语言学答案

I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:

l.T 2.F 3.F 4.T 5.T 6.F 7.T 8.F 9.T 10.F11.T 12.T 13.T 14.T 15.T 16.F 17.T 18.F 19.F 20.F II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:

21. knowledge 22. abstract 23. Duality 24. arbitrary 25. syntax 26.genetic 27. Parole 28. applied 29. productive 30. scientific (or systematic)

III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement. 3l.C 32.D 33.C 34.D 35.B 36.A 37.C 38.B 39.A 40.D IV. Define the following terms:

41. Linguistics: Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language.

42. Phonology: The study of how sounds are put together and used in communication is called phonology. 43. Syntax: The study of how morphemes and words are combined to form sentences is called syntax. . 44. Pragmatics: The study of meaning in context of use is called pragmatics.

45. Psycholinguistics: The study of language with reference to the workings of mind is called psycholinguistics. 46. Language: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. 47. Phonetics: The study of sounds which are used in linguistic communication is called phonetics .

48. Morphology: The study of the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words is called morphology. 49. Semantics: The study of meaning in language is called semantics.

50. Sociolinguistics: The study of language with reference to society is called sociolinguistics.

51. Applied linguistics: In a narrow sense, applied linguistics refers to the application of linguistic principles and theories to language teaching and learning, especially the teaching of foreign and second languages. In a broad sense, it refers to the application of linguistic findings to the solution of practical problems such as the recovery of speech ability.

52. arbitrariness: It is one of the design features of language. It means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds

53. Productivity: Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.

54. Displacement: Displacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker

55. Duality: The duality nature of language means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structure, or two levels, one of sounds and the other of meanings..

56. Design features: Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication

57. Competence: Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user's knowledge of the rules of his language, 58. Performance: performance is the actual realization of the knowledge of the rules in linguistic communication. 59. langue : Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community; Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow; Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently

60. Parole: Parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use; parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules; parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary: 61. Language is generally defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Explain it in detail.

First of all, language is a system, because elements of language are combined according to rules. Secondly, language is arbitrary because there is no intrinsic connection between form and meaning, or between the sign and what it stands for. Different languages have different words for the same object in the world. This fact is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. This also explains the symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. Thirdly, language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for all languages, no matter how well - developed their writing systems are.

The term \"human\" in the definition indicates that language is possessed by human beings only and is very different from the communication systems of other living creatures. The term \"communication\" means that language makes it possible for its users to talk to each other and fulfill their communicative needs. 62. What are the design features of human language? Illustrate them with examples. 1) Arbitrariness

As mentioned earlier, the arbitrary property of language means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. For instance, there is no necessary relationship between the word elephant and the animal it symbolizes. In addition, different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages, and even within the same language, the same sound does not refer to the same thing. However, language is not entirely arbitrary. There are words which are created in the imitation of sounds by sounds, such as crash, bang in English. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. But the non-arbitrary words are quite limited in number.

The arbitrary nature of language makes it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions. 2) Productivity

Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. This is why they can produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences, including sentences that they have never said or heard before. They can send messages which no one else has ever sent before. Productivity is unique to human language. Most animal communication systems appear to be highly restricted with respect to the number of different signals that their users can send and receive. 3) Duality

The duality nature of language means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structure, or two levels, one of sounds and the other of meanings. At the lower or the basic level, there is the structure of sounds, which are meaningless, discrete, individual sounds. But the sounds of language can be combined according to rules into units of meaning such as morphemes and words, which, at the higher level, can be arranged into sentences. This duality of structure or double articulation of language enables its users to talk about anything within their knowledge. No animal communication system has duality or even comes near to possessing it. 4) Displacement

Displacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker. Animal calls are mainly uttered in response to immediate changes of situation. 5) Cultural transmission

Human beings were born with the ability to acquire language, but the details of any language are not genetically transmitted or passed down by instinct. They have to be taught and learned, but animal call systems are genetically transmitted.

63. How is modern linguistics different from traditional grammar?

Traditional gram-mar is prescriptive; it is based on \"high \"(religious, literary) written language. It sets grammatical rules and imposes the rules on language users. But Modern linguistics is descriptive; It collects authentic, and

mainly spoken language data and then it studies and describes the data in an objective and scientific way. 64. How do you understand the distinction between a synchronic study and a diachronic study?

The description of a language at some point in time is a Synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A synchronic study of language describes a language as it is at some particular point in time, while a diachronic study of language is the study of the historical development of language over a period of time.

65. Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written?

First, the spoken form is prior to the writ-ten form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of language.

Second, the spoken form plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed and it serves a wider range of purposes

Finally, the spoken form is the medium through which we acquire our mother tongue. 66. What are the major distinctions between langue and parole?

The distinction between langue, and parole was made by the famous Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early this century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow while parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use, but parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.

67. How do you understand competence and performance?

American linguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950‟s proposed the distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user‟s knowledge of the rules of his language. This internalized set of rules enables the language user to produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ungrammatical and ambiguous. According to Chomsky, performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. Although the speaker‟s knowledge of his mother tongue is perfect, his performances may have mistakes because of social and psychological factors such as stress, embarrassment, etc.. Chomsky believes that what linguists should study is the competence, which is systematic, not the performance, which is too haphazard.

