语言学与应用语言学2004[试卷+答案]

北京外国语大学

2004年硕士研究生入学考试语言学与应用语言学专业试卷

IMPORTANT!!!

All the questions are to be answered in English on the answer sheets provided．1．Shakespeare has Juliet say：

What?s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet．

What do the above lines say to you about the relationship between the form (sounds) and meaning (concept) of a word in spoken language?

Explain with positive evidence as well as exceptions from the English language．(15 points) 2．How much does our language influence the way we think? How deeply do language and culture interpenetrate and influence one another? These questions about language have fascinated thinkers throughout the ages．For example，Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm yon Humboldt in the German Romantic tradition regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the world so that each language reflects a different worldview．Write a short essay to explain your position on this view．(35 points)

3．Is English a language that uses a phonetic alphabet system? Explain briefly why or why not with examples．(15 points)

4．Suppose you were given four cards，each of which had a different phoneme of English printed on it：

Now arrange these cards to form all the "possible" words that these four phonemes could form．Discuss what rules you have followed t0 come up with these words．(20 points) 5．Paraphrase each of the following sentences in two different ways to show that you understand the ambiguity involved：(10 points)

a．Dick finally decided on the boat．

b．The professor's appointment was shocking．

c．The governor is a dirty street fighter．

d．Terry loves his wife and so do I．

e．No smoking section available．

6．It is argued that grammaticality judgments do not depend on whether the sentence is meaningful or not, as shown by the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”，which does not make much sense but is syntactically well formed．How would you respond to this argument?(25points)

7．TOEFL often requires the examinees to specify the situational context after listening to a conversation．See for example a tape-script below for an exam item．

Voice A (male)：How much is this tie?

Voice B (female)：Forty

Voice C (male)：Where does this conversation most probably take place?

What do you think is the TOEFL people?s belief about what constitutes linguistic competence and how linguistic competence can be tested? (30 points)

参考答案：

北京外国语大学

2004年硕士研究生入学考试语言学与应用语言学专业试卷

IMPORTANT!!!

All the questions are to be answered in English on the answer sheets provided．1．Shakespeare has Juliet say：

What?s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet．

What do the above lines say to you about the relationship between the form (sounds) and meaning (concept) of a word in spoken language?

Explain with positive evidence as well as exceptions from the English language．(15 points) The lines said above show that the relationship between the form (sounds) and meaning (concept) of a word in spoken language is arbitrary in nature. That means there is no logical connection between forms (sounds) and meaning (concept). Different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages. Sounds are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. In this example, the rose can be called by many names in different languages but its smell never changes. Another example, different languages have different forms for referring to …dog? in English, such as Chinese …狗（gou）? , French …chien (n.m.)?. While language is arbitrary by nature, there are some exceptions as well. The best examples in English are the onomatopoetic words and compound words. For example, some onomatopoetic words …rumble?, … crash?, …crackle?… bang? are uttered like the sounds they describe, thus seem to have a natural basis. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. For example while …photo?and …copy?are both arbitrary, the compound word …photocopy?is not entirely arbitrary, thus seem to be motivated. Anyhow, non-arbitrary words make up only a small percentage of the vocabulary of a language.

2．How much does our language influence the way we think? How deeply do language and culture interpenetrate and influence one another? These questions about language have fascinated thinkers throughout the ages．For example，Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm yon Humboldt in the German Romantic tradition regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the world so that each language reflects a different worldview．Write a short essay to explain your position on this view．(35 points)

Humans have a unique linguistic system for communication that serves as the primary vehicle for expressing thoughts. Language and thought may be viewed as two independent circles that develop along two different routes but overlap in some parts, where language and thought are consistent with each other. But language is not the only means of expressing thought. As for the relationship between language and the thought, we think that language does not determine the way we think but influence the way we perceive the world and recall things, and affects the ease with which we perform mental tasks. That is, language may be used to provide new ideas, bring about a change in beliefs and values, solve problems, and keep track of things in memory. For example, a well-developed vocabulary may well assist us in learning the concepts the lexis covers. We recall things more easily when they correspond to readily available words or phrases. It is certainly easier for us to make a conceptual distinction if it neatly corresponds to a particular lexical item available in our language. When we label our experience with linguistic symbols, our language will influence how we remember and think about those experiences, otherwise the relationship between language and perception, memory or thinking will be greatly reduced.

In terms of relationship between language and culture, we can infer that a language not only expresses facts, ideas, or events that represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the people?s attitudes, beliefs, world outlooks, and etc. Language expresses cultural reality. On the other hand, as people?s language uses express their culture represented by its social conventions, norms and social appropriateness, the culture both emancipates and constrains people

socially, historically and metaphorically. Sharing a same community culture, people have acquired common ways of viewing the world through their speech interactions with other members of the same group. Although language and culture are inextricably intertwined, culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. The knowledge and beliefs that constitute a people?s culture are habitually encoded and transmitted in the language of the people. Language as an integral part of human being, permeates his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality.

