英语考研-语言学重难点提示

英语考研英语考研 语言学重难点提示语言学重难点提示 1 What is language Language is system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication It is a system since linguistic elements are arranged systematically rather than randomly Arbitrary in the sense that there is usually no intrinsic connection between a work like book and the object it refers to This explains and is explained by the fact that different languages have different books book in English livre in French shu in Chinese It is symbolic because words are associated with objects actions ideas etc by nothing but convention Namely people use the sounds or vocal forms to symbolize what they wish to refer to It is vocal because sound or speech is the primary medium for all human languages Writing systems came much later than the spoken forms The fact that small children learn and can only learn to speak and listen before they write and read also indicates that language is primarily vocal rather than written The term human in the definition is meant to specify that language is human specific 2 What are design features of language Design features here refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication They are arbitrariness duality productivity displacement cultural transmission and interchangeability 3 What is arbitrariness By arbitrariness we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds A dog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had used it for a pig Language is therefore largely arbitrary But language is not absolutely seem to be some sound meaning association if we think of echo words like bang crash roar which are motivated in a certain sense Secondly some compounds words compounded to be one word are not entirely arbitrary either Type and write are opaque or unmotivated words while type writer is less so or more transparent or motivated than the words that make it So we can say arbitrariness is a matter of degree 4 What is duality Linguists refer duality of structure to the fact that in all languages so far investigated one finds two levels of structure or patterning At the first higher level language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningful units such as morphemes words etc at the second lower level it is seen as a sequence of segments which lack any meaning in themselves but which combine to form units of meaning According to Hu Zhanglin et al language is a system of two sets of structures one of sounds and the other of meaning This is important for the workings of language A small number of semantic units words and these units of meaning can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences note that we have dictionaries of words but no dictionary of sentences Duality makes it possible for a person to talk about anything within his knowledge No animal communication system enjoys this duality 5 What is productivity Productivity refers to the ability to the ability to construct and understand an indefinitely large number of sentences in one s native language including those that has never heard before but that are appropriate to the speaking situation No one has ever said or heard A red eyed elephant is dancing on the small hotel bed with an African gibbon but he can say it when necessary and he can understand it in right register Different from artistic creativity though productivity never goes outside the language thus also called rule bound creativity by N Chomsky 6 What is displacement Displacement as one of the design features of the human language refers to the fact that one can talk about things that are not present as easily as he does things present In other words one can refer to real and unreal things things of the past of the present of the future Language itself can be talked about too When a man for example is crying to a woman about something it might be something that had occurred or something that is occurring or something that is to occur When a dog is barking however you can decide it is barking for something or at someone that exists now and there It couldn t be bow wowing sorrowfully for a bone to be lost The bee s system nonetheless has a small share of displacement but it is an unspeakable tiny share 7 What is cultural transmission This means that language is not biologically transmitted from generation to generation but that the details of the linguistic system must be learned anew by each speaker It is true that the capacity for language in human beings N Chomsky called it language acquisition device or LAD has a genetic basis but the particular language a person learns to speak is a cultural one other than a genetic one like the dog s barking system If a human being is brought up in isolation he cannot acquire language The Wolf Child reared by the pack of wolves turned out to speak the wolf s roaring tongue when he was saved He learned thereafter with no small difficulty the ABC of a certain human language 8 What is interchangeability Interchangeability means that any human being can be both a producer and a receiver of messages Though some people suggest that there is sex differentiation in the actual language use in other words men and women may say different things yet in principle there is no sound or word or sentence that a man can utter and a woman cannot or vice versa On the other hand a person can be the speaker while the other person is the listener and as the turn moves on to the listener he can be the speaker and the first speaker is to listen It is turn taking that makes social communication possible and acceptable Some male birds however utter some calls which females do not or cannot When a dog barks all the neighboring dogs bark Then people around can hardly tell which dog dogs is are speaking and which listening 9 Why do linguists say language is human specific First of all human language has six design features which animal communication systems do not have at least not in