68. Saussure‟s distinction between langue and parole seems similar to Chomsky‟s distinction between competence and performance. What do you think are their major differences?

Although Saussure‟s distinction and Chomsky‟s are very similar, they differ at least in that Saussure took a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a mater of social conventions, and Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of vies and to him, competence is a property of the mind of each individual. 69. Do you think human language is entirely arbitrary? Why?

Language is arbitrary in nature, it is not entirely arbitrary, because there are a limited number of words whose connections between forms and meanings can be logically explained to a certain extent, for example, the onomatopoeia, words which are coined on the basis of imitation of sounds by sounds such as bang, crash, etc. Take compounds for another example. The two elements “photo” and “copy” in “photocopy” are non-motivated, but the compound is not arbitrary. Chapter 3

Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: l.T 2.F 3.T 4.T 5.T 6.T 7.T 8.F 9.F 10.T

II. Fill in each blank below with one word which begins with the letter given: 11. Morpheme 12. grammatical 13. Bound 14. derivative 15.Derivative 16. suffix 17. Compounding 18. morphological 19. derivation 20. stem

III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 2l.D 22.D 23.B 24.B 25.C 26. C 27. D 28. A 29. B 30. C IV. Define the following terms:

31. Morphology: Morphology is a branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.

32. inflectional morphology: The inflectional morphology studies the inflections 33. derivational morphology: Derivational morphology is the study of word- formation. 34. Morpheme: It is the smallest meaningful unit of language.

35. free morpheme: Free morphemes are the morphemes which are independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves or in combination with other morphemes.

36. bound morpheme: Bound morphemes are the morphemes which cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word.

37. Root: A root is often seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself al-though it bears clear, definite meaning; it must be combined with another root or an affix to form a word.

38. Affix: Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional affixes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories, while derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word. 39. Prefix: Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word . Prefixes modify the meaning of the stem, but they usually do not change the part of speech of the original word.

40. Suffix: Suffixes are added to the end of the stems; they modify the meaning of the original word and in many cases change its part of speech.

41. Derivation: Derivation is a process of word formation by which derivative affixes are added to an existing form to create a word.

42. Compounding: Compounding can be viewed as the combination of two or sometimes more than two words to create new words.

V. Answer the following questions:

43. What are the main features of the English compounds?

Orthographically a compound can be written as one word, two separate words with or without a hyphen in between. Syntactically, the part of speech of a compound is determined by the last element. Semantically, the meaning of a compound is idiomatic, not calculable from the meanings of all its components. Phonetically, the word stress of a compound usually falls on the first element. 44. Discuss the types of morphemes with examples.

Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, for example, “book-” in the word “bookish”.

Bound morphemes: They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word such as “-ish” in “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning, such as “gene-” in the word “generate”. Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as “-s” in the word “books” to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word such as “mis-” in the word “misinform”. Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word such as “dis- ” in the word “dislike”, while suffixes occur at the end of a

word such as “-less” in the word “friendless” Chapter 5

I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: l.F 2.F 3.T 4.F 5.T 6.T 7.F 8.T 9.T 10.T

II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:

11. Semantics 12. direct 13.Reference 14. synonyms 15.homophones 16.Relational 17. Componential 18. selectional 19. argument 20. naming

III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 2l.A 22.B 23.D 24.D 25.B 26.C 27.A 28.C 29.D 30.A IV. Define the following terms:

31. Semantics: Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language.

32. Sense: Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualised.

33. Reference: Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience 34. Synonymy: Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning.

35. Polysemy: Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have more than one meaning.

36. Homonymy: Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, i.e. , different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both.

37. homophones: When two words are identical in sound, they are called homophones 38. homographs: When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs.

39. complete homonyms: When two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are called complete homonyms.

40.Hyponymy: Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word.

41. Antonymy: Antonymy refers to the relation of oppositeness of meaning.

42. Componential analysis: Componential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was pro-posed by structural semanticists. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a -word can be divided into meaning components, which are called semantic features.

43.The grammatical meaning : The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, i.e., its grammatical well-formedness . The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by the grammatical rules of the language.

44. predica-tion :The predica-tion is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.

45. argument: An argument is a logical participant in a predication. It is generally identical with the nominal element (s) in a sentence.

46. predicate: A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.

47. two-place predication: A two-place predication is one which contains two arguments. V. Answer the following questions:

48. Why do we say that a meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components? The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components because it cannot be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its constituent words. For example; (A) The dog bit the man. (B) The man bit the dog.

If the meaning of a sentence were the sum total of the meanings of all its components, then the above two

sentences would have the same meaning. In fact they are different in meanings.

As we know, there are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning. The grammatical meanings of “the dog” and “the man” in (A) are different from the grammatical meanings of “the dog” and “the man” in (B). The meaning of a sentence is the product of both lexical and grammatical meaning. It is the product of the meaning of the constituent words and of the grammatical constructions that relate one word syntagmatically to another.

