1、英语专业（语言学）历年真题试卷汇编 9 及答案与解析一、名词解释1 Sociolect(中山大学 2000 年；南开大学 2003 年研)2 Linguistic variable(北外 2011 研)3 prototype4 conceptual metonymy5 iconicity6 grammaticalization7 Interlanguage（上海交大 2005 研)8 Universal Grammar(西安交大 2008 研)9 contrastive analysis(浙江大学 2004 研)10 Error Analysis（中山大学 2011 研)11 applied
2、linguistics (武汉大学 2006 研)12 the audiolingual method of language teaching13 the direct method of language teaching二、简答题14 Linguistics is not the only field concerned with language. Other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, ethnography are also preoccupied with language.(中山大学 2008研)15 There are
3、 two kinds of grammar based on different linguistic points of view. They are prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. A grammar may describe how language is actually spoken and/or written, and may not state or postulate how it ought to be spoken or written. But a grammar may also state the rule
4、s for what is considered the best or most correct usage. Which grammar is descriptive grammar, and which grammar is prescriptive grammar? Cite some examples to give your reasons.(北师大 2003 研)16 Saussure puts forward the concept of langue and parole, and Chomsky puts forward the concept of competence
5、and performance. Please dwell upon the differences and similarities, if any, of the two pairs; langue and parole petence and performance.(北京交通大学 2007 研)17 Examine the following two statements about language, and discuss the similarities and differences between them.Do you agree with the two statemen
6、ts? Explain your answer.Sapir(1921: Language):“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. “Bloch and Trager(1942; Outline of Linguistic Analysis): “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by me
7、ans of which a social group co-operates. “18 It is widely known that animals have their own ways of communicating with each 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 b
8、etween human language and other animals ways of communicating. i.What is your view on this point? ii. If you also think that there are fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating, according to you, what are the differences? Please give short explanations. I
9、f you dont think that there are fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating, please also defend your position. Illustrate your points with examples if necessary.19 Why do we say linguistics is a science?(北外 2011 研)20 What are the three metafunctions of Syst
10、emic Functional Grammar? Illustrate each of them with specific examples.(武汉大学 2011 研)21 What are the differences between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds in terms of articulation?(南开大学 2004 研)22 What are suprasegmental features?（西安外国语学院 2006 研)23 In Chinese tone changes are used in the way that af
11、fects the meanings of individual words.（中山大学 2011 研)24 What is the distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes?（四川大学 2007 研)25 How are affixes classified?（四川大学 2008 研)英语专业（语言学）历年真题试卷汇编 9 答案与解析一、名词解释1 【正确答案】 Dialects which identify where a person is in terms of a social scale ar
12、e called “social dialects“or “class dialects“ or “sociolects“ for short.2 【正确答案】 Linguistic variables are those where the meaning remains constant but form varies like cat and pussy have the same social meaning but different from. So far as pronunciation is concerned househand withhhas same social m
13、eaning with different pronunciations. Here variables are just the tools to analyze the language to set social dimensional society. 3 【正确答案】 Prototype: what members of a particular community think of as the best example of a lexical category, e. g. for some English speakers “cabbage“(rather than say“
14、carrot“)might be the prototypical vegetable.4 【正确答案】 Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one cognitive category, the source, provides mental access to another cognitive category, the target, within the same cognitive domain, or idealized cognitive model(ICM).5 【正确答案】 It is a feature of language
15、 which means that the structure of language reflects in some way the structure of experience, that is, the structure of the world, including the perspective imposed on the world by the speaker.6 【正确答案】 The process whereby an independent word is shifted to the status of a grammatical element is calle
16、d grammaticalization.Grammaticalization brings about typical changes in meanings and the distribution of forms.Another characteristic of grammaticalized forms is that the constraints on their grammatical uses tend to reflect their lexical histories.Another typical outcome of grammaticalization is th
17、e development of different historical levels of nearly equivalent forms.7 【正确答案】 Interlanguage. refers to the type of language constructed by second or foreign language learners who are still in the process of learning a language. Its a language system between the target language and the learners na
18、tive language, and imperfect compared with the target language, but not mere translation from the learners native language. For example, when the Chinese student is learning English, he may make errors like “to touch the society“.8 【正确答案】 Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating prin
19、ciples of grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans(linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain language acquisition in general, not describe specific languages. Universal grammar proposes a set of rules intended to explain language acquisition in child development.9 【正确答案】 Co
20、ntrastive analysis is an approach to analysis of second language acquisition, based on a belief that a more effective teaching pedagogy would come out when the similarities and differences between native language and target language are taken into consideration. By such an analysis, it is supposed t
21、hat some leaning difficulties could be predicted in terms of language transfer.10 【正确答案】 Errors are significant in telling the teacher what needs to be taught, in telling the researcher how learning proceeds and those errors are a means whereby learners test their hypotheses about the language to be
22、 learnt. They are worth further probing Error Analysis involves, first independently or objectively, describing the learners interlanguage(that is, their version of the target language and the target language itself), then a comparison of the two is followed to locate mismatches. Different from cont
23、rastive analysis, Error Analysis, EA for short, gives less consideration to learners native language. The procedure of Error Analysis consists of the following steps:(1)Recognition(2)Description(3)ExplanationFor example, explanation; the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance
24、: e. g. She sleeping. Type of error; Omissions.11 【正确答案】 It is a branch of linguistics which studies the application of linguistics in reality. For example, there are studies on multilingualism, language acquisition, first and second language teaching and learning.12 【正确答案】 It is the teaching of a s
25、econd language through imitation, repetition, and reinforcement. It emphasizes the teaching of speaking and listening before reading and writing and the use of mother tongue in the classroom is not allowed.13 【正确答案】 The learning of a second language by using the target language directly and associat
