胡壮麟《语言学教程》课后习题(现代语言学理论与流派)【圣才出品】

第12章现代语言学理论与流派

1. Why is Saussure hailed as the father of modern linguistics?

Key: Saussure was the first to notice the complexities of language. He believed that language is a system of signs. To communicate ideas, signs must be part of a system of signs, called conventions. He held that the sign is the union of a form (signifier) and an idea (signified), and it is the central fact of language.

By providing answers to questions concerning many aspects of language, Saussure made clear the object of study for linguistics as a science. His ideas on the arbitrary nature of sign, on the relational nature of linguistic units, on the distinction of langue and parole and of synchronic and diachronic linguistics, etc. pushed linguistics into a brand new stage.

2. What are the three important points of the Prague School?

Key: The Prague School has three points of special importance, First, it stressed that the synchronic study of language is fully justified as it can draw on complete and controllable material for investigation. Second, it emphasised the systemic character of language, arguing that no element of any language can be satisfactorily analysed or evaluated if viewed in isolation. In other words, elements are held to be in functional contrast or opposition. Third, it looked on language as a tool performing a number of essential functions or tasks for the community using

it.

3. What is the Prague School best known for?

Key: The Prague School is best known and remembered for its contribution to phonology and the distinction between phonetics and phonology. Following Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole, Trubetzkoy argued that phonetics belonged to parole whereas phonology belonged to langue. On this basis he developed the notion of “phoneme”as an abstract unit of the sound system as distinct from the sounds actually produced.

In classifying distinctive features, he proposed three criteria. (1) their relation to the whole contrastive system; (2) relations between the opposing elements; and (3) their power of discrimination. These oppositions car,, be summarised as: a) bilateral opposition; b) multilateral opposition; c) proportional opposition; d ) isolated opposition; e) privative opposition; f) gradual opposition; g) equipolent opposition;

h) neutralisable opposition; and i) constant opposition.

4. What is the essence of Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP)?

Key: FSP is a theory that refers to a linguistic analysis of utterances (or texts) in terms of the information they contain. The principle is that the role of each utterance part is evaluated for its semantic contribution to the whole. From a functional point of view, some Czechoslovak linguists believed that a sentence contains a point of departure and a goal of discourse. The point of departure is

equally present to the speaker and to the hearer which it is their rallying point, the ground on which they meet. This is called the Theme. The goal of discourse presents the very information that is to be imparted to the hearer. This is called the Rheme. It is believed that the movement from the Theme to the Rheme reveals the movement of the mind itself. Language may use different syntactic structures, but the order of ideas remains basically the same. Based on these observations, they created the notion of Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) to describe how information is distributed in sentences. FSP deals particularly with the effect of the distribution of known (or given) information and new information in discourse. The known information refers to information that is not new to the reader or hearer, and the new information is what is to he transmitted to the reader or hearer.

5. What is the tradition of the London School?

Key: The London School has a tradition of laying stress on the functions of language and attaching great importance to contexts of situation and the system aspect of language. It is these features that have made this school of thought known as systemic linguistics and functional linguistics. It is an important and admirable part of the London School tradition to believe that different types of linguistic description may be appropriate for different purposes.

6. What is the difference between Malinowski and Firth on context of situation? Key: Malinowski distinguished three types of context of situation: situations in

which speech interrelates with bodily activity, narrative situations, and phatic situations. Firth defined the context of situation as including the entire cultural setting of speech and the personal history of the participants rather than as simply the context of human activity going on at the moment. Recognising that sentences can vary infinitely, Firth used the notion of “typical context of situation”, meaning that social situations determine the social roles participants are obliged to play; since the total number of typical contexts of situation they will encounter is finite, the total number of social roles is also finite. He put forward the idea that in analysing a typical context of situation, one has to take into consideration both the situational context and the linguistic context of a text.

7. What is important about Firth’s prosodic analysis?

Key: Prosodic analysis, or prosodic phonology, is Firth’s second important contribution to linguistics. Since any humor/ utterance is a continuous speech flow made up of at least one syllable, it cannot be cut into independent units. Phonological description only deals with paradigmatic relations, leaving syntagmatic relations outmof consideration. Firth pointed out that in actual speech, it is not phonemes that make up the paradigmatic relations, but phonematic units. There are fewer features in phonematic units than in phonemes, because some features are common to phonemes of a syllable or a phrase (even a sentence). When these features are considered in syntagmatic relations, they are all called prosodic units, which include features such as stress, length, nasalisation,

palatalisation, and aspiration. In any case, these features cannot be found in one phonematic unit alone.

8. What is the relation between Systemic Grammar and Functional Grammar? Key: Systemic Grammar and Functional Grammar are two inseparable components for an integral framework of Systemic-Functional linguistic theory. Systemic Grammar aims to explain the internal relations in language as a system network, or meaning potential. This network consists of subsystems from which language users make choices. Functional grammar aims to reveal that language is a means of social interaction, based or, the position that language system and the forms that make it up are inescapably determined by the uses or functions which they serve. Systemic Grammar contains a functional component, and the theory behind Functional Grammar is systemic.

9. What is special about Systemic-Functional linguistics?

Key: Systemic-Functional linguistics aims to provide a taxonomy for sentences, a means of descriptively classifying particular sentences. Although it may not seem as influential as Chomsky’s transformational generative theory in some parts of the world, it is much more relevant to the needs of various groups of people who deal with language. Halliday believes that language is what it is because it has to serve certain functions. In other words, social demand on language has helped to shape its structure. Systemic-Functional linguistics is based on two facts: (1) language

users are actually making choices in a system of systems and trying to realise different semantic functions in social interaction; and (2) language is inseparable from social activities of man. Thus, it takes actual uses of language as the object of study, in opposition to Chomsky’s approach that takes the ideal speaker’s linguistic competence as the object of study.

10. Analyze the following sentences by identifying the Subject and Predicate on the

first level end Theme and Rheme on the second level.

(1) Mary gave her daughter a birthday present.

(2) A birthday gift was given to Jenny.

(3) The play was written by William Shakespeare.

(4) Do have another drink.

Key:

11. Please put the following items in a diagram according to Halliday’s notion of