49. What is componential analysis? Illustrate it with examples.

Componential analysis, pro-posed by structural semanticists, is a way to analyze word meaning. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components, which are called semantic features. Plus and minus signs are used to indicate whether a certain semantic feature is present or absent in the meaning of a word, and these feature symbols are usually written in capitalized letters. For example, the word “man” is analyzed as consisting of the semantic features of [+ HUMAN, + ADULT, + ANIMATE, +MALE] 50. How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth values? Entailment is a relation of inclusion. Suppose there are two sentences X and Y: X: He has been to France. Y: He has been to Europe.

In terms of truth values, if X is true, Y is necessarily true, e.g. If he has been to France, he must have been to Europe.

If X is false, Y may be true or false, e. g. If he has not been to France, he may still have been to Europe or he has not been to Europe. If Y is true, X may be true or false, e.g. If he has been to Europe, he may or may not have been to France.

If Y is false, X is false, e.g. If he has not been to Europe, he cannot have been to France. Therefore we conclude that X entails Y or Y is an entailment of X. The truth conditions that we use to judge presupposition is as follows: Suppose there are two sentences X and Y X: John' s bike needs repairing. Y: John has a bike.

If X is true, Y must be true, e.g. If John‟ s bike needs repairing, John must have a bike.

If X is false, Y is still true, e. g. If John‟ s bike does not need repairing, John still has a bike. If Y is true, X is either true or false, e.g. If John has a bike, it may or may not need repairing. If Y is false, no truth value can be said about X, e.g. If John does not have a bike, nothing can be said about whether his bike needs repairing or not. Therefore, X presupposes Y, or Y is a presupposition of X.

51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous relation, inconsistent relation in terms of truth values?

In terms of truth condition, of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false, therefore X is synonymous with Y

e.g. X: He was a bachelor all his life. Y: He never married all his life.

Of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true, then we can say A is inconsistent with Y

e.g. X: John is married. Y: John is a bachelor.

52. According to the ways synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples.

According to the ways synonyms differ, synonyms can be divided into the following groups. i. Dialectal synonyms

They are synonyms which are used in different regional dialects. British English and American English are the two major geographical varieties of the English language. For examples:

British English American English autumn fall lift elevator

Then dialectal synonyms can also be found within British, or American English itself. For example, „girl‟ is called „lass‟ or „lassie‟ in Scottish dialect, and „liquor‟ is called „whisky‟ in Irish dialect. ii. Stylistic synonyms

They are synonyms which differ in style or degree of formality. Some of the stylistic synonyms tend to be more formal, others tend to be casual, and still others are neutral in style. For example: old man, daddy, dad, father, male parent chap, pal, friend, companion

iii. Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning

They are the words that have the same meaning but express different emotions of the user. The emotions of the user indicate the attitude or bias of the user toward what he is talking about . For example, “collaborator” and “accomplice” are synonymous, sharing the meaning of \"a person who helps another\evaluative meaning. The former means that a person who helps another in doing something good, while the latter refers to a person who helps another in a criminal act. iv. Collocational synonyms

They are synonyms which differ in their collocation. For example, we can use accuse, charge, rebuke to say that someone has done something wrong or even criminal, but they are used with different prepositions accuse. . . of, charge. . . with, rebuke. . .for. V. Semantically different synonyms

Semantically different synonyms refer to the synonyms that differ slightly in what they mean. For example, „amaze‟ and „astound‟ are very close in meaning to the word „surprise,‟ but they have very subtle differences in meaning. While amaze suggests confusion and bewilderment, „ astound‟ implies difficulty in believing. 53. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How do they differ?

One of the oldest was the naming theory, proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato, who believed that the words used in a language are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for. The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to. The form and the meaning are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized; the situational context and the linguistic context.

For example, the meaning of the word „seal‟ in the sentence „The seal could not be found‟ can only be determined according to the context in which the sentence occurs: The seal could not be found. The zoo keeper became worried. (seal meaning an aquatic mammal)

The seal could not be found. The king became worried. (seal meaning the king‟s stamp)

Behaviorism drew on behaviorist psychology when he tried to define the meaning of linguistic forms. Behaviorists attempted to de-fine the meaning of a language form as „ the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer‟ Chapter 7

Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: l.F 2.F 3.T 4.T 5.T 6.F 7.F 8.F 9.F 10.F

11. F 12. T 13. F 14. F 15.F 16. T 17. F 18. F 19. T 20. F

II. Fill in each of the blanks below with one word which begins with the letter given: 21. community 22. variety 23. dialectal 24.planning 25. sociolects

26. Stylistic 27. official 28. superposed 29. vernacular 30. inflectional 31. social 32. linguistic

III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 33. B 34. C 35. A. 36. A. 37. C 38.D 39.A 40. C 41. A 42. D IV. Define the following terms:

43. sociolinguistics: Sociolinguistics is the study of language in social contexts.

44. speech community: The social group isolated for any given study is called the speech community or a speech community is a group of people who form a community and share the same language or a particular variety of language. The important characteristic of a speech community is that the members of the group must, in some reasonable way, interact linguistically with other members of the community. They may share closely related language varieties, as well as attitudes toward linguistic norms.