As for the relationship between language and world views, the language system does not necessarily provide specifics of one?s world view. All humans share a general conceptualizing capacity, Speakers of different languages are capable of distinguishing and recognizing experiences according to their respectively different linguistic coding systems for the same objective world. On the one hand, people speaking the same language may have different world views, including political, social, religious, scientific and philosophical views. On the other hand, people speaking different languages may share similar world views on above aspects. Moreover, one language can describe many different worldviews, as is evident in the case of successful translation.

According to the theories shown above, we can infer that Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm yon Humboldt?s view has both merits and limitations. First, they see clearly that there exists a relationship between language and thoughts. Second, they assume that language influences so much the way people think that people who think in different ways will have different world views. Based on the theoretical views above we think this view is not rational in this aspect.

3．Is English a language that uses a phonetic alphabet system? Explain briefly why or why not with examples．(15 points)

The Phonetic Alphabet is a system of letters and symbols that are used to represent the individual sounds of a language. English is a language that uses a phonetic alphabet system because it is a phonographic language by nature. There are mainly three types of language concerning its writing system: ideographic language which use symbols (ideograms) to represent whole words or concepts (ideas), with Chinese as an example; syllabic language which word or concepts are represented by syllable, with Japanese syllabic system as an example; phonographic language which uses special alphabetic or other typographical characters to express the sounds of an actual spoken utterance in writing, with many European languages as examples. English uses alphabetic script to represent certain single type sound. For example, the sound which is written sh in English can be expressed by symbols of [∫] ship;and the sound that is written in c can be expressed by the symbol of [k] cup.

4．Suppose you were given four cards，each of which had a different phoneme of English printed on it：

Now arrange these cards to form all the "possible" words that these four phonemes could form．Discuss what rules you have followed to come up with these words．(20 points) The “possible”words that the four phonemes could form are blik, klib, bilk and kilb. The phonological rules of English determine the possible combination of sound. First, an English syllable consists of Onset and Rhyme that can further be divided into Nucleus and Coda. The Nucleus is necessary in a syllable and is represented by vowel. Both the Onset and the Rhyme are not necessary and can be represented by a constant or a cluster of constants. If three consonants cluster together at the beginning of a word, the first phoneme must be /s/. In this example, because

there are two Stops, the /k/, /b/, /l/ could not form possible constant cluster. Secondly, the vowel /i/ should not function as nucleus because there is no combination of other three consonants as Coda. Thirdly, the degree of sonority of different classes of sounds affects their possible positions in the syllable. In English the sonority scale from the most sonorous to the least sonorous is V owels ^ Approximants ^Nasals ^Fricatives ^Stops. In a possible English syllable, the sonority of each sound gradually rises to a peak at the Nucleus and then falls at the Coda. So if the first phoneme is /l/, then the next sound must be a vowel /i/, leaving /b/ and /k/ to form a cluster. However, the phoneme /b/ and /k/ are both Stops and could not form a constant cluster. This excludes the words beginning with /l/. Fourthly, considering the rules described above, the only possible arrangements are words beginning with /k/, /b/, /kl/, or /bl/. When the first phoneme is /k/ functioning as Onset, the Nucleus is the vowel /i/ and with /lb/ as possible constant cluster The Onset can be a constant cluster of /kl/ with /i/ as nucleus and a single constant /b/ as coda. Both the two arrangements conform to the sonority scale of an accepted syllable. Similarly, …bilk?and …blik?are possible words formed by the four phonemes.

5．Paraphrase each of the following sentences in two different ways to show that you understand the ambiguity involved：(10 points)

a．Dick finally decided on the boat．

b．The professor's appointment was shocking．

c．The governor is a dirty street fighter．

d．Terry loves his wife and so do I．

e．No smoking section available．

a. First interpretation: Dick finally made a decision which is related to …boat?.

Second interpretation: Dick finally made a decision at the place of a boat.

b. First interpretation: The professor was appointed by someone else, and this event was shocking.

Second interpretation: The professor had appointed someone else and his act of appointing was shocking.

c. First interpretation: The governor always undergoes the act of fighting in the street and he/she has a dirty reputation.

Second interpretation: The governor is a sanitation worker who is responsible for cleaning the dirty streets.

d. First interpretation: Terry loves his wife and I love my wif

e.

Second interpretation: Terry loves his wife and I love his wife too.

e. First interpretation: The section for non-smokers is available.

Second interpretation: The available section for smokers does not exist.

6．It is argued that grammaticality judgments do not depend on whether the sentence is meaningful or not, as shown by the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”，which does not make much sense but is syntactically well formed．How would you respond to this argument?

