1、2009年北京外国语大学英语专业（语言学）真题试卷及答案与解析 一、简答题 1 Read utterances 1 a), 2a)and 3a)and lb), 2b)and 3b)carefully. i. Which do you consider to be more polite, la), 2a)and 3a)and lb), 2b)and 3b)and why? ii.Please explain what your understanding of politeness is in the Chinese culture.(40 points) la)You could be m
2、ore careful. lb)You werent careful enough. 2a)Her performance was so good as it might have been. 2b)Her performance was quite poor. 3 a)Ive tasted better apricots than these. 3b)These apricots taste awful. 2 One of the difficulties that middle school English teachers in China come across is that the
3、 students goals, the educational systems goals and the teachers goals do not always agree with each other. Suppose you are a middle school English teacher, how are you going to reconcile these different goals?(20 points) 3 It is widely known that animals have their own ways of communicating with eac
4、h other. For example, bees can dance very complicated dances and some birds can sing very complicated songs. It is also generally agreed that there are fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating. i. What is your view on this point? ii. If you also think th
5、at there are fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating, according to you, what are the differences? Please give short explanations. If you dont think that there are fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating, pl
6、ease also defend your position. Illustrate your points with examples if necessary.(30 points) 4 In a coherent piece of writing, words and clauses are tied together in some ways. Use the following text to discuss what are some of the ways of tying together words and clauses to make a coherent piece o
7、f writing.(30 points) With the careful dress of a bank manager and a flat, classless accent, John Major is impossible to pigeonhole on either right or left of the Conservative Party. He has made remarkably few enemies in his rapid rise, although his easygoing charm reputedly conceals “a bit of a tem
8、per“, and he can be caustic. Nevertheless, he numbers Labour MPs among his long-standing friends. 5 The following four sentences present four different usages of the word 不过 . Please discuss the distinctions and connections among the four usages, illustrating your points with your own examples where
9、 necessary.(30 points) 1)不过 二年，君必无患。 2)他十七岁就结婚，一 年后当了爸爸， 不过 十八岁。 3)这是个乖巧 不过 的孩子。 4)我也没有长策， 不过 这种事情，其事已迫，不能计出万全的。 2009年北京外国语大学英语专业（语言学）真题试卷答案与解析 一、简答题 1 【正确答案】 i. la), 2a)and 3a)are more polite because the speakers thought is presented by use of these indirect expressions. According to Brown and Levi
10、nson and later Leech, indirect speech acts were more polite than direct ones because they minimize the degree of face threatening acts and thus save the hearers face. Grice noticed that in daily conversations people do not usually say things directly but tend to imply them. Therefore, in the first p
11、air of sentences, la)“You could be more careful.“ may be viewed as a suggestion or proposal for the hearer to be more careful, which implies lb)“You werent careful enough.“ And the indirect expression in la)seems easier to be accepted. It is the same thing in the second pair of sentences. What the s
12、peaker wants to convey by using 2a)“Her performance was not so good as it might have been.“ is 2b)“Her performance was quite poor.“ , which sounds a bit difficult to be accepted by the hearer. Thus, we can say 2a)is more polite than 2b). In the last pair, in 3a)“Ive tasted better apricots than these
13、.“, the speaker may imply that “These apricots taste good, but Ive ever tasted better ones.“ or 3b)“These apricots taste awful“. Thats to say, 3a)can mean more than 3b). Thus 3a)is more polite than 3b). ii. In the Chinese culture, politeness can be expressed by many different means. a)Politeness may
14、 be used to express politeness, such as “您 ”， “令尊堂郎爱 ”，“高足 ”， etc.; and derogatory or humble expressions describing the speakers can be used to mean politeness, such as“犬子女 ”， “拙荆 ”， “贱内 ”， “寒舍 ”， etc. b)Politeness can be presented by using indirect speech acts which may indirectly convey the speake
15、rs communicative intention. For example, indirect expression“你不戴眼镜的时候很漂亮。 ” is more polite than its direct counterpart“你戴眼镜的时候很丑。 ”. 【试题解析】 本题考查礼貌及相关知识。礼貌是一种语用现象，这在语用学界已经成为人们的一种共识。礼貌通常被人们理解为说话人为了实现某一目的 而采取的策略，比如增加或维护交际双方的和睦关系。它们包括一些常规礼貌策略，如本题给出的部分话语，其中包括间接性话语等。 2 【正确答案】 When we talk about the Englis
16、h teaching in the Chinese middle school, it should be discussed from two aspects. In the junior middle school, the educational systems goal is to improve students comprehensive competence in listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. And the students aim their goal at entering into the s
17、enior middle school. Thus, teachers should combine the students goal with the educational systems goal, fostering students study interest in English. While in the senior middle school, especially in different kinds of schools, students goals are varied. Some students learn English for academic purpo