45. speech variety: Speech variety, also known as language variety, refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or group of speakers. The distinctive characteristics of a speech variety may be lexical, phonological, morphological, syntactic, or a combination of linguistic features.

46. language planning: language standardization is known as language planning. This means that certain authorities, such as the government or government agency of a country, choose a particular speech variety and spread the use of it, including its pronunciation and spelling systems, across regional boundaries.

47. Idiolect: An idiolect is a personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines aspects of all the elements regarding regional, social, and stylistic variation, in one form or another. In a narrower sense, what makes up one‟s idiolect includes also such factors as voice quality, pitch and speech rhythm, which all contribute to the identifying features in an individual‟ s speech.

48. standard language: The standard language is a superposed, socially prestigious dialect of language. It is the language employed by the government and the judiciary system, used by the mass media, and taught in educational institutions, including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language. 49. nonstandard language: Language varieties other than the standard are called nonstandard languages

50. lingua franca: A lingua franca is a variety of language that serves as a medium of communication among groups of people for diverse linguistic backgrounds.

51. pidgin: A pidgin is a variety of language that is generally used by native speakers of other languages as a medium of communication.

52. Creole: A Creole language is originally a pidgin that has become established as a native language in some speech community.

53. diglossia: Diglossia usually describes a situation in which two very different varieties of language co-exist in a speech community, each with a distinct range of purely social function and appropriate for certain situations. 54. Bilingualism: Bilingualism refers to a linguistic situation in which two standard languages are used either by an individual or by a group of speakers, such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation.

55. ethnic dialect: Within a society, speech variation may come about because of different ethnic backgrounds . An ethnic language variety is a social dialect of a language, often cutting across regional differences. An ethnic dialect is spoken mainly by a less privileged population that has experienced some form of social isolation, such as racial discrimination or segregation.

56. Sociolect: Social dialects, or sociolects, are varieties of language used by people belonging to particular social classes.

57. register: Registers are language varieties which are appropriate for use in particular speech situations, in

contrast to language varieties that are associated with the social or regional grouping of their customary users. Format reason, registers are also known as situational dialects .

58. Slang: Slang is a casual use of language that consists of expressive but non-standard vocabulary, typically of arbitrary, flashy and often ephemeral coinages and figures of speech characterized by spontaneity and sometimes by raciness.

59. taboo: taboo, or rather linguistic taboo, denotes any prohibition by the polite society on the use of particular lexical items to refer to objects or acts.

60. euphemism: A euphemism, then, is a mild, indirect or less offensive word or expression substituted when the speaker or writer fears more direct wording might be harsh, unpleasantly direct, or offensive.

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary: 61. Discuss with examples that the speech of women may differ from the speech of men.

In normal situations, female speakers tend to use more prestigious forms than their male counterparts with the same general social background. For example, standard English forms such as „I did it‟ and „he isn‟ t‟ can be found more often in the speech of females, while the more colloquial „I done it‟ and „he ain‟ t‟ occur more frequently in the speech of males.

Another feature often associated with so-called women‟s language is politeness. Usually, tough and rough speeches have connotations of masculinity and are not considered to be desirable feminine qualities. In general, men's language is more straightforward, less polite, and more direct, and women's language is more indirect, less blunt, and more circumlocutory.

This phenomenon of sex-preferential differentiation is also reflected in the relative frequency with which males and females use the same lexical items. For example, certain words that are closely associated with women may sound typically feminine as a result of that association. For example, some English adjectives like „lovely‟, „nice‟, „darling‟ and „cute‟ occur more often in female speeches and therefore cause feminine association. Females have also been shown to possess a greater variety of specific color terms than males, in spite of the fact that men do not necessarily possess less acute color perception than women. On the other hand, males have the reputation of possessing a larger vocabulary in traditionally male-dominated domains such as sports, hunting and the military. A request in English such as „Close the door when you leave‟ can be phrased in a number of ways ranging from a harsh command to a very polite request.

a. Close the door when you leave. b. Please close the door when you leave.

c. Would you please close the door when you leave? d. Could you close the door when you leave?

Although the above options are all available to both men and women, it is usually the more polite forms that are selected by female speakers. In general, females are found to use more questions than declarative statements in comparison with males.

62. Discuss with examples some of the linguistic differences between Standard English and Black English. One of the most prominent phonological characteristics of Black English is the frequent simplification of consonant clusters at the end of words when one of the two consonants is an alveolar /t/, /d/, /s/, or /z/. The application of this simplification rule may delete the past - tense morpheme, so \"past \"and \"passed \"are both pronounced like \"pass.\"

Another salient characteristic of Black English phonological system concerns the deletion of some word-final stop consonants in words like „side‟ and „borrowed.‟ Speakers of Black English frequently delete these word-final stops, pronouncing “side” like “sigh” and “borrowed” like “borrow.”

One prominent syntactic feature is the frequent absence of various forms of the copula „be‟ in Black English, which are required of Standard English. Compare the following expressions in Black English and Standard English: (1) Black English Standard English

They mine. They' re mine. You crazy. You re crazy.