26、ing speech form with action, gesture, objects and situations. Mother tongue is never or rarely used in the classroom, and the students supposedly acquire the second language in a way similar to the way they acquired their first language.二、简答题14 【正确答案】 Since language has both individual and social as
27、pects, it is naturally of interest to psychologists and sociologists among others.Many psychologists are interested to investigate the interrelation of language and mind, in processing and producing utterances and in language acquisition for example, language development in the child, such as the th
28、eories of language acquisition; biological foundations of language , and a big topicthe relationship between language and cognition, so there are psycholin-guistics.Socialists who are interested in the relations between language and society do researches concerned both sociology and linguistics, inc
29、luding the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its users.When anthropologists enlisted the help of linguists to study unwritten languages, anthropology and linguistics became closely associated in the early days of anthropological fieldwork. In contrast with other linguist
30、s, anthropological linguists are interested primarily in the history and structure of formerly unwritten languages. They are concerned with the emergence of language and also with the divergence of languages over thousands of years.Therefore, it is not surprising there are some branches of macroling
31、uistics that show an interdisciplinary nature.15 【正确答案】 The first one is typical of descriptive grammar, while the second one is prescriptive grammar. The descriptive grammar aims to describe how people speak and detail the underlying knowledge. It is believed in descriptive grammar that whatever oc
32、curs in natural speech, such as hesitation, incomplete utterance, should be described in the analysis, and not be marked as incorrect, abnormal, or corrupt; modern linguistics is mostly descriptive. Whereas, the prescriptive approach aims to teach people how to speak, read, and write a particular la
33、nguage; in the 18th century, all the main European languages were studied prescriptively.For example, the statement that “in standard English, a double negative is rarely used“ is a description, showing how the language is used in standard English, regardless whether it is correct or not. “You shoul
34、d never use a double-negative“ is a typical grammar rule that prescribes what should be grammatically correct in the Standard English. As for the spelling, prescription says “judgment“ is correct, but description accurately points out that “judgement“ is considered by Edited English to be correct to
35、o, and a descriptive account for these two different spellings will show how the later one is used and who uses it.16 【正确答案】 According to F. de Saussure, langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community; while parole refers to the realization of langue in a
36、ctual use.For Chomsky, a fundamental distinction between linguistic competence and performance should be made. A language users underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called linguistic competence. And performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations. In light with t
37、his, competence enables a speaker to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. A speakers competence is stable but his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors, and thus would involve imperfections such
38、as slips of tongue, false starts, unnecessary pauses, and so on. Thus, the point is that a speakers performance does not always match his competence.Saussures distinction is somewhat similar with Chomskys in the sense that they both refer to the constant factor which underlies the utterances that co
39、nstitute parole/performance. However, their difference is quite obvious. Saussues language is a social product, a set of conventions for a speech community. Chomsky regards competence as a property of the mind of each individual. Saussrue looks at language more from a sociological point of view whil
40、e Chomsky looks at it more from a psychological point of view.17 【正确答案】 Similarities;(1)Both definitions stick to the fact that language is primarily a matter of speech because the primary medium of language is sound. Sapir illustrates this idea by implying that the produced symbols are auditory and
41、 Bloch and Trager by explicitly using the word vocal.(2)Both definitions allude to the fact that the association between the words and the things that they denoted is rarely inherent, Sapir by using the word * symbols and Bloch and Trager by placing emphasis on arbitraryand symbols.Differences:(1)Sa
42、pirs definition emphasize that language relates to communication between human beings. It is very different from the communication systems of other creatures, such as bird songs and bee dances. Bloch and Trager do not clearly indicate this property, only saying that it is possessed by a social group
43、.(2)Sapir also considers that language is non-instinctive and voluntarily produced. Thus for him language does not include such instinctive forms of communication as smiling and cries of pain, etc. However, Bloch and Tragers definition do not include this feature.(3)The element system in Bloch and T
44、ragers definition reflects the fact that language provides us with the framework for generating appropriate utterances rather than providing us with an infinite store of ready-made utterances. Still elements of lacunae are combined according to rules.(4)The function of language is indicated differen
45、tly in two definitions. Sapir sees language as for communicating ideas, emotions and desires, while Bloch and Trager considers it for a social groups co-operation. Sapirs definition proposes communication as the principal function of language and specifies what is communicated; Bloch and Trager only
46、 vaguely points out that language can be used for co-operation.Each of the two definitions has its own special emphasis and it not totally free from limitations. We think the two definitions grasp some defining properties of language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication, for e
47、xample, vocal , arbitrary , symbol , purely human , a system. But either has some limitation. As for Sapirs definition, whether one considers language to be instinctive or not is an issue. Language is instinctive in so far as we are all born with a predisposition to speak, we all acquire a language
48、without tuition and when we speak we do not consciously convert our thoughts into speech. Language is, however, non-instinctive in that we can choose what to say or whether to say anything at all. Both the definitions description of languages function is not precise. Sapirs definition confines langu
49、age only to communicating ideas, emotions and desires, and Bloch and Tragers definition does not point it out at all.18 【正确答案】 i. Therere fundamental differences between human language and other animals ways of communicating. All creatures, not only the “clever“ ones like apes and dolphins but also such “lower“ ones as bees and birds are able to communicate with each other. We have been careful in using the term “animal communication system“ to indicate this ability. But language is human-specific which is not merely a t
