语言学概论课后参考答案杨信彰Word文档下载推荐.docx

1、 Units that indicate structure: when, to.3. a. This sentence is grammatical, but is nonsensical.b. This sentence is ungrammatical and nonsensical.c. This is a good sentence.d. This is a good sentence. 1. a. This sign is a symbol. It means we will have good luck. I know it from my cultural background

2、, because the Chinese character 福 means luck and the color red symbolizes goodness. The Chinese meaning of upside down is 倒, which has the similar pronunciation of 到（arrive）. Thus, when the character is put upside down, it means that luck arrives. b. This sign is an icon. It means no smoking, and I

3、know it from the picture.c. This sign is a mixture of a symbol and a icon. It means that parking is only allowed for disabled people. 2. I think the house is on fire because smoke is a index of fire.3. To the physician, it means that the man has got a fever.4. I think so, but not exactly, because th

4、e difference of the consonants does not mean the bird in different places cries differently.1. according to the arbitrariness theory, the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural resemblance to their meaning. The link between them is a matter of convention. Thus, the name Xiao Long is just a label

5、for the son. However, in Chinese culture dragon was the symbol for the emperor. Thus, the name may have certain associative meanings.2. No. The speaker of a language, based upon the convention established in the speech community, associates linguistic signs with things and concepts. In peoples mind,

6、 pig stands for foolishness and laziness. If I name it Pig Hair Shampoo, no one will buy it.3. Words are arbitrary in form, but they are not random in their use. Although the link between form and meaning is arbitrary, there existed certain relationship between them, which can be called rules. The i

7、ndividual does not have the power to change a sign in any way once it has become established in the linguistic community.1. I prefer to use the spoken language. In a supermarket, the spoken language is much more convenient for people to communicate with each other. People do not have the time and ne

8、cessity to use written language in communication. 2. I think listening and speaking should come first. The primary medium of language is sound, and language is primarily vocal. Whats more, children can learn to listen and speak a foreign language more quickly than they read and write. 1. No, I dont

9、agree with this point of view. Language is human specific, so humans and dogs can not communicate with each other.2. A parrot only can say what it is taught. It can not form an infinite set of utterances from a finite use of units. So, a parrot talking can not be equated with human language.3. That

10、is only the result of the stimulus-response training.4. Human language is primary over animal communication in the following aspects:1） Human has the ability to refer to things far remote in time and space. In contrast, it may be impossible for an animal to convey such ability.2） Human has the abili

11、ty to produce and understand an indefinite number of novel utterances, but no animal can communicate creatively with another animal. 3） Learning is much more important as a factor in human language than in animal communication.4） Human language structure and language use are vastly more complex than

12、 any animal communication system.5） Animal communication systems are closed-ended, whereas human languages are open-ended.1. The advanced technology such as telephones and the Internet makes human communication become much more convenient and frequent. People can communicate with others in remote pl

13、aces freely. 2. There may exist several causes:1） The sender can not express himself or herself clearly.2） The receiver can not understand what the sender said.3） The receiver is unwilling to communicate with the sender.4） There exists misunderstanding because of the different cultural background of

14、 the sender and the receiver.3. We must pay key attention to learning the knowledge of the ways of thinking, acting and speaking of a language, for differences in this kind of knowledge may cause trouble in intercultural communication.1. a. Physiological functionb. Performative functionc. Phatic fun

15、ctiond. Informative function2. People like poetry because people can enjoy the rhythm and the melody of certain combinations of sounds in the poetry. And most creative uses of language in the poetry can provide people considerable pleasure through the generation of puns, paradoxes, ambiguities and m

16、etaphors.3. I may not say anything, but move the desk away.1. General functions refer to the particular individual uses of language whilst metafunctions refer to the larger, more general purposes underlying language use.2. No. According to Halliday, every sentence in a text is multifunctional and ha

17、s three metafunctions simultaneously: ideational, interpersonal and textual functions.3. Hallidays functional theory emphasizes the relationship between language structure and the language functions in social life, while the traditional grammar emphasizes the forms of the sentence. 1. I agree to the

18、 evolutionary theory which tends to believe that man evolved from lower forms of life, and so did language. This is a scientific approach to the origin of language as it is based on a wide range of studies over years by biologists, anthropologists, psychologists, neurologists, primatologists and lin

19、guists. With many significant changes since its early introduction, the evolutionary theory shows us the origin of language from various aspects, such as the organic evolution, environmental factors. 2. 轰隆、乒乓、叽叽嘎嘎、叽里咕噜、汪汪3. Onomatopoetic words are imitations of the sounds of nature, and emotional ej

20、aculations of pain, fear, surprise, pleasure, anger, etc. According to the invention theory, onomatopoetic words form the basis of language, or at least the core of the basic vocabulary.1. Usually, there are two main ways of classifying languages: the genetic （or genealogical） and the typological. T

21、he historical classification is based on the assumption that languages have diverged from a common ancestor. This criteria is to research into the history and relatedness of languages. On the other hand, the typological classification is based on a comparison of the formal similarities which exist b

22、etween languages. It is an attempt to group languages into structural types, on the basis of phonology, grammar, or vocabulary, rather than in terms of any real or assumed historical relationship.2. Currently, we cannot say that all languages in the world derived from one common ancestor. It might b

23、e true that some languages have diverged from one common ancestor, for example, French, Spanish, Italian and other Romance languages were clearly descended from Latin, but no evidence show that all languages in the world have the same origin. As research shows, there are at least 29 language familie

24、s in the world. However, this problem will be solved when we have enough evidence to show that human beings have one common ancestor.3. The major causes for the language diversity in the world include grammatical structure, historical factors, social factors, intercultural contact, etc.1. The two se

25、ntences perform the same function of requesting. However, The two sentences have different choices of words and syntax structures. Sentence （a） is structurally an imperative sentence, while Sentence （b） takes the form of a question and the word please is added. So, the effects of the two utterances

26、are different. Sentence （b） would sound more polite. When we are decoding them, we would take into account such factors as choice of words and syntactic structures, the principle of politeness and the context. 2. As a science, linguistics demands a scientific outlook upon language. To conduct a stud

27、y of language scientifically, we must take an objective view of language and all linguistic phenomena and study language and reflect on it in a detached and unbiased way. Even a local variety with few native speakers may also fall within our investigations. Moreover, we should adopt the general prin

28、ciples of empirical research procedures to observe and analyze data found in natural languages.3. The real object of linguistics is to find out fundamental rules that underlie all the languages in the world. We need to look into the common features of all languages, the range of variations among lan

29、guages, the difference of human languages from animal communication, the change and evolution of language, the relation of language to mind and society, and so on.1. It is very important to study speech in linguistics, because language is primarily vocal. As we know, no community has a written form

30、only, though many have a spoken language only. Children learn spoken language first and most easily. Earlier in the 20th century certain linguists began to doubt the priority of writing. Bloomfield argued that writing was not language but merely a way of recording language. The contemporary linguist

31、ics maintains that the spoken language is primary and that writing is essentially a means of representing speech in another medium. Linguistics has stressed the priority of speech because it is the natural, or primary, medium in which language is manifest, and written language derives from the transference of speech to a secondary, visual medium.2. There is no absolute standard of correctness because linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.