Another distinctive syntactic feature of Black English is the systematic use of die expression „it is‟ where Standard English uses „there is‟ in the sense of “there exists”. Is it a Mr. Johnson in this office?

Another aspect of Black English is the use of double negation constructions. Whenever the verb is negated, the indefinite pronouns „something‟, „some-body‟, and „some‟ become the negative indefinites „nothing‟, „nobody‟, and „none‟, for example:

He don't know nothing. (He doesn't know anything.)

63. What is a linguistic taboo? What effect does it have on our use of language?

A linguistic taboo refers to a word or expression that is prohibited by the „polite‟ society from general use. Obscene, profane, and swear words are all taboo words that are to be avoided entirely, or at least avoided in mixed company. In sociolinguistics, a linguistic taboo, denotes any prohibition on the use of particular lexical items to refer to objects or acts. As language use is contextualized in particular social settings, linguistic taboo originates from social taboo. When an act is taboo, reference to this act may also become taboo. Taboo words and expressions reflect the particular social customs and views of a particular culture.

As linguistic taboo reflects social taboo, certain words are more likely to be avoided, for examples, the words related to sex, sex organs and excrement in many cultures. The avoidance of using taboo language mirrors social attitudes, emotions and value judgments, and has no linguistic basis.

The avoidance of using taboo language has led to the creation of euphemisms. A euphemism is a mild, indirect or less offensive word or expression substituted when the speaker or writer fears more direct wording might be harsh, unpleasantly direct, or offensive. For example, we say „portly‟ instead of „fat‟.

In many cultures, people avoid using direct words that pertain to death or dying because it is the subject that everyone fears and is unpleasant to talk about. In the English-speaking world, for example, people do not “die”, but “pass away”.

Euphemisms involve a wide range of fields. Although the use of euphemisms has the effect of removing derogatory overtones, the disassociative effect is never long-lasting. Often when the negative connotation of a word is recognized in its euphemistic form, a new euphemism will have to be sought for. However, an excessive use of euphemism may have negative effects. As a matter of fact, many euphemisms have become cliches that are to be avoided in formal speech and writing. They also tend to be wordy and to give writing a timid quality. In addition, euphemism can be evasive or even deceitful. Because they are often improperly used to obscure the intended meaning, many people find them offensive and prefer plain language Chapter 8

Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: 1. F 2.T 3.T 4.T 5.T 6. F 7.F 8.F 9.T 10.T

II. Fill in each of the blanks below with one word which begins with the letter given: 11. Psycholinguistics 12. cortex 13. hemispheres 14. lateralization 15. genetically 16. Motor 17. arbitrary 18. sub-vocal, overt 19.relativism 20. critical 21. determinism

III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 22.A 23.A 24.C 25.D 26.D 27.B 28.C 29.D 30.A 31.C 32. A 33. B 34. D 35. D 36. B 37. C IV Explain the following terms:

38. Psycholinguistics: Psycholinguistics is the study of language in relation to the mind.

39. brain lateralization: The localization of cognitive and perceptual functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain is called brain lateralization.

40.dichotic listening: a research technique which has been used to study how the brain controls hearing and language, with which subjects wear earphones and simultaneously receive different sounds in the right and left ear, and are then asked to repeat what they hear. Dichotic listening research makes use of the generally established fact that anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain, and vice versa. A basic assumption, thus, would be that a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left hemisphere and a signal coming in the left ear will go to the right hemisphere.

41. Broca's area : It refers to the frontal lobe in the left cerebral hemisphere, which is vital to language. This area is discovered by Paul Broca, a French surgeon and anatomist.

42. angular gyms: The angular gyrus lies behind Wernicke' s area. The angular gyrus is the language center responsible for converting a visual stimulus into an auditory form and vice versa. This area is crucial for the matching of a spoken form with a perceived object, for the naming of objects, and for the comprehension of written language, all of which require connections between visual and speech regions.

43. cerebral plasticity: According to Lenneberg, prior to the end of the critical period, both hemispheres are involved to some extent in language and one can take over if the other is damaged. This neurological flexibility is called cerebral plasticity .

44. linguistic determinism: a theory put forward by the American anthropological linguists Sapir and Whorf, which states that the way people view the world is determined by the structure of their native language.

45. subvocal speech: a term used to refer to thought when thought and language are identical or closely parallel to each other.

46. cerebral cortex : the outside surface of the brain which receives messages from all the sensory organs and where human cognitive abilities reside.

47. linguistic lateralization: It refers the brain‟s neurological specialization for language.

48.right ear advantage: The speech signals presented in the right ear goes directly to the left brain, while the speech signals in the left ear must first go to the right hemisphere, from where it is transferred to the left side of the brain for processing. Since the speech signals in the left ear takes a non-direct route and a longer time before processing than a linguistic signal received through the right ear, linguistic stimuli heard in the left ear are reported less accurately than those heard in the right ear. This phenomenon is called the right ear advantage.

49. critical period hypothesis: The critical period hypothesis refers to a period in one' s life extending from about age two to puberty, during which the human brain is most ready to acquire a particular language and language learning can proceed easily, swiftly, and without explicit instruction.

