Chapter 1:  Introduction

Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language.

            sound    phonetics    语音学        [fəu'netiks]

          phonology   音位学        [fəu'nɔlədʒi]

Linguistics   form     morphology  词法学          [mɔ:'fɔlədʒi]

                     syntax      句法学         ['sintæks]

            meaning  semantics    语义学              [si'mæntiks]

                     pragmatics   语用学              [præg'mætiks]

Phonetics is the study of how sounds are produced, transmitted and received.

Phonology is the study of the function of sounds and their patterns of combination.

Morphology is the study of how words are formed.

Syntax is the study of how sentences are formed.

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.

Pragmatics is the study of how language is used to bring about successful communication.

（上面6个是语言学的核心）

还有3个非核心的：

●Sociolinguistics（社会语言学）：is the study of all social aspects of language and its relation with society.

●Psycholinguistics(心理语言学)：is the study of language processing, the processes of language comprehension and production. (语言加工，语言理解与产生的过程)

●Applied linguistics(应用语言学)：is the study of the application of linguistic theories and principles to language teaching, especially the teaching of foreign and second language. (把语言学的原理应用到语言教学)

 

Some important distinctions in linguistics 语言学的重要区分 （6个）

1. prescriptive（规定性研究）vs. descriptive （描述性研究）[pri'skriptiv] [di'skriptiv]

  If a linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive.

If the linguistic study aims to lay down（制定） rules for “correct and standard” behavior in using language, it is said to be prescriptive.

  Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive.

2. Synchronic vs. Diachronic“共时”和 “历时” [siŋ'krɔnik, sin-] [,daiə'krɔnik,-kəl]

  Synchronic is the study of a language at one point of time.

  Diachronic is the study of a language over a period of time.

3. Speech and writing

  回答P12的第五题：

  For what reasons does modern linguistics give priority to speech rather to wring?

  Or: why is speech primary and writing secondary?

  Key:

①Historically, speech is prior to writing. The writing system of any language is always invented by its users to record speech when the need arises.

②Functionally, in everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.

  ③Biologically, speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongue, and writing is learned and taught later in school.

4. langue & parole “语言”和“言语” [lɑ:ŋɡ]  [pə'rəul]

  Swiss linguist F. de Saussure: father/founder of modern linguistics

  其著作：Course in General Linguistics

  Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of language in actual use.

5. Competence and performance 语言能力和语言运用

  第二位语言学家American linguist N. Chomsky

Competence is the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language.

Performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.

6. Traditional grammar and modern linguistics

   回答P12的第3题：

   In what ways does modern linguistics differ from traditional grammar?

   Or: how is traditional grammar different from modern linguistics?

Key:

Firstly, modern linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive.

Secondly, modern linguistics thinks that speech is primary, not the written. Traditional grammarians tend to emphasize, may be over-emphasize, the importance of the writing.

Thirdly, traditional grammar forces language into a Latin-based framework while modern linguistics does not.

 

 

Definition of language:

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

 

Design features of language 语言的结构特征

●Arbitrariness 任意性--- the form of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning. The link between them is a matter of convention.

●Productivity  创造性--- language is simultaneously organized at two levels or layers, namely, the level of sounds and that of meaning.

●Duality [dju:'æləti]双重性---  language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.

●Displacement 不受时空的限制--- human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present at the moment of communication.

●Cultural transmission 文化传递---language is passed on from one generation to the next through teaching and learning.

(如果只有5分答五个词即可，如果超过5分则答多点)

 

Chapter 2   Phonology

Articulatory phonetics is the study of how sounds are produced. (发音语音学)

[ə'ku:stik] Acoustic phonetics is the study of how sounds are transmitted. (声学语音学)

Auditory phonetics is the study of how sounds are received. (听觉语音学)

['ɔ:ditəri]

Organs of speech 发音部位:

●The pharyngeal cavity 咽腔          [,færin'dʒi:əl] ['kævəti]

●The oral cavity       口腔

●The nasal cavity      鼻腔              ['neizəl]

 

Orthographic representation of speech sounds (语音表示法) [,ɔ:θəu'ɡræfik]

●Broad transcription(宽式音标) is transcription with letter-symbols only.

