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1、语言学教程（胡壮麟）Chapterone.InvitationtoLinguistic.1.Whatislanguage?“Languageissystemofarbitraryvocalsymbolsusedforhumancommunication.Itisasystem,sincelinguisticelementsarearrangedsystematically,ratherthanrandomly.Arbitrary,inthesensethatthereisusuallynointrinsicconnectionbetweenawork(like“book”)andtheobj
2、ectitrefersto.Thisexplainsandisexplainedbythefactthatdifferentlanguageshavedifferent“books”:“book”inEnglish,“livre”inFrench,“shu”inChinese.Itissymbolic,becausewordsareassociatedwithobjects,actions,ideasetc.bynothingbutconvention.Namely,peopleusethesoundsorvocalformstosymbolizewhattheywishtoreferto.
3、Itisvocal,becausesoundorspeechistheprimarymediumforallhumanlanguages.Writingsystemscamemuchlaterthanthespokenforms.Thefactthatsmallchildrenlearnandcanonlylearntospeak(andlisten)beforetheywrite(andread)alsoindicatesthatlanguageisprimarilyvocal,ratherthanwritten.Theterm“human”inthedefinitionismeantto
4、specifythatlanguageishumanspecific.2.DesignFeaturesofLanguage.“Designfeatures”hererefertothedefiningpropertiesofhumanlanguagethattellthedifferencebetweenhumanlanguageandanysystemofanimalcommunication.Theyarearbitrariness,duality,productivity,displacement,culturaltransmissionandinterchangeability(1)
5、Arbitrariness:By“arbitrariness”,wemeanthereisnologicalconnectionbetweenmeaningsandsounds.(2)Duality:Thepropertyofhavingtwolevelsofstructures(phonologicalandgrammatical),unitsoftheprimarylevelbeingcomposedofelementsofthesecondarylevelandeachlevelhavingitsownprinciplesoforganization.(3)Productivity:P
6、roductivityreferstotheabilitytotheabilitytoconstructandunderstandanindefinitelylargenumberofsentencesinone’snativelanguage,includingthosethathasneverheardbefore,butthatareappropriatetothespeakingsituation.Thepropertythatenablesnativespeakerstoconstructandunderstandanindefinitelylargenumberofutteran
7、ces,includingutterancesthattheyhaveneverpreviouslyencountered.(4)Displacement:“Displacement”,asoneofthedesignfeaturesofthehumanlanguage,referstothefactthatonecantalkaboutthingsthatarenotpresent,aseasilyashe