50.Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: a theory put forward by the American anthropological linguists Sapir and Whorf which states that the way people view the world is determined wholly or partly by the structure of their native language.

51.linguistic relativism: Whorf believed that speakers of different languages perceive and experience the world differently, relative to their linguistic back-ground, hence the notion of linguistic relativism .

52. overt thought: When language and thought are identical or closely parallel to each other, we may regard speech as \"overt thought.”

53. intrapersonal communication: It means that language users use language to facilitates thinking, speech behavior and action for the individual.

54.interpersonal communication: It means language users use language to convey information, thoughts and feelings from one person to another, or to control each other‟ s behavior. V. Answer the following questions:

55. What are the biological foundations of language?

Of all organisms, human beings are the only spontaneous creators and users of highly sophisticated languages that permit the communication of a wide range of knowledge and ideas. Evidently, our linguistic ability does not depend primarily on the structure of our vocal cords, for other mammals also have vocal cords. Human linguistic ability largely depends, instead, on the structure and dynamics of the human brain. As far as is currently known, human beings are the only organisms in which one particular part of the left half of the brain is larger than the corresponding part of the right half. This has led to the belief that human language is biologically, or more exactly, neurologically, based.

56. What are the major mental functions under the control of each hemisphere?

Psychological research suggests that both hemispheres perform important mental functions and they differ only in the manner in which they treat incoming stimuli. For example, the right hemisphere processes stimuli more holistically and the left hemisphere more analytically.

Brain lateralization for major mental functions under the control of each hemisphere is given as follows: (1) Left hemisphere Right hemisphere

language and speech perception of nonlinguistic sounds analytic reasoning holistic reasoning temporal ordering visual and spatial skills reading and writing recognition of patterns calculation recognition of musical melodies associative thought

Because each cerebral hemisphere has unique functional superiority, it is accurate to think of the hemispheres as complementarily specialized .

57. What can we do by means of dichotic listening tests?

Dichotic listening research makes use of the generally established fact that anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain, and vice versa. A basic assumption, thus, would be that a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left hemisphere and a signal coming in the left ear will go to the right hemisphere. By means of dichotic listening tests, we can analyze the characteristics of incoming stimuli processed by the individual hemispheres.

Dichotic listening test can show that the left hemisphere is not superior for processing all sounds, but only for those that are linguistic in nature, thus providing evidence in support of the view that the left side of the brain is specialized for language and that it is where language centers reside. 58. What is the safe conclusion from Genie's case?

A safe conclusion from Genie' s case is that the language faculty of an average human degenerates after the critical period and consequently, most linguistic skills cannot develop. 59. How are language and thought related to each other?

Language and thought may be viewed as two independent circles overlapping in some parts, where language and thought are consistent with each other and one never occurs without the other. When language and thought are identical or closely parallel to each other, we may regard thought as „subvocal speech‟, and speech as \"overt thought. In such a case, speaking and thinking take place simultaneously. Chapter 9

I.Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:

l.F 2.T 3.T 4.T 5.T 6.F 7.F 8.F 9.F 10.F 11.T 12.T 13.T 14.T 15.T 16.F 17.F 18.T 19.T 20.T II. Fill in each blank below with one word which begins with the letter given:

21. acquisition 22. nativist 23. motherese, babytalk 24. Behaviorist 25. holophrastic 26. telegraphic 27. Acquisition 28. Contrastive 29. interlanguage 30. transfer 31. Instrumental, integrative

III. III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the one that can best complete the statement: 32.A 33.B 34.B 35.C 36.A 37.D 38.A 39.B 40.C 41.D 42. C IV. Explain the following terms:

43. caretaker speech: It is the modified speech typically addressed to young children. Such modified speech is called babytalk, motherses, or parentese.

44. holophrastic sentences: They are children' s one-word utterances. They are called holophrastic sentences, because they can be used to express a concept or predication that would be associated with an entire sentence in adult speech.

45. telegraphic speech: They are the early multiword utterances of children which typically lack inflectional morphemes and most minor lexical categories. Some function words are altogether missing. What occur in these multiword utterances are usually the \"substantive\" or \"content\" words that carry the main message. Because of their resemblance to the style of language found in telegrams, utterances at this acquisition stage are often called telegraphic speech.

46. second language acquisition: Second language acquisition (SLA) is a general term which refers to the acquisition of a second language (L2) , in contrast with first language acqui-sition (FLA). SLA is also used as a general term to refer to the acquisition of a foreign or subsequent language (such as a third or fourth language). Thus, SLA is primarily the study of how learners acquire or learn an additional language after they have acquired their first language (LI).

47. Acquisition: According to Krashen, acquisition refers to the gradual and subconscious development of ability in the first language by using it naturally in daily communicative situations.

48. Learning: Learning, however, is defined by Krashen as a conscious process of accumulating knowledge of a second language usually obtained in school settings.

49. Transfer: It refers to the phenomenon that learners subconsciously use their LI knowledge in learning a second language.

