资源描述:
《英语语言学常见名词解释Linguistics 自考语言学,考研专业课必备.doc》由会员上传分享,免费在线阅读,更多相关内容在应用文档-天天文库。
1、英语语言学常见名词解释1.Whatislanguage?“Languageissystemofarbitraryvocalsymbolsusedforhumancommunication.Itisasystem,sincelinguisticelementsarearrangedsystematically,ratherthanrandomly.Arbitrary,inthesensethatthereisusuallynointrinsicconnectionbetweenawork(like“book”)andtheobjectitrefersto.Thisexplainsand
2、isexplainedbythefactthatdifferentlanguageshavedifferent“books”:“book”inEnglish,“livre”inFrench,“shu”inChinese.Itissymbolic,becausewordsareassociatedwithobjects,actions,ideasetc.bynothingbutconvention.Namely,peopleusethesoundsorvocalformstosymbolizewhattheywishtoreferto.Itisvocal,becausesoundors
3、peechistheprimarymediumforallhumanlanguages.Writingsystemscamemuchlaterthanthespokenforms.Thefactthatsmallchildrenlearnandcanonlylearntospeak(andlisten)beforetheywrite(andread)alsoindicatesthatlanguageisprimarilyvocal,ratherthanwritten.Theterm“human”inthedefinitionismeanttospecifythatlanguageis
4、humanspecific.2.Whataredesignfeaturesoflanguage?“Designfeatures”hererefertothedefiningpropertiesofhumanlanguagethattellthedifferencebetweenhumanlanguageandanysystemofanimalcommunication.Theyarearbitrariness,duality,productivity,displacement,culturaltransmissionandinterchangeability3.Whatisarbit
5、rariness?By“arbitrariness”,wemeanthereisnologicalconnectionbetweenmeaningsandsounds.Adogmightbeapigifonlythefirstpersonorgroupofpersonshaduseditforapig.Languageisthereforelargelyarbitrary.Butlanguageisnotabsolutelyseemtobesomesound-meaningassociation,ifwethinkofechowords,like“bang”,“crash”,“roa
6、r”,whicharemotivatedinacertainsense.Secondly,somecompounds(wordscompoundedtobeoneword)arenotentirelyarbitraryeither.“Type”and“write”areopaqueorunmotivatedwords,while“type-writer”islessso,ormoretransparentormotivatedthanthewordsthatmakeit.Sowecansay“arbitrariness”isamatterofdegree.4.Whatisdualit
7、y?Linguistsrefer“duality”(ofstructure)tothefactthatinalllanguagessofarinvestigated,onefindstwolevelsofstructureorpatterning.Atthefirst,higherlevel,languageisanalyzedintermsofcombinationsofmeaningfulunits(suchasmorphemes,wordsetc.)