the true sense of them Secondly linguists have done a lot trying to teach animals such as chimpanzees to speak a human language but have achieved nothing inspiring Washoe a female chimpanzee was brought up like a human child by Beatnice and Alan Gardner She was taught American sign Language and learned a little that made the teachers happy but did mot make the linguistics circle happy for few believed in teaching chimpanzees Thirdly a human child reared among animals cannot speak a human language not even when he is taken back and taught to do so 10 What functions does language have Language has at least seven functions phatic directive Informative interrogative expressive evocative and performative According to Wang Gang 1988 p 11 language has three main functions a tool of communication a tool whereby people learn about the world and a tool by which people learn about the world and a tool by which people create art M A K Halliday representative of the London school recognizes three Macro Functions ideational interpersonal and textual 11 What is the phatic function The phatic function refers to language being used for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts rather than for exchanging information or ideas Greetings farewells and comments on the weather in English and on clothing in Chinese all serve this function Much of the phatic language e g How are you Fine thanks is insincere if taken literally but it is important If you don t say Hello to a friend you meet or if you don t answer his Hi you ruin your friendship 12 What is the directive function The directive function means that language may be used to get the hearer to do something Most imperative sentences perform this function e g Tell me the result when you finish Other syntactic structures or sentences of other sorts can according to J Austin and J Searle s Indirect speech act theory at least serve the purpose of direction too e g If I were you I would have blushed to the bottom of my ears 13 What is the informative function Language serves an informational function when used to tell something characterized by the use of declarative sentences Informative statements are often labelled as true truth or false falsehood According to P Grice s Cooperative Principle one ought not to violate the Maxim of Quality when he is informing at all 14 What is the interrogative function When language is used to obtain information it serves an interrogative function This includes all questions that expect replies statements imperatives etc according to the indirect speech act theory may have this function as well e g I d like to know you better This may bring forth a lot of personal information Note that rhetorical questions make an exception since they demand no answer at least not the reader s listener s answer 15 What is the expressive function The expressive function is the use of language to reveal something about the feelings or attitudes of the speaker Subconscious emotional ejaculations are good examples like Good heavens My God Sentences like I m sorry about the delay can serve as good examples too though in a subtle way While language is used for the informative function to pass judgment on the truth or falsehood of statements language used for the expressive function evaluates appraises or asserts the speaker s own attitudes 16 What is the evocative function The evocative function is the use of language to create certain feelings in the hearer Its aim is for example to amuse startle antagonize soothe worry or please Jokes not practical jokes though are supposed to amuse or entertain the listener advertising to urge customers to purchase certain commodities propaganda to influence public opinion Obviously the expressive and the evocative functions often go together i e you may express for example your personal feelings about a political issue but end up by evoking the same feeling in or imposing it on your listener That s also the case with the other way round 17 What is the performative function This means people speak to do things or perform actions On certain occasions the utterance itself as an action is more important than what words or sounds constitute the uttered sentence The judge s imprisonment sentence the president s war or independence declaration etc are performatives 18 What is linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language It studies not just one language of any one society but the language of all human beings A linguist though does not have to know and use a large number of languages but to investigate how each language is constructed He is also concerned with how a language varies from dialect to dialect from class to class how it changes from century to century how children acquire their mother tongue and perhaps how a person learns or should learn a foreign language In short linguistics studies the general principles whereupon all human languages are constructed and operate as systems of communication in their societies or communities 19 What makes linguistics a science Since linguistics is the scientific study of language it ought to base itself upon the systematic investigation of language data which aims at discovering the true nature of language and its underlying system To make sense of the data a linguist usually has conceived some hypotheses about the language structure to be checked against the observed or observable facts In order to make his analysis scientific a linguist is usually guided by four principles exhaustiveness consistency and objectivity Exhaustiveness means he should gather all the materials relevant to the study and give them an adequate explanation in spite of the complicatedness He is to leave no linguistic stone unturned Consistency means there should be no contradiction between different parts of the total statement Economy means a linguist should pursue brevity in the analysis when it is possible Objectivity