50. Interlanguage: It is a series of internal representations that comprises the learner‟s interim knowledge of the target language. This is the language that a learner constructs at a given stage of SLA. Interlanguage consists of a series of interlocking and approximate linguistic systems in-between and yet distinct from the learner‟s native and target languages. It represents the learner‟s transitional competence moving along a learning continuum stretching from one‟s LI competence to the target language competence.

51. Fossilization: it is a process that sometimes occurs in second language learning in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks or writes in the target language.

52. instrumental motivation: Adults are motivated to learn a second language in order to use it functionally. In other words, the learners desire to learn a second language because it is useful for some functional, “instrumental” goals. This motivation is called instrumental motivation.

53. integrative motivation: Adults are motivated to learn a second language in order to use it socially. In other words, the learners learn a second language in order to communicate with native speakers of the target language. 54. Acculturation: It is the process of adapting to the new culture of the L2 community.

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary: 55. What‟s the difference between acquisition and learning, according to Krashen?

According to Krashen, acquisition refers to the gradual and subconscious development of ability in the first language by using it naturally in daily communicative situations. Learning, however, is defined as a conscious

process of accumulating knowledge of a second language usually obtained in school settings. A second language, Krashen argues, is more commonly learned but to some degree may also be acquired, depending on the environmental setting and the input received by the L2 learner. A rule can be learned before it is internalized (i.e., acquired), but having learned a rule does not necessarily prevent having to acquire it later. For example, an English language learner may have learned a rule like the third person singular „-s‟, but is unable to articulate the correct form in casual and spontaneous conversation because the rule has not yet been acquired. This shows that conscious knowledge of rules does not ensure an immediate guidance for actual performance.

56. How do the learner factors potentially influence the way in which a second language is acquired?

1) The optimum age for second language acquisition: First language acquisition is most successful when it occurs during the early years of one‟s life before puberty, but the optimum age for SLA does not always accord with the maxim of „the younger the better‟. The optimum age for SLA is early teenage. This claim is justifiable because this is the age when the learner‟ s flexibility of the language acquisition faculty has not been completely lost while one's cognitive skills have developed considerably.

2) Motivation: Motivation in language learning can be defined in terms of the learner‟s overall goal or orientation. Instrumental motivation occurs when the learner‟s goal is functional, and integrative motivation occurs when the learner‟s goal is social. If the target language functions as a foreign language (used in a limited environment such as in school), the learner is likely to benefit from an integrative motivation; but if the target language functions as a second language (used as a primary means of communication in the community of the learner), an instrumental motivation is more effective.

3) Acculturation: The acculturation hypothesis focuses on the social and psychological conditions under which L2 processing is most likely to take place successfully. It states simply that the more a person aspires to acculturate to the community of the target language, the further he or she will progress along the developmental continuum. 4) Personality: Intuitively, an outgoing personality may contribute to language acquisition. Research results, however, only partially support this hypothesis. No significant relationship has been found between talkativeness on the one hand and overall proficiency in a second language on the other. But it is recognized that as a result of being frequently exposed to and interacting with the target language, learners with an extroverted personality are likely to achieve better oral fluency than otherwise.

In sum, a good second language learner is, among other things, an adolescent who has a strong and well-defined motivation to learn. He is able to respond and adaptable to different learning situations. He seeks out all opportunities and makes maxi-mum use of them to interact with the input. He employs appropriate learning strategies. And he is willing to identify himself or herself with the culture of the target language community. 57. What is the role of input for SLA?

It is evident that SLA takes place only when the learner has access to L2 input and the opportunity to interact with the input. It appears that what learners need is not mere exposure to L2 data, but the kind of input data that are specially suited to their current stage of development. There is, however, no agreement as to precisely what constitutes optimum input. Some scholars advise that access to comprehensible input is a necessary condition for acquisition to take place. It is suggested that input can be made comprehensible by the use of learned structures and vocabulary, the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts of the input data, and the learner‟s general knowledge to interpret new language items. It is also suggested that interaction (i.e., taking part in communicative activities) and intake (i.e., the input that is assimilated and fed into the interlanguage system) are more important for SLA than input.

58. How do you understand interlanguage?

Interlanguage consists of a series of interlocking and approximate linguistic systems in-between and yet distinct from the learner's native and target languages. It represents the learner‟ s transitional competence moving along a

learning continuum stretching from one' s LI competence to the target language competence. As a type of linguistic system in its own right, interlanguage is a product of L2 training, mother tongue interference, overgeneralization of the target language rules, and communicative strategies of the learner. 59. Discuss the contrastive analysis in detail.

Contrastive Analysis was developed in order to identify and predict the areas of learning difficulty. Given this approach, it was hypothesized that L2 errors were predominantly the result of negative transfer, or mother tongue interference and second language learning was believed to be a matter of overcoming the differences between LI and L2 systems.

According to this view, the major task of second language teaching should predominantly be: first, contrast the native and the target language systems and make predictions about the language items that would cause difficulty and the errors that learners were likely to make; then use these predictions in deciding on the type of language items that needed special treatment in teaching and in material development and the type of intensive techniques that would be employed to overcome learning difficulties created by the interference.

