Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics 1. Define the following terms:
design feature: the distinctive features of human language that essentially make human language distinguishable from languages of animals.
function: the role language plays in communication (e.g. to express ideas, attitudes) or in particular social situations (e.g. religious, legal).
synchronic: said of an approach that studies language at a theoretical
‘pointdiachronic: said of the study of development of language and languages over time.
prescriptive: to make authoritarian statement about the correctness of a particular use of language. descriptive: to make an objective and systematic account of the patterns and use of a language or variety.
arbitrariness: the absence of any physical correspondence between linguistic signals and the entities to which they refer.
duality: the structural organization of language into two abstract levels: meaningful units (e.g. words) and meaningless segments (e.g. sounds, letters).
displacement: the ability of language to refer to contexts removed from the speakersituation.
phatic communion: said of talk used to establish atmosphere or maintain social contact. metalanguage: a language used for talking about language.
macrolinguistics: a broad conception of linguistic enquiry, including psychological, cultural, etc. competence: unconscious knowledge of the system of grammatical rules in a language. performance: the language actually used by people in speaking or writing. langue: the language system shared by a “speech community
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parole: the concrete utterances of a speaker.
2. Consult at least four introductory linguistics textbooks (not dictionaries), and copy the definitions of
“language” that each gives. After carefully comparing the definitions, write a paper
discussing which points recur and explaining the significance of the similarities and differences
in time.
’s immed
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among the definitions.
ANSWER:All the definitions should not exclude the description of design features that have been mentioned in this course book. Also it will
be better if other design features, say,
interchangeability or cultural transmission is included. But it seems impossible to give an unimpeachable definition on language, because the facets people want to emphasize are seldom unanimous. To compare several definitions can make you realize where the argument is. 3. Can you think of some words in English which are onomatopoeic? ANSWERS:
creak: the sound made by a badly oiled door when it opens. cuckoo: the call of cuckoo. bang: a sudden loud noise. roar: a deep loud continuing sound. buzz: a noise of buzzing. hiss: a hissing sound.
neigh: the long and loud cry that a horse makes. mew: the noise that a gull makes.
bleat: the sound made by a sheep, goat or calf.
4. Do you think that onomatopoeia indicates a non-arbitrary relationship between form and meaning?
ANSWER:4. No matter you say \or \you cannot deny that onomatopoeia needs arbitrariness. Before we feel a word is onomatopoeic we should first know which sound the word imitates. Just as what is said in Chapter One, in order to imitate the noise of flying mosquitoes, there are many choices like \and \They both bear more or less resemblance to the genuine natural sound, but \is fortunately chosen to mean the noise while \is chosen to mean something quite different. They are arbitrary as signifiers.
5. A story by Robert Louis Stevenson contains the sentence “As the night fell, the wind rose.” Could this be expressed as
“As the wind rose, the night fell?
” If not, why? Does this indicate a
degree of non-arbitrariness about word order? (Bolinger, 1981: 15)
5. Yes. It is a case in point to illustrate non-arbitrariness about word order. When the two parts interchange, the focus and the meaning of the sentence is forced to change, because clauses occurring in linear sequence without time indicators will be taken as matching the actual sequence of happening. The writerthe syntactic level.
’s original intention is distorted, and we can feel it effortlessly by reading.
That is why systemic-functionalists and American functionalists think language is not arbitrary at
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6. Does the traffic light system have duality? Can you explain by drawing a simple graph?
6. Traffic light does not have duality. Obviously, it is not a double-level system. There is only one-to-one relationship between signs and meaning but the meaning units cannot be divided into smaller meaningless elements further. So the traffic light only has the primary level and lacks the secondary level like animals’ calls.
ANSWER: Red→stopGreen→go
Yellow→get ready to go or stop
7. The recursive nature of language provides a theoretical basis for the creativity of language. Can you write a recursive sentence following the example in section 1.3.3. ANSWER:
Today I encountered an old friend who was my classmate when I was in elementary school where there was an apple orchard in which we slid to select ripe apples that
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8. Communication can take many forms, such as sign, speech, body language and facial expression. Do body language and facial expression share or lack the distinctive properties of human language? ANSWER:
On a whole, body language and facial expression lack most of the distinctive properties of human language such as duality, displacement, creativity and so on. Body language exhibits arbitrariness a little bit. For instance, nod means \\and laugh of a newborn infant.
9. Do you agree with the view that no language is especially simple? ANSWER:
Yes. All human languages are complicated systems of communication. It is decided by their shared design features.