implies that since some people may be subjective in the study a linguist should be or sound at least objective matter of face faithful to reality so that his work constitutes part of the linguistics research 20 What are the major branches of linguistics The study of language as a whole is often called general linguistics But a linguist sometimes is able to deal with only one aspect of language at a time thus the arise of various branches phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics sociolinguistics applied linguistics psycholinguistics etc 21 What are synchronic and diachronic studies The description of a language at some point of time as if it stopped developing is a synchrony study synchrony The description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study diachronic An essay entitled On the Use of THE for example may be synchronic if the author does not recall the past of THE and it may also be diachronic if he claims to cover a large range or period of time wherein THE has undergone tremendous alteration 22 What is speech and what is writing No one needs the repetition of the general principle of linguistic analysis namely the primacy of speech over writing Speech is primary because it existed long long before writing systems came into being Genetically children learn to speak before learning to write Secondly written forms just represent in this way or that the speech sounds individual sounds as in English and French as in Japanese In contrast to speech spoken form of language writing as written codes gives language new scope and use that speech does not have Firstly messages can be carried through space so that people can write to each other Secondly messages can be carried through time thereby so that people of our time can be carried through time thereby so that people of our time can read Beowulf Samuel Johnson and Edgar A Poe Thirdly oral messages are readily subject to distortion either intentional or unintentional while written messages allow and encourage repeated unalterable reading Most modern linguistic analysis is focused on speech different from grammarians of the last century and theretofore 23 What are the differences between the descriptive and the prescriptive approaches A linguistic study is descriptive if it only describes and analyses the facts of language and prescriptive if it tries to lay down rules for correct language behavior Linguistic studies before this century were largely prescriptive because many early grammars were largely prescriptive because many early grammars were based on high literary or religious written records Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive however It the latter believes that whatever occurs in natural speech hesitation incomplete utterance misunderstanding etc should be described in the analysis and not be marked as incorrect abnormal corrupt or lousy These with changes in vocabulary and structures need to be explained also 24 What is the difference between langue and parole F de Saussure refers langue to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and refers parole to the actual or actualized language or the realization of langue Langue is abstract parole specific to the speaking situation langue not actually spoken by an individual parole always a naturally occurring event langue relatively stable and systematic parole is a mass of confused facts thus not suitable for systematic investigation What a linguist ought to do according to Saussure is to abstract langue from instances of parole i e to discover the regularities governing all instances of parole and make than the subject of linguistics The langue parole distinction is of great importance which casts great influence on later linguists 25 What is the difference between competence and performance According to N Chomsky competence is the ideal language user s knowledge of the rules of his language and performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in utterances The former enables a speaker to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities A speaker s competence is stable while his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors So a speaker s performance does not always match or equal his supposed competence Chomsky believes that linguists ought to study competence rather than performance In other words they should discover what an ideal speaker knows of his native language Chomsky s competence performance distinction is not exactly the same as though similar to F de Saussure s langue parole distinction Langue is a social product and a set of conventions for a community while competence is deemed as a property of the mind of each individual Sussure looks at language more from a sociological or sociolinguistic point of view than N Chomsky since the latter deals with his issues psychologically or psycholinguistically 26 What is linguistic potential What is actual linguistic behaviour These two terms or the potential behavior distinction were made by M A K Halliday in the 1960s from a functional point of view There is a wide range of things a speaker can do in his culture and similarly there are many things he can say for example to many people on many topics What he actually says i e his actual linguistic behavior on a certain occasion to a certain person is what he has chosen from many possible injustice items each of which he could have said linguistic potential 27 In what way do language competence and linguistic potential agree In what way do they differ And their counterparts Langue competence and linguistic potential have some similar features but they are innately different Langue is a social product and a set of speaking conventions competence is a property or attribute of each ideal speaker s mind linguistic potential is all the linguistic corpus or repertoire available from which the speaker chooses items for the actual utterance situatio