photocopy” are non-motivated, but the compound is notarbitrary.12. Of the two media of language, why do you think speech is more basic than writing?1) In linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing.2) In everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.3) Speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongue, and writing is learned and taught later at school.13. What are the criteria that a linguist uses in classifying vowels?1) Vowels may be distinguished as front, central and back in terms of the position of the tongue in the mouth.2) According to how wide our mouth is opened, we classify the vowels into four groups: close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels, and open vowels.3) According to the shape of the lips, vowels are divided into rounded vowels and unrounded vowels.4) The English vowels can also be classified into long vowels and short vowels according to the length of the sound.14. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning.1) The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, such as `import and im`port. The similar alternation of stress also occurs between a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same elements. A phonological feature of the English compounds, is that the stress of the word always falls on the first element and the second element receives secondary stress, for example: `blackbird is a particular kind of bird, which is not necessarily black, but a black `bird is a bird that is black.2) The more important words such as nouns, verbs adjectives, adverbs, etc are pronounced with greater force and made more prominent. But to give special emphasis to a certain notion, a word in sentence that is usually unstressed can be stressed to achieve different effect. Take the sentence “He is driving my car.”for example. To emphasize the fact that the car he is driving is not his, or yours, but mine, the speaker can stress the possessive pronoun my, which under normal circumstances is not stressed.3) English has four basic types of intonation, known as the four tones: When spoken in different tones, the same sequence of words may have different meanings. Generally speaking, the falling tone indicates that what is said is a straight-forward, matter-of-fact statement, the rising tone often makes a question of what is said, and the fall-rise tone often indicates that there is an implied message in what is said.15. In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not?A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one sound for other results in a change of meaning. If it does, the two sounds then represent different phonemes.。