10. What do you think of Bertrand Russell
observation ’s of the dog language: “No matter how
eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest
familiar with any type of ways animals communicate among themselves and with human beings? ANSWER:
When gazelles sense potential danger, for example, they flee and thereby signal to other gazelles in the vicinity that danger is lurking. A dog signals its wish to be let inside the house by barking and signals the possibility that it might bite momentarily by displaying its fangs.
11.Can you mention some typical expressions of phatic communion in Chinese? There is the dialog between Ms. P and Ms. Q. in section 1.5.5. When someone sneezes violently, do you say anything of the nature of phatic communion? Have you noticed your parents or grandparents say something special on such an occasion?
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Some of the typical phatic expressions in Chinese are: 吃了吗？啊？最近都挺好的？ANSWER:
家里都好吧？这是去哪里
If someone is sneezing violently, maybe you parents and grandparents may say: “Do you need to see a doctor?you have a cold?
”, “Do you need some water?
” or something like these to show their concerns.
“Are you o
”, “Do you need a handkerchief?
12．There are many expressions in language which are metalingual or self-reflexives, namely, talking about talk and think about thinking, for instance, to be honest, to make a long story short, come to think of it, on second thought, can you collect a few more to make a list of these expressions? When do we use them most often? ANSWER:
To tell the truth, frankly speaking, as a matter of fact, to be precise, in other words, that is to say
Such expressions are used most frequently when we want to expatiate the meaning of former clauses in anther way in argumentation.
13. Comment on the following prescriptive rules. Do you think they are acceptable? (A) It is I. (B) It is me.
You should say A instead of B because the accusative according to the rules in Latin. (A) Who did you speak to? (B) Whom did you speak to? You should say B instead of A. (A) I haven't done anything. (B) I haven't done nothing.
B is wrong because two negatives make a positive. ANSWER:
(1) the Latin rule is not universal. In English, me is informal and I is felt to be very formal. (2) Whom is used in formal speech and in writing; who is more acceptable in informal speech. (3) Language does not have to follow logic reasoning. Here two negative only make a more emphatic negative. This sentence is not acceptable in Standard English not because it is illogical, but because language changes and rejects this usage now.
14. The prescriptivism in grammar rules has now shifted to prescriptions in choice of words. In the “guidelines on anti-sexist language” issued by the British sociological association, some guidelines are listed below. Do you think they are descriptive and prescriptive? What’s your comment on them?
(1) Do not use man to mean humanity in general. Use person, people, human beings, men and women, humanity and humankind.
(2) colored: This term is regarded as outdated in the UK and should be avoided as it is generally viewed as offensive to many black people.
(3) civilized: This term can still carry racist overtones which derive from a colonialist perception of the world. It is often associated with social Darwinist thought and is full of implicit value
“be” should be followed by the nominative case, not
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judgments and ignorance of the history of the non-industrialized world. ANSWER:
They are undoubtedly descriptive. Guidelines are not rules that can determine whether a sentence is right or not. The guidelines advise you to avoid the use of particular words that are grammatically correct but offensive to some certain groups. Actually, they describe the way anti-sexist advocators speak and write.
15. Why is the distinction between competence and performance an important one in linguistics? Do you think the line can be neatly drawn between them? How do you like the concept “communicative competenceANSWER:
This is proposed by Chomsky in his formalist linguistic theories. It is sometimes hard to draw a strict line. Some researchers in applied linguistics think communicative competence may be a more revealing concept in language teaching than the purely theoretical pair—competence and performance.
16. Which branch of linguistics do you think will develop rapidly in China and why?
It is up to you to decide after you have gone through the whole book. At this stage, we suggest all branches of linguistics have the potential to flourish.
17. The following are some well-known ambiguous sentences in syntactic studies of language. Can you disambiguate them? The chicken is too hot to eat. Flying planes can be dangerous. ANSWER:
The chicken is too hot to eat.
The chicken meat is too hot, so it cannot be eaten at the moment.
The chicken feels so hot (maybe after some intense aerobic exercises) that it cannot start eating and needs to calm down first. Flying planes can be dangerous.
The ambiguity comes from \or \
18. There are many reasons for the discrepancy between competence and performance in normal language users. Can you think of some of them? ANSWER
Ethnic background, socioeconomic status, region of the country, and physical state (such as intoxication, fatigue, distraction, illness) vary from individual to individual.
19. What do these two quotes reveal about the different emphasis or perspectives of language studies?
(1) A human language is a system of remarkable complexity. To come to know a human language would be an extraordinary intellectual achievement for a creature not specifically designed to accomplish this task. A normal child acquires this knowledge on relatively slight exposure and
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语言学教程课后习题与答案第一章
