objects. The process is called the “Rebus Principle” indicating that writing is like a riddle composed of words or syllables depicted by symbols or pictures that suggest the sound of the words or syllables they represent.
78. What is word writing What is sound writing What is syllabic writing？
Word writing refers to the writing system based on ideograms and/or pictograms, like Chinese. “Sound writing ” or “alphabetic writing”, which dominates the world, derived form the Latin alphabet with mild adjustments. Most of the European alphabets belong to the sound writing system, ., Spanish, German, French, English, etc. “Syllabic writing” is a word-syllabus writing, developed by the Egyptians. Japanese is a typical syllabic-writing language, though derived from Chinese, a Sino-Tibetan language. The Japanese modified the Chinese characters they had borrowed from ancient China so that the Japanese syllables (to the number of fifty) were each represented, either by what is called “hiragana” or by what is name “katakana”.
79. What is a grapheme What is orthography？
A “grapheme” is the minimal constructive unit in the writing system of a language. The English grapheme A is represented by A,α,a etc.
Orthography means correct spelling, spelling rules or attempts to improve spelling.
80. What is affixation, conversion and compounding？
“Affixation” is the morphological process whereby grammatical of lexical information is added to the base (root or stem). It has been the oldest and the most productive word-formation method in the English language and some other European languages. “Prefixation” means addition of a prefix to make a new word, while “suffixation” means adding a suffix to a word. The word “unfaithful” is result of both prefixation and suffixation. “Conversion” (called sometimes “full conversion”) is a word-formation process by which a word is altered from one part of speech into another without the addition (or deletion) of any morpheme. “Partial conversion” is also alteration when a word of one word-class appears in a function which is characteristic of another word-class, ., “ the wealthy” (=wealthy people).
”Compounding” is so complex a word-formation process as far as English is concerned that there is no formal criterion that can be used for the definition of it, though it may mean simply that two words or more come together used as one lexical item, like “dustbin”.
81. What is blending, abbreviation and back formation？
“Blending” is a relatively complex form of compounding in which two roots are blended by joining the initial part of the first root and the final part of the second root, or by joining the initial parts of the two roots, ., smog→smoke+fog, boatel→boat + hotel, etc.
“Abbreviation”, also called in some cases “clipping”, means that a word that seems unnecessarily long is shortened, usually by clipping either the front or the back part of it, ., telephone→phone, professor→prof., etc. Broadly speaking, abbreviation includes acronyms that are made up from the first letters of the long name of an organization, ., World Bank→WB, European Economic Community→EEC, etc. Other examples of acronyms can be found with terminologies, to be read like one word, ., radio detecting and ranging→radar. Test of English as a Foreign Language→TOEFL , etc.
“Back-formation” refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by detecting an imagined affix from a longer form already present in the language. It is a special kind of metanalyais, combined with analogical creation, ., editor→edit, enthusiasm→enthuse, etc.
82. What is analogical creation What is borrowing？
The process of “analogical creation”, as one of the English tendencies in English word-formation, refers to the phenomenon that a new word or a new phrase is coined by analogy between a newly created one and an existing one. For example, “marathon” appeared at the First Olympic Games and by analogy modern English created such words as “telethon”, “talkthon”, etc. Analogy may create single words ., sunrise-moonrise, earthrise, etc.; earthquake-starquake, youthquake, etc.) and phrases ., environmental pollution-sound pollution, air pollution, cultural pollution, etc.).
“Borrowing” means the English language borrowed words from foreign languages, which fall in four categories: aliens, denizens, translation-loans and semantic borrowings.
“Aliens” are foreign loans that still keep their alien shapes, i. e., morphological and phonological features, ., “elite”, “coup détat”, “coupé”, etc.(from French). “Deniens” , also foreign words, have transformed their foreign appearance, ., they have been Angolcized (or Americanized), e. g., “get” (a Scandinavian borrowing), “theater” (a French loan), etc. “Hybrids” are also denizens, because they are words made up of two parts both from foreign soil, such as “sociology” (“socio-” from French and –logy from Greek).
“Translation-loans” are words imported by way of translation, e. g., “black humor” from French(“humor noir”), “found object” form French ,too (“object trouve”), etc. Finally, semantic borrowings have acquired new meaning under the influence of language or languages other than the source tongue. For example, “gift” mean “the price of a wife ” in Old English (450-1150AD), and after the semantic borrowing of the meaning of “gift or present” of the Scandinavian term “gipt”, it meant and still means “gift” in the modern sense of it.
83. What is assimilation, dissimilation and metathesis？
“Assimilation” refers to change of a sound as the result of the influence of an adjacent sound, which is called “contact” or “contiguous” assimilation. The assimitative processes at word in language could be explained by the “theory of least effort” ,., in speaking we tend to exert as little effort as possible so that we do not want to vary too often places of articulation in uttering a sequence of sounds. Assimilation takes place in quick speech very often. In expressions such as “immobile”, “illegal”, etc., the negative prefixes should be or have been “in-” etymologically.
