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科目代码：621 科目名称：语言学及英美文学
本试卷由两个大部分组成：语言学（75分）和英美文学（75分），两个部分共计150分。
Section I. Terminologies in Linguistics (25 points)
Directions: Define each of the following 8 terms in English
1. Arbitrariness at the syntactic level (3 points)
2. The pooh-pooh theory (3 points)
3. Anthropological linguistics (3 points)
4. Variable and invariable words (3 points)
5. Implicature (3 points)
6. General context effect and specific context effect (3 points
7. Aptitude test (3 points)
8. Ethnography of communication (by Dell Hymes, 1962) (4 points)
Section Ⅱ. Short-answer Questions (30 points, 10 for each)
Directions: Read the following three questions carefully and answer or explain them in English.
1. Why is diachronic and synchronic an important distinction in linguistics?
2. What is the phoneme theory?
3. What is the structural approach to the analysis of language? Please explain with examples.
Section Ⅲ. Elaborate on the following two questions (20 points, 10 for each)
Directions: Discuss each of the following two topics in no less than 300 words.
1. What contribution or contributions can Stylistics make to the analysis and appreciation of drama?
2. Please discuss B. Malinowski’s (an important representative in London School) theories of language.
SectionⅠ.
1. Arbitrariness at the syntactic level: The arbitrariness function of language means that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning. It is a matter of degree. Sentences are less arbitrary, for the order of words might affect the meaning of the sentence.
2. The pooh-pooh theory: It’s a type of theory in the origin of language. In the life of our primitive ancestors, they utter instinctive sounds of pain, anger and joy. As for evidence, we can only cite the universal use of sounds as interjections. What makes the theory problematic is that there is only a limited number of interjections in almost all languages.
3. Anthropological linguistics: Anthropological linguistics is the study of the relations between language and culture and the relations between human biology, cognition and language. This strongly overlaps the field of linguistic anthropology, which is the branch of anthropology that studies humans through the languages they use.
4. Variable and invariable words: A variable word can be changed and thus has different endings with different meanings, such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs. An invariable word can’t be changed and thus has no different endings, such as pronouns, prepositions and articles.
5. Implicature: People sometimes flout a maxim to observe it in a further degree. Conversational Implicature can only be worked out on the basis of CP. It has four characteristics: calculability,cancellability, non-detachability and non-conventionality.
6. General context effect and specific context effect: Verbal context refers to the text or speech surrounding an expression (word, sentence, or speech act). Verbal context influences the way an expression is understood; hence the norm of not citing people out of context.
7. Aptitude test: Aptitude test of languages was designed to predict a student’s likelihood of success and ease in learning a foreign language. It was developed to measure foreign language learning aptitude.
8. Ethnography of communication (by Dell Hymes,1962): The ethnography of communication (EOC),formerly called the ethnography of speaking, is the analysis of communication within the wider context of the social and cultural practices and beliefs of the members of a particular culture or speech community. It is a method of discourse analysis in linguistics that draws on the anthropological field of ethnography.
SectionⅡ.
1. The description of language at some point of time in history is a synchronic study. The distinction of language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. An essay with the title “On the Use of THE” may be synchronic or diachronic. When the author talks about the use of “the” through a large period of time, then it’s diachronic. If it only focuses on a particular time, it’s synchronic. In modern linguistics, a synchronic study seems to enjoy priority over a diachronic study. The reason is that unless the various state of a language is successful, it would be difficult to describe the changes that have taken place in its historical development. The distinction between synchronic and diachronic helps us look at language from different perspectives and thus understand language better.
2. A phoneme simply refers to a “unit of explicit sound contrast”. It is abstract and realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context. Phonemes can be distinguished with the help of “minimal pairs test”. Phonemes are transcribed in square brackets. For example, /p/ and /b/ are two phonemes. There are 44 phonemes in English. A phone is the realization of a phoneme. Allophones are variations of phones in different phonetic environments. Allophones refer to the different phones representing a phoneme in different phonetic environments. For example, in English, the phoneme /l/ is pronounced differently in “let” and “tell”. There two phones are allophones.
3. The Structural Approach is a technique wherein the learner masters the pattern of sentence. Structures are the different arrangements of word in one accepted style or the other. It includes various modes in which clauses, phrases or word might be used.
IC analysis belongs to structural approach. It may be defined as the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents, which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own,and the process goes on until the ultimate constituents are reached. However, the process usually stops at the level of word. It may be carried out with brackets or with a tree diagram. Through IC Analysis, the internal structure of a sequence may be demonstrated, and ambiguity, if any, will be revealed.
SectionⅢ.
1. Walter Nash suggests that dramatic texts can be analyzed in a series of stages, staring with the most basic and least controversial, and working up to the most sophisticated and debatable. If you are required to analyze a dramatic text, you may find it useful to refer to these guidelines. The stages are as follows:
— Paraphrase the text
— Write a commentary on the text
— Select a theoretical approach
Stylistics can provide a theoretical basis while analyzing dramas. With the help of the theory of figurative language, one may be able to understand the writer’s intentions better.
2. The most important aspect of Malinowski’s theories, as distinct from his purely ethnographic work,concerned the functioning of language. He refused to treat language as a “means of transfusing ideas from the head of the speaker to that of the listener”. Instead, he said that language “is to be regarded a mode of action, rather than as a counterpart of thought.” According to him, the meaning of an utterance does not come from its relation to the situational context in which the utterance occurs.He believed that utterances and situation are bound up inextricably with each other and the context of situation is indispensable for the understanding of the words. There is no way to characterize the meaning of utterances on the basis of internal considerations about the language alone. The meaning of spoken utterances could always be determined by the context of situation. He distinguished three types of context of situation: (1) situations in which speech interrelates with bodily activity;(2) narrative situations; and (3) situations in which speech is used to fill a speech vacuum-Phatic communion.