(25points)

This sentence whose grammar is correct but meaning is nonsensical is composed by Noam Chomsky. At the syntactic level it is acceptable with a subject noun modified by an adjective and a verb modified by an adverb. However, the sentence does not make sense because things logically cannot be colorless and green simultaneously, ideas cannot sleep and nothing can sleep furiously. Such a sentence, which is grammatically correct but semantically anomalous,illustrates that there are two aspects of meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning. The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, i.e., its grammatical well-formedness which is governed by the grammatical rules. Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions, i.e., constraints on what lexical items can go with others. So, it

would seem that the structure of sentences and their meaning are two distinct things, representing two different levels of language processing. The rules for forming the structure of sentences are wholly independent and different from those rules which compose the meanings of sentences.

Chomsky demonstrates that words are symbols with associated properties that will not function if they are not used in the proper semantic context. “Meaning” is not dependent on the grammar of a certain language. That means that though words may follow a valid grammatical structure, they cannot form a meaningful sentence, or be a part of a meaningful phrase, if they violate their defined linguistic contexts. These contexts play an important role in the initial forming of logical sentences. As each word is simply a symbolic container for both greater and smaller contexts, the underlying structure by which these containers are organized, has important bearing on how they are composed to form sentences. Chomsky explained that sentences with the proper symbolic containers (words) may often be recomposed with more useful grammatical structure—but meaningless sentences, regardless if they have proper grammar, are hopelessly lost for meaning.

Many functionalist linguists and cognitive linguists have argued against the notion of meaninglessness in language. They point to the fact that the purpose of language is the exchange of meanings; while sentences like 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously' may be possible, they hardly ever appear in naturally occurring language.

7．TOEFL often requires the examinees to specify the situational context after listening to a conversation．See for example a tape-script below for an exam item．

Voice A (male)：How much is this tie?

Voice B (female)：Forty

Voice C (male)：Where does this conversation most probably take place?

What do you think is the TOEFL people?s belief about what constitutes linguistic competence and how linguistic competence can be tested? (30 points)

（本题比较灵活，以下答案可供参考）

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) has for decades been used throughout the world as a standardized test for assessing English proficiency. Originally, TOEFL scores are intended to provide a reliable measure of the linguistic competence of candidates for English speaking universities, but now it focuses on communicative competence and tests the holistic language proficiency of test-takers including reading, listening, speaking and writing, as well as improving pronunciation and building vocabulary. Particular emphasis is placed on listening and speaking. The primary goal of the course is to teach communicative competence, that is, the ability to communicate in English according to the situation, purpose, and roles of the participants.

TOEFL is a part of the functional approach to a second language evaluation. The communicative competence test was designed to investigate the possibilities of constructing discourse-oriented measures of language behavior. The social appropriateness of an utterance, who is talking to whom, when, and under what circumstances, is just as important as its linguistic accuracy, or grammaticality. Most second language instruction is mainly concerned with the formal structure of the target language. Consequently, learning a second language in most language classrooms is a matter of mastering grammar and pronunciation. As a result, little attention is paid to teaching language as a tool for communication in the real world. But TOEFL people believe that it is not enough to teach and test learners how to manipulate the structures of the foreign language. Students must also develop strategies for relating these structures to their communicative functions in real situations and real time. Foreign language teachers must therefore provide learners with ample opportunities to use the language themselves for communicative purposes. They should be concerned with developing the learners' ability to take part in the "process of communicating" through language, rather than with their perfect mastery of individual structures. Language use, what is said on a particular occasion, how it is phrased, and how it is coordinated with nonverbal signs, has become a widely researched field in TOEFL listening test. The social aspects of language use rather than the formal aspects of language structure have become the objects of attention. As a result, the learning of a language is now viewed as including not only the grammar of that language but also “the capacity to use the language in a way that is

appropriate to the situational and verbal constraints operating at any given time”. These constraints may come from the relationship between the speaker and the addressee, the nature of the topic, the medium that is being used, the specific occasion, other ritualistic conventions, and so forth. Therefore, helping second language learners achieve language appropriateness should be as important as helping them achieve grammaticality in the target language. Because the appropriate language choice depends on the characteristics of the addressee and relations with the speaker, more attention should be given to such relationships.

TOEFL uses more real-life tasks to assess reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. For example, one of the item types in the Listening Comprehension section of the TOEFL test is the short Dialogue, where the relationship of real speakers, the special context of communication, the intended meaning of one speaker etc are particularly examined. In another test instance, students may watch a university lecture that takes place in a real university classroom. Students are first asked to complete an activity about the lecture as part of their listening task. Following this task, students may then be asked to explain something about the lecture, and this will be the speaking assessment. In order to assess reading and writing skills, students may be asked to answer questions by, for example, fill-in-the blanks about a text and perhaps write a for/against type of essay about what is discussed in the text. When we think about the tasks a student has to complete in college, we see that all four of the above tasks are similar.