                                              (只有字母符号)

●Narrow transcription(严式音标) is transcription with letter-symbols together

with the diacritics.    （加上翻译符号）

 

Vowels (元音) are speech sounds in which air stream is not blocked at all.

Consonants（辅音）['kɔnsənənt] are speech sounds in which air stream is partially or completely blocked.

vowel description元音的分布：

①the position of highest part of the tongue :front, central, back  根据位置

②close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels, and open vowels 根据开口

③the shape of the lips: rounded, unrounded 圆唇、非圆唇

 

Monophthongs 单元音['mɔnəfθɔŋ]

Diphthongs 双元音 （共8个）：['difθɔŋ, dip-]

 

 

Phoneme is the smallest distinctive unit in the sound system of a language. ['fəuni:m]

(音位是语言语音系统中区分意义最小的单位)

Allophone is the realization of a particular phoneme.

(一个音位的具体的体现叫音位变体)

Phone is the realization of any phoneme. (任何一个音位的变体都可以叫音素)

 

2.3.3 Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, and minimal pair

If they are allophones of the same phoneme, then they do not distinguish meaning, but complement each other in distribution. So the allophones are said to be in complementary distribution. 在语言学中，当两个语言成分（辅音、元音、词素等）不能在同一个环境中出现，即处于互补分布。互补分布（complementary distribution）是指音位变体之间的关系，同一个音位的不同变体在语音组合中永远不会出现在相同的位置上，它们没有区别意义的作用。

When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair最小对立体. 最小对立体指除了出现在同一位置上的一个音之外其余都相同的两个语音组合

When three or more different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the three or more sound combinations are said to form a minimal set.

 

2.3.4 Some rules in phonology 音位学的三个原则                          （P₂₆）

●Sequential rules   顺序规则[si'kwenʃəl]

●Assimilation rule  同化规则 （受相邻音的影响）[ə,simi'leiʃən]

●Deletion rule     不发音规则[di'li:ʃən]

 

suprasegmental features 超切分特征-------stress重音, tone声调, intonation语调    [,sju:prəseɡ'mentəl]                            （P₂₈）

 

Chapter 3 morphology

Open class words: are those in which new words can be added, such as nons, verbs, and adjectives.  开放性                             （P₃₃）

Closed class words: are those in which new words can’t be added, such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and prons. 封闭性           （P₃₃）

 

Morpheme: is the minimal unit of meaning in the form/grammatical system of a language. ['mɔ:fi:m]词素是一个语言的语法形式系统中有意义的最小的单位。

一个词有几个词素不是看长短而是看意义。

如:went有2个词素；dismiss只有一个词素；men’s 有3个词素

 

Prefixes are morphemes that occur only before other morphemes. 前缀

Suffixes are morphemes that occur only after other morphemes.  后缀

 

Derivational morpheme: 派生词素  构成新词

prefix: change meaning   dis-; un-; mis-

suffix: change part of speech    -ly; -ness; -tion

Inflectional morpheme:  屈折词素  不构成新词

E.g. workers，children; walking, walked; biggest ; John’s

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5 Semantics

Some views concerning the study of meaning           （P₆₈）

The naming theory 命名论

The conceptualist view  概念论[kən'septjuəlist]

Contextualism  语境论[kɔn'tekstjuəlizəm]

Behaviorism  行为主义

 

Sense意义 and reference  语义         （P₇₁）

Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it’s abstract and de-contextualized. 意义是词汇内在的，抽象的游离于语境之外的意义

Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world.

词汇在特定的语境中所指称的具体事物。

Major sense relations 主要语义关系                     （P₇₂）

Synonymy 同义关系[si'nɔnimi]

Polysemy  一词多义[,pɔli'si:mi,

Homonymy 同音/形异义[hɔ'mɔnimi]

Hyponymy 上下关系[hai'pɔnimi]

Antonymy 反义词[æn'tɔnimi]

Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning.

Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms. 要记住一些同义词

Polysemy means that the same one word may have more than one meaning.

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

   When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones. 同音异义

   （rain/reign   night/knight  piece/peace leak/leek ）

   When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. 同形异义

    (bow v./bow n.   tear v./tear n.   lead v./lead n.)

   When two words are identical in both spelling and sound, they are complete homonyms. 完全同音同形异义词

    (fast adj./fast v.   scale v./scale n.)

Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general word and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate上义词, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms下义词.