In practice, the Contrastive Analysis is not effective because a large proportion of grammatical errors could not be explained by mother tongue interference. Errors predicted by contrastive analysis have often not occurred, whereas many actual errors, such as „goed‟ and „foots‟, come from overgeneralization instead of negative transfer. Errors, according to the contrastive analysis approach, are negative and had to be overcome or given up. In fact, errors produced in a learner‟s second language utterance may very well be developmental errors and therefore, should not be looked upon simply as a failure to learn the correct form, but as an indication of the actual acquisition process in action. Developmental errors often result from the effort on the part of the learner to construct and test general rules of communication in the target language.

60. What are the major stages that a child has to follow in first language development? What are the features of the linguistic forms at each stage?

1)The prelinguistic stage: At the babbling stage, the sounds and syllables that children utter are meaningless. Babbling, especially early babbling, is largely independent of the particular language to which children are exposed. The sounds produced in this period seem to include a large variety of sounds. Babbling does not seem to depend on the presence of acoustic, auditory input.

When children are through the tenth and eleventh months, they are capable of using their vocalizations to express emotions and emphasis, and of attempting at the grand task of language acquisition.

2)The one-word stage: This stage usually occurs in the late part of the first year or the early part of the second year. At this stage children learn that sounds are related to meanings. They begin to use the same string of sounds of the native language to „mean‟ the same thing. Children‟s one-word utterances are also called holophrastic sentences, because they can be used to express a concept or predication that would be associated with an entire sentence in adult speech. One-word utterances sometimes show an overextension or underextension of reference.

3)The two-word stage: During the second year of life, child‟s utterances gradually become longer. Children are heard uttering two-word expressions in a variety of combinations. Children‟s two-word utterances can express a certain variety of grammatical relations indicated by word order, for example: a. Daddy hat. b. Doggie bark. c. Shoe mine. d. Apple me.

Two-word expressions are absent of syntactic or morphological markers. Pronouns are rare.

4) The multiword stage: It occurs between two and three years old. The salient feature of the utterances at this stage ceases to be the number of words, but the variation in strings of lexical morphemes, for example: a. Daddy like this book. b. He play little tune. c. This shoe all wet. No sit there.

The early multiword utterances typically lack inflectional morphemes and most minor lexical categories, therefore they are often called telegraphic speech. Although they lack grammatical morphemes, telegraphic sentences are not

simply words that are randomly strung together, but follow the principles of sentence formation. As this type of telegram-format speech increases, a number of grammatical morphemes begin to appear in children‟s speech. Simple prepositions begin to turn up in their speech.

By the age of five, with an operating vocabulary of more than 2,000 words, children have completed the greater part of the language acquisition process.

61. What is the role of correction and reinforcement in first language acquisition?

According to Behaviorist learning theory, children are believed to gradually assume correct forms of the language of their community when their „bad‟ speech gets corrected and when their good speech gets positively reinforced. Researchers have found that correction and reinforcement are not key factors in child language development as they were claimed to be. When adults do attempt to correct children s grammatical errors and the correct form is repeated, their efforts seem to have little effect, or simply doom to failure because children often do not know what the problem is and continue to use a personally constructed form. Children Reinforcement has been found to occur usually in children‟s pronunciation or reporting of the truthfulness of utterances, rather than in the grammaticality of sentences.

62. Why do we say language acquisition is primarily the acquisition of the grammatical system of language? In principle, no human brain can store all the words and expressions of a language. What happens is that when processing the language they hear, children construct the grammar and make sense of the expressions according to the grammar. When producing utterances, they follow the internalized grammatical rules. Without the knowledge of the productive rules, it would be impossible for language users to produce and understand an unlimited number of sentences which they have never heard before. 63. Discuss the biological basis of language acquisition.

Language acquisition is a genetically determined capacity that all humans possess. Although the development of a communicative system is not unique to human beings, the natural acquisition of language as a system of highly abstract rules and regulations for creative communication distinguishes humans from all other animal species. In this sense, humans can be said to be predisposed, that is, biologically programmed, to acquire at least one language. Language development can thus be regarded as analogous to other biological developments in human growth and maturation, such as the growth and maturation of one‟s limbs and organs. Humans are equipped with the neural prerequisites for language and language use, just as birds are biologically “prewired” to learn the songs of their species.

64. What is the role of imitation in first language acquisition?

At one time, it was widely believed that children learned language by simply imitating the speech of those around them. We now know that this cannot be true, since many utterance types produced by children do not closely resemble structures found in adult speech. . If children learn their native tongue by imitating their parents, how can we account for the utterances that are typical of children‟s language, such as the plural form „my foots,‟ the past tense forms of „ I eated,‟ and the negative construction of “No the sun shining”? It is impossible that children imitate these structures from adults because they are never heard in adult conversations. In addition, Children with speech impairment for neurological or physiological reasons learn the language spoken to them and understand what is said. A more reasonable explanation is that children are attempting to construct and generalize their own grammatical rules.

Some young language learners do seem to make selective use of imitation, but they do not blindly mimic adult speech in a parrot fashion, but rather exploit it in very restricted ways to improve their linguistic skills. The point is that imitation plays at best a very minor role in the child‟ s mastery of language.