18、se and prepare for further education. Some others in vocational schools are eager to learn English relating to their future career. And the rest of them learn English in order to satisfy their own interest in it. Therefore, the students should be classified according their different goals, and the t
19、eachers should reconcile the “three goals“ to improving students comprehensive competence. At the beginning of the junior middle schooling, teachers should rouse students interest by conducting listening and speaking classes based on students goal. In the middle, educational systems goal is taken in
20、to account, and teachers should improve students comprehensive competence, emphasizing communicative competence. At the final stage, teachers goal is underlined to help students reach their goal under the guide of educational systems goal. In the senior middle school, teachers can follow the same pr
21、ocedure. Based on students goal, teachers spur the students to study hard for their own goals while helping them improve their comprehensive competence. Thus, the educational systems goal can be attained accordingly. 【试题解析】 本题：考查学生的学习目标、教师的教学目标和教育主管部门的管理目标之间如何协调发展的问题。目前中国的中学有初级和高级之分，其各项目标在不同阶段亦不尽相同。
22、无论是在初中还是高中，教育部门的目标都是提高学生的英语综合能力，包括听、说、读、写、译的能力，培养能运用英语进行交际的合格毕业生。然而，由于现实中的种种原因，学生在初中的学习目标就是要瞄准高中甚至重点高中，而教师既要贯彻教育部门的要求，又要照顾到学生的学习目标 ，培养学生学习英语的浓厚兴趣。到了高中阶段，教育部门的目标没有太大改变，而学生间学习目标有了分化，教师应根据不同群体制定相应的教学目标，进而实现主管部门的教育目标。 3 【正确答案】 i. Language is; a means of verbal communication. It is instrumental in that c
23、ommunicating by speaking or writing is a purposeful act. It is social and conventional in that language is a social semiotic and communication can only take place effectively if all the users share a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motiva
24、tion, and socio-cultural roles. Language learning and use are determined by the intervention of biological, cognitive, psychosocial, and environmental factors. In short, language distinguishes us from animals because it is far more sophisticated than any animal communication system, as the well-know
25、n philosopher Bertrand Russell once observed: “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.“ Therefore, it is also agreed that there are fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating. ii. By comparing lang
26、uage with animal communication systems, we can find some defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication, which are called design features. The following are the frequently discussed ones: 1)Arbitrariness. It refers to the fact that the forms of ling
27、uistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning. For instance, we cannot explain why a book is called a /buk/ and a pen a /pen/. However, there seems to be different levels of arbitrariness. Firstly, the relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning is arbitrary. You may ob
28、ject to this when you think of words with different degrees of onomatopoeia, namely, words that sound like the sounds they describe. As a matter of fact, arbitrary and onomatopoeic effect may work at the same time. Secondly, language is arbitrary at syntactic level. As we know, the order of elements
29、 in a sentence follows certain rules, and there is a certain degree of correspondence between the sequence of clauses and the real happenings, we can reverse the order of the clauses. Thirdly, we have to look at the other side of the coin of arbitrariness, namely, conventionality. Arbitrariness of l
30、anguage makes it potentially creative, and conventionality of language makes learning a language laborious. 2)Duality. “By duality is meant the property of having two levels of structures, such as that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two lev
31、els has its own principles of organization“(Lyons, 1982:20). Roughly speaking, the elements of the spoken language are sounds which do not convey meaning in themselves. The only function of sounds is to combine with one another to form units that have meaning, such as words. We call sounds here seco
32、ndary units as opposed to such primary units as words, since the secondary units are meaningless and the primary units have distinct and identifiable meaning. The property of duality then only exists in such a system, namely, with both elements and units. Many animals communicate with special calls,
33、 which have corresponding meanings. That is, the primary Units have meanings but cannot be further divided into elements. So we say animal languagethe property of duality. Consequently, the communicative power of animal language is highly limited. 3)Creativity. By creativity we mean language is reso