                           season

               spring  summer  autumn  winter

    meronymy 部分与整体

                            year

               spring  summer  autumn  winter

    如何判断是上下关系还是部分与整体关系：如果能加a kind of是上下关系，如果能加a part of是部分与整体关系。

Antonymy： Words that are opposite in meaning are antonyms.

① Gradable antonymy (mainly adj.)  可分等级的反义词

good/ bad,  long /short, narrow/ wide

② Complementary antonymy  互补反义词    没有比较级和最高级

③ Converse antonymy (relational opposites) 关系反义词 互为前提

 

Chapter 6 Pragmatics

Context 语境，上下文various components of shared knowledge have been identified, e.g. knowledge of the language they use, knowledge of what has been said before, knowledge about the world in general, knowledge about the specific situation in which linguistic communication is taking place, and knowledge about each other.  （P₈₅）

 

简答How are sentence meaning and uttering meaning related, and how do they differ? （P₉₄）

If we take “the dog is barking” as a grammatical unit and consider it as a self-contained unit in isolation from context, then we are treating it as a sentence. If we take it as something a speaker utters in a certain situation with a certain purpose, then we are treating it as an utterance. Therefore, while the meaning of a sentence is abstract, and decontextualizd, that of an utterance is concrete, and contextdependent. The meaning of an utterance is based on sentence meaning; it is the realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication. （P₈₆）

 

According to Austin, what are the three acts a person is possibly performing while making an utterance. Give an example.  （P₉₄）

According to Austin, a speaker might be performing 3 acts simultaneously while speaking: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.

A locutionary act is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology.

An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention;

A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something.

e.g. You have left the door wide open

The locutionary act performed by the speaker is his utterance of all the words “you”, “left”, “door”, “open”, etc. thus expressing what the words literally mean.

The illocutionary act performed by the speaker is that by marking such an utterance he has expressed his intention of speaking.

The perlocutionary act refers to the effect of the utterance. If the hearer gets the speaker’s message and sees that the speaker means to tell him close the door, the speaker has successfully brought about the change in the real world he has intended to; then the perlocutionary act is successfully performed.

 

Principle of conversation     （P₉₂）

The maxim of quantity

The maxim of quality

The maxim of relation

The maxim of manner

 

Chapter 7 language change

Changes in the meaning of words     （P₁₀₃）

Widening of meaning    (holiday)

Narrowing of meaning   (deer meat corn girl)

Meaning shift词义升格  （Nice  silly）

 

Chapter 9 language and culture

What is culture?             （P₁₂₇）

Culture, in a broad sense, means the total way of life a people, including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characterizes the life of the human community.

 

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis语言相对性（P₁₃₀）

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a hypothesis proposed by Sapir and Whorf that the structure of the language people habitually use influences the ways they think and behave.

 

Chapter 10 language acquisition 语言习得

Language acquisition refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community. （P₁₄₃）

 

Theories of child language acquisition    （P₁₄₃）

Generally speaking, there are mainly three different theories concerning how language is learned, namely the behaviorist行为主义, the innatist语法天生主义者, the interactioanist views互动论.

 

Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is an imaginary “black box” existing somewhere in the human brain, which is said to contain principle that are universal to all human languages.    （P₁₄₅）

 

Chapter 11  second language acquisition 第二语言习得

 

Second language acquisition（SLA）refers to the systematic study of how one person acquires a second language subsequent to his native language. （P₁₅₉）

 

Positive transfer is a kind of transfer that facilitates target language learning.

Negative transfer is a kind of transfer interferes with target language learning. （P₁₆₁）

 

区别mistake 和error       （P₁₆₄）

While errors defined as unintentionally deviant from the target language and not self-corrigible by the learner suggest failure in competence, mistakes as either intentionally or unintentionally deviant forms and self-corrigible suggest failure in performance.

 

 

Interlanguage 中介语  （P₁₆₄）

Interlanguage is learners’ independent system of the second language which id neither native language nor second language, but a continuum or approximation from his native language to the target language.

 

Input hypothesis 对应 output hypothesis             （P₁₆₈）

Acquisition     对应 learning

 

 

What is psycholinguistics? 心理语言学

Psycholinguistics is the study of language processing, the processes of language of comprehension and production. 语言加工，语言的理解与产生的过程。