2018年上海对外经贸大学国际商务外语学院733综合英语之语言学教程考研核心题库一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms1 Compound【答案】 Compound refers to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form, such as the compound words “blackboard” and “well-known”. 2 Linguistic relativity【答案】 This is one of two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It states that similarity between languages is relative , the greater their structural differentiation is , the more diverse their conceptualization of the world is. For example, not every language has the same set of words for the colors ; in Spanish there is no word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”. 3 Broad and narrow transcription【答案】 Broad and narrow transcription: In broad transcription, one letter symbol is used for one sound. In narrow transcription , there are diacritics added to the one letter symbols to show the finer differences between sounds. 4 Construal and construal operations【答案】Construal is the competence to conceive and portray the same situation in alternate ways through specificity, different mental scanning, directionality, vantage point, figure-ground segregation etc. Construal operations are conceptualizing processes applied in language process by human beings. That is, construal operations are the underlying psychological processes and resources employed in the interpretation of linguistic expressions. 5 Lexical relations【答案】 There are several types of lexical relations concerning the sense of the words. Those are synonymy , antonymy, hyponymy, polysemy, homonymy, and so on. （a ） Synonymy refers to the sameness relation ; “autum”, and “full ” are synonyms , for example , （b ） Antonymy refers to the oppositeness relation ; for example , “buy” and “sell ” are antonyms , （c ） Hyponymy refers to the inclusiveness relation; for example, “apple” is a hyponym of “fruit”, （d ） Polysemy means one word that has more than one related meaning ，and “bank”，as an example , is a polysemous word. （e ） Homonymy refers to the relation of two different words which are identical either in sound, or spelling, or both, such as “bow” （bau ） and “bow” （b ?u ）. 6 Cross-cultural communication【答案】 Cross-cultural communication is an exchange of ideas , information , etc , between persons from different cultural backgrounds. The cultural conventions of the participants may widely different , and misinterpretation and misunderstanding can easily arise , even leading to a total communication breakdown. 7 bound rootBound root refers to the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total 【答案】loss of identity, and this base form could not occur alone, such as “-ceive” in “receive”. 8 subordination【答案】 Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. Thus the subordinate constituents are words which modify the Head. Consequently, they can be called modifiers. In the phrase swimming in the lake , swimming is the head and in the lake are the words modifying the head. 9 Arbitrariness【答案】 Arbitrariness : Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs have no natural relationship to their meaning. Arbitrariness of language makes it potentially creative , a conventionality of language makes a language be passed from generation to generation. For example, it is unable to explain why a book is called a /buk/ and a pen a /pen/. 10Phatic function （ communion ）【答案】 Phatic function: The phatic function of language refers to the use of the language which often consists of small , seemingly meaningless expression for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts rather than for exchanging information or ideas. For example , greetings , farewells , and comments on the weather in English could serve this function. 二、Short-answer-questions11What are the differences between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds in terms of articulation?【答案】 When the vocal cords are spread apart , the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless, consonants p, s, t are produced in this way; but when the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through , creating a vibration effect. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced b, z, d are voiced consonants. 12It is claimed in sociolinguistics that you are what you say. How would you comment on this theoretical claim?【答案】 Everyone speaks differently. A personal dialect of an individual speaker combines elements regarding regional, social, gender, and age variations. In other words, an individual speaker regional and social back ground, his/her gender and age j