“Dissimilation”, opposite of assimilation, is the influence exercised by one sound segment upon the articulation of another sound, so that the sounds become less alike than expected. As there are two[r] sounds in the Latin word “peregrines”, for instance, the first segment had to dissimilate into[l], hence the English word “pilgrim”. “Metathesis” is a process involving an alteration in the sequence of sounds. Metathesis had originally been a performance error, which was overlooked and accepted by the speech community. For instance, the word “bird” was “bird” in Old English. The word “ask” used to be pronounced [ask] in Old English, as still occurs in some English dialects.
84. What is pragmatics？
Pragmatics can be simply defined as the study of language in use. It is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader). It has, consequently, more to do with the analysis of what people mean by their utterances than what the words or phrases in those utterances might mean by themselves.
85. What is speech act theory？
Speech act theory was proposed by J. L. Austin and has been developed by J. R. Searle. Basically, they believe that language is not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to “do things”, to perform acts. Austin suggests three basic senses in which in saying something one is doing something and three kinds of acts are
performed simultaneously:
1) Locutionary act: the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference;
2) Illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc, in uttering a sentence, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it;
3) Perlocutionary act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the circumstances.
86. What’s Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts？ Searle suggests five basic categories of illocutionary acts:
Assertives: sentences that commit the speaker to the truth of something. Typical cases are \moving\The commitment is small in \stolen the book\
Directives: sentences by which the speaker tries to get the hearer to do something. \beg you to give me some help\the verbs that fall into this group are \
Commissives: sentences that commit the speaker to some future action. Promises and offers are characteristic of these acts. Interestingly, warning is also a commissive, as in \because it also commits the speaker to doing something.
Expressives: sentences that express the speaker's psychological state about something. Verbs typically used for this category are \
Declaratives: sentences that bring about immediate change in existing state of affairs. As soon as an employer says to an employee \\
87. What is the cooperative principle？
. Grice (1975) believes that there must be some mechanisms governing the production and comprehension of these utterances. He suggests that there is a set or assumptions guiding the conduct of conversation. This is what he calls the Cooperative Principle. He formulates the principle and its maxims as follows:
Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange in which you are engaged. The Maxim of Quality
Try to make your contribution one that is true, specifically (i) do not say what you believe to be false;
(ii) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. The Maxim of Quantity
(i) Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose of the exchange; (ii) do not make your contribution more informative than is required. The Maxim of Relevance Make your contribution relevant. The Maxim of Manner Be perspicuous and specific: (i) avoid obscurity; (ii) avoid ambiguity;
(iii) be brief; (iv) be orderly.
88. What is applied linguistics？
In the broadest sense, applied Linguistics refers to the study of language and linguistics in relation to practical problems, such as lexicography, translation, speech pathology, etc. Applied linguistics uses information from sociology, psychology, anthropology, and information theory as well as from linguistics in order to develop its own theoretical models of language and language use, and then uses this information and theory in practical areas such as syllabus design, speech therapy, language planning, machine translation, various facets of communication research, and many others.
In the narrow sense, applied linguistics refers to the study of second /foreign language learning and teaching. It serves as a mediating area which interprets the results of linguistic theories and makes them user-friendly to the language teacher and learner.
89. What is Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis？
The Sapir-Whorf theory, named after the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, is a very influential but controversial theory concerning the relationship between language, thought and culture. What this hypothesis suggests is like this: our language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may probably express our unique ways of understanding the world. Following this argument, two important points could be captured in this theory. On the one hand, language may determine our thinking patterns; on the other, similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. For this reason, this hypothesis has alternatively been referred to as Linguistic Determinism and Linguistic Relativity. Nowadays, few people would possibly tend to accept the original form of this theory completely. Consequently, two versions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis have been developed, a strong version and a weak version. The strong version of the theory refers to the claim the original hypothesis suggests, emphasizing the decisive role of language as the shaper of our thinking patterns. The weak version of this hypothesis, however, is a modified type of its original theory, suggesting that there is a correlation between language, culture and thought, but the cross-cultural differences thus produced in our ways of thinking are relative, rather than categorical.
90. What is sociolinguistics？
Sociolinguistics studies relationships between language and various aspects of society. One major focus of sociolinguistics is the study of language variation, that is, the ways language differs across social settings. 91. What are language varieties and dialects？
Language variety is a broad term that can be applied to any language system. For example, entire languages such as English, Japanese, Flemish, and Malaysian can be referred to as language varieties. Language varieties also (and perhaps more commonly) refer to different forms of the same language. Such varieties are often called dialects. Dialects of a language may be associated with different geographical regions, for example, Michigan, Mississippi, or Los Angeles, as well as with various social groups defined by socioeconomic class, culture, and/or ethnicity. Thus, we speak of regional dialects and social dialects.