34、urceful because of its duality and its recursiveness/One of the reasons why language is actually a far more complicated entity than traffic lights is that we can use it to create new meanings. There are numerous examples to illustrate that words can be used in new ways to mean new things, and can be
35、 instantly understood by people who have never come across that sets human language apart from the kinds of communication that goes on, for example, between birds, which can only convey a limited range of message.(Linda Thomas, 1998:7)If language is defined merely as a system of communication, then
36、language is not unique to humans. As we know, birds, bees, crabs, spiders, and most other creatures communicate in some way, but the information imparted is severely limited and confined to a small set of messages. The creativity of language partly originates from its duality which we just discussed
37、 in the above section, namely, because of duality the speaker is able to combine the basic units to form an infinite set of sentences, most of which are never before produced or heard. Language is creative in another sense, that is, its potential to create endless sentences. The recursive nature of
38、language provides a theoretical basis for this possibility. 4)Displacement. Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects events and concepts which are not present(in time and space)at the moment of communication. Thus, I can refer to Confucian, or the North Pole, e
39、ven though the first has been dead for over 4000 years and the second is situated far away from us. Most animals respond communicatively as soon as they are stimulated by some occurrence of communal interest. For instance, a warning cry of a bird instantly announces danger. Such animals are under “i
40、mmediate stimulus control“. Human language is, unlike animal communication systems, stimulus free. What are we talking about need not be triggered by any external state. The honeybees dance, exhibits displacement a little bit: he can refer to a source of food, which is remote in time and space when
41、he reports on it. A dog cannot tell people that its master will be home in a few days. Our language enable us to communicate about thing that dont exist or dont yet exist. Displacement benefits human beings by giving them the power to handle generalization and abstractions. 【试题解析】 本题考查人类语言与动物 “语言 ”的
42、异同，以及语言的本质特征。同样作为交流的工具，参照动物 “语言 ”，人类语言有其独特的本质特征。语言的任意性和约定性，二重性，创造性和移位性。说到二重性，我们必须注意语言的层级性。许多动物用特定的声音来交流，这种声音有相应的意义，也就是，底层单位有意义，但却无法再进一步分解为更小的元素。由于语言的二重性和递归性，使得语言具有创造性，而动物往往通过一定的途径交流，所传递的信息极其有限，往往限于很小一部分。动物主要是在直接刺激控制之下发出信号，而语言能使我们谈及不存 在或者还未出现的事物。由此可见，人类语言具有其独特的本质特征。答案参见语言学教程 (修订版 )第 3-9页。 4 【正确答案】 Co
43、hesion is a concept to do with discourse or text rather than with syntax. It refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and defines it as a text. Discoursal/textual cohesiveness can be realized by employing various cohesive devices: conjunction, ellipsis, lexical collocation, lexical
44、 repetition, reference, substitution, logical connection, and so on. In the following example, the cohesive device is “Reference“, that is, “it“ refers back to the door: He couldnt open the door. It was locked tight. Firstly, reference is used. “He“, “his“, “his“, “he“, “he“ and “his“ in the text al
45、l refer to “John Major“. Secondly, repetition is used. The expression “he“ and “his“ are respectively repeated twice in the text. Thirdly, logical connection is established by means of such expressions as “although(a conjunction standing for concession)“, “and(a coordinating conjunction)“, and “neve
46、rtheless(meaning contrast)“. Fourthly, lexical collocation is used. “John Major is impossible to pigeonhole on either right or left of the Conservative Party“ because of “A flat, classless accent“. “Remarkably few enemies“ may imply that he has got some “long-standing friends“. The antonymous relati
47、onship is established by means of such expressions as “a bit of temper“ and “easygoing“, “enemies“ and “friends“. 【试题解析】 本题考查语篇衔接问题。衔接是一个语义概念，它指的是语篇中语言成分之间的语义联系，或者说是语篇中一个成分与另一个可以与之相互解释的成分之间的关系。当语篇中一个成分的含义依赖于另一个成分的解释时，便产生衔接关系。根据 Halliday的观点，衔接手段是语篇连贯的一个重要标准。 Halliday和 Hasan提出了衔接手段的分类：语法衔接 (grammatica
48、l cohesion)，包括照应(reference)，替代 (substitution)，省略 (ellipsis)，连接 (conjunction)；词汇衔接(lexical cohesion)，包括重复 (repetition)，同义反义 (synonymy antonymy)，上下义局部 整体关系 (hyponymy meronym)和搭配 (collocation)。 5 【正 确答案】 The term homonymy is used when one form(written and spoken)has two or more unrelated meanings. The
49、following types are of homonymy.(1)Homographswords which are identical in spelling, but different in meaning and pronunciation: tear (v.)/tear (n.).(2)Homophoneswords which are identical in pronunciation, but different in spelling and meaning: see/sea.(3)Complete homonymswords which are identical in spelling and pronunciation, but different in meaning: bear(v. to give birth to a baby/to stand)/bear(n. a kind of animal).When we look at the four “不过 “ in the four sentences, we will find they are complete homonyms because they are identical in