92. What are pidgins and creoles
Two sorts of language varieties that do not fit typical language or dialect definitions are pidgins and creoles. These interesting varieties evolve as the result of contact between multiple languages. Pidgins, for example,
develop when speakers from different languages need a common language for communication, such as for trade. Circumstances may not allow speakers to select one of their own languages as a lingua franca, or common language, so speakers create a system that blends various parts of their different languages. We often refer to these mixed language systems, or pidgins, as English-based, Portuguese-based, and so forth to indicate what language has supplied the bulk of the vocabulary to the pidgin. Examples of English-based pidgins include Tok Pisin, spoken in Papua New Guinea, and Cameroon Pidgin, spoken in Cameroon, Africa. These and other pidgins differ from \varieties in that they are simplified in their phonological, lexical, and structural features.
Pidgins are usually auxiliary languages; that is, pidgin speakers tend to have some other language as their \disappears, so does the pidgin. In some cases, however, the role of the pidgin greatly expands as a speech community acquires the pidgin as its primary language. When this occurs, the pidgin turns into something else--a creole. Structurally, creoles . the French-based Haitian Creole, the English-based Jamaican creole, and many others) are distinguished from pidgins by their larger vocabularies and more complex grammatical patterns.
93. What stages do children go through in acquiring a language？
If you have ever been around babies, you have undoubtedly noticed that they begin \right away. However, it is not until later that their utterances begin to reflect clearer linguistic features. At about six weeks, for example, babies begin cooing vowel sounds. Later, at roughly six months, children sound even more language-like as they begin babbling streams of consonants and vowels with patterned syllable structure . \ome of children’s babbles may sound a little like real sentences because of their melodies, or prosody.
Around one year, children reach a major milestone—the first word, or the one word stage. Although children’s early words may not sound exactly like adult words . \children. Early vocabularies tend to consist of concrete words describing things, people, and actions in the child’s immediate environment . \\\\\as well as social interactive words . \\meaning of an entire adult sentence. For example, \ As one might predict, the next major stage of language development is the two-word stage, beginning roughly around two years old. Here children begin to express relationships through language . \shoe,\\sleep,\example, a child who says \ball\shows understanding, albeit unconscious, that verbs . \go before direct object nouns . \
In their next stage of development, children begin to combine three or more words in sentences. This multi-word milestone is often called the telegraphic stage because the utterances children produce during this time sound like telegrams. Consider the following telegraphic sentences: \walk school,\\need that,\\build two house.\out function words, such as prepositions . the \as affixes . the third person singular -s on \affixes are known as grammatical morphemes.
Over the next several years, children gradually add in other pieces of the language, such as grammatical morphemes, and their sentences become longer and more complex. They begin, for example, to produce full questions and negative statements, as well as sentences with multiple clauses. Amazingly, by the time children are four or five years old, they have mastered most of the sounds and structural patterns of their language. If you
know any kindergartners, you know that their language is quite developed!
Linguistics Reading list 英语语言学阅读书目
胡壮麟、刘润清、李延福 1988 《语言学教程》( Linguistics: A Course Book) 北京大学出版社 胡壮麟 2001 《语言学教程》（修订版）(Linguistics: A Course Book. Second edition) 北京大学出版社 戴炜栋、何兆熊2002 《新编简明英语语言学教程》（A New Concise Course on Linguistics for Students of English） 上海外语教育出版社
丁言仁、郝克 2001 《英语语言学纲要》（Linguistics for English Learners）上海外语教育出版社 何善芬 1992 《实用英语语音学》 北京师范大学出版社 王钢 1988 《普通语言学基础》 湖南教育出版社 伍谦光 1988 《语义学导论》 湖南教育出版社 何自然 1988 《语用学概论》 湖南教育出版社
何自然 1997 《语用学与英语学习》 上海外语教育出版社 何兆熊 2002 《新编语用学概要》 上海外语教育出版社 黄国文 1988 《语篇分析概要》 湖南教育出版社 桂诗春 1988 《应用语言学》 湖南教育出版社 秦秀白 1986 《文体学概论》 湖南教育出版社 王初明 1990 《应用心理语言学》 湖南教育出版社 祝畹瑾 1992 《社会语言学概论》 湖南教育出版社
胡壮麟、朱永生、张德禄 1989《系统功能语法概论》 湖南教育出版社 赵世开 1989 《美国语言学简史》上海外语教育出版社
侯维瑞 1988 《英语语体》（Varieties of English）上海外语教育出版社 徐烈炯 1988 《生成语法理论》 上海外语教育出版社 胡壮麟 1994 《语篇的衔接与连贯》 上海外语教育出版社 桂诗春 1985 《心理语言学》上海外语教育出版社
王佐良、丁往道 1987《英语文体学引论》 外语教学与研究出版社 贾玉新 1997 《跨文化交际学》 上海外语教育出版社 徐有志 1992 《现代英语文体学》 河南大学出版社 王守元 2000 《英语文体学要略》 山东大学出版社
刘润清 1995 《西方语言学流派》（Schools of Linguistics）外语教学与研究出版社
胡文仲1990《跨文化交际学选读》（Selected Readings in Intercultural Communication）湖南教育出版社 Nida, E. A. 1993 Language, Culture, and Translation Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Richards, J. C. et. al. 2000《朗文语言教学及应用语言学辞典》（Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics） 外语教学与研究出版社
英语考研 语言学重难点提示
