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Chapter One Invitation to Linguistics

The definition of language

Language and

Linguistics

Arbitrariness

Language

Linguistics

Duality

The design features of language

Functions of language

Halliday’s view（3点）

Basic functions（7 点）

Definition of Linguistics

Microlinguistics/general (theoretical) linguistics（6 点）

Macrolinguistics/applied linguistics

Major distinctions in

linguistics

Productivity

Displacement

Cultural transmission

Descriptive VS Prescriptive

Competence VS performance

Diachronic VS Synchronic

Langue VS Parole

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How do you define “language” ? (What is your understanding of “language”?)

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

Language is human-specific; Language is systematic because it is rule-governed;

Language is vocal because speech is primary medium for all languages; Arbitrariness

is also one important element of the definition and it means the forms of linguistic

signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.

What are the design features of language?

Arbitrariness: Saussure first refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no

natural relationship to their meaning. For instance, we cannot explain why a book is

called a /buk/.and a pen is called a/ pen/.

Duality: It means the property of having two levels of structures, and units of the

primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two

levels has its own principles of organization. E.g. the elements of the spoken language

are sounds which do not convey meaning in themselves. The only function of sounds

is to combine with one another to form units that have meaning, such as words. We

call sounds here secondary units as opposed to such primary units as words.

Productivity (creativity): It refers to fact that a native speaker is able to construct and

understand an infinitely large number of sentences. Language is resourceful because

of its duality and its recursiveness. (In another sense, it refers to its potential to create

endless sentences. For example, she met her mom who was talking to a guy

who…….)

Displacement: it means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects,

events and concepts which are not present in time or space at the moment of

communication. For example, we can talk about an event that happened long before.

Cultural transmission: Language is not biologically transmitted. Instead, it is

culturally transmitted from generation to generation through teaching and learning.

What is the importance of design features? And do you think design features are

language-specific?

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(思考)

Why do you think creativity is a design feature, please give examples?(思考)

Why do we say human languages are radically different from animal calls?

（思考）

What are the basic functions of language?

The informative function and it is the most important function of language. It means

that language is instrumental and used to communicate new information.

The Interpersonal function; it means people use language to establish and maintain

their status in a society. For example, the ways in which people address others Dear

Professor.

Тhе реrfоrmаtіvе funсtіоn; it іѕ primarily to change the social status of a person, as

in marriage ceremonies, the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children, the

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naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, and the cursing of enemies.

The emotive function: The emotive function is one of the most powerful uses of

language because it is so crucial in changing the emotional status of the audience for

or against someone or something. E.g. curse words such as damn it, hell and

exclamation such as Wow, what a sight.

The phatic communion: It refers to the social interaction of language and it enables

people to maintain a comfortable relationship without involving any factual content.

E.g. In America, when people hear someone sneeze, they tend to say” God bless you”

Recreational function it refers to the use of language for the sheer joy of using it,

such as a baby's babbling or a chanter's chanting.

Metalingual function; it means that we can use language to talk about language itself.

E.g. we can also use the expression “the word book” to talk about the word “book”

itself.

What is the Halliday’s classification of language functions?

Ideational function: It refers to the fact that language has the function to convey new

information, to communicate a content that is unknown to the hearer.

Interpersonal function: It refers to the fact that language has the function to embody

all uses of language to express social and personal relations. This includes the various

ways the speaker enters a speech situation and performs a speech act.

Textual function: It refers to the fact that language has mechanisms to make any

stretch of spoken or written discourse into a coherent and unified text. E.g. A wife said

to her husband “ The phone is ringing.” The husband replied “I am in the bathroom”.

The two sentences are seemingly unconnected but the conversation is coherent.

Why do we say linguistics is the scientific study of language?

The word “study” does not mean “learn” but mean “investigate” That is to say. It does

not study any particular language, and it studies general features all of languages. It is

scientific because linguistic study is based on the systematic investigation of data,

following certain procedures: data observation, data generalization, hypothesis

formulation, hypothesis testing. The four principles that make linguistics a science are

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exhaustiveness consistency, economy and objectivity.

What do you think the uses of linguistics? (Do you think linguistics is useful or

practical in life? )

Firstly, linguistics helps us understand ourselves. As we know, only human beings are

endowed with the ability to speak, to create and to understand an infinite number of

sentences, so language is human-specific and different from animal calls. Thus, the

scientific study on language, such as TG grammar, can shed some light on the nature

of not only language but also human being.

Secondly, linguistics is definitely helpful for people to understand and use language

better. Pragmatic knowledge such as cooperation principle, speech act theory and

politeness principle helps us understand the regularity and nature of conversation.

Studies on conceptual metaphors also reveal how their application makes our speech

more persuasive.

Thirdly, linguistics can also help solve some practical problems related to language.

There are a number of such fields where application of linguistic knowledge is needed,

foreign language teaching and learning, for example, mainly resorts to linguistics.

Therefore, linguistic knowledge is more important and necessary for the students of

foreign languages. Besides, language planning, language revival, language

maintenance in sociolinguistics also deal with problems related to our life.

Talk about your understanding of “general linguistics”?

It is also called microlinguistics. It deals with the basic concepts, theories,

descriptions and methods of language study. It aims at developing a theory that

describes the rules of human language in general. Major branches of general

linguistics include Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and

Pragmatics.

How do you understand “applied linguistics”?

Applied linguistics is also called macrolinguistics sometimes. As its name suggests, it

is about the application of linguistic theories and findings. In early stage, applied

linguistics was mainly concerned with language learning and teaching. Nowadays, it

relates linguistics to the research of other areas. Sociolinguistics, anthropological

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linguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, and so on all belong to

applied linguistics.

How does general linguistics differ from applied linguistics?

(思考)

Is linguistics more descriptive or prescriptive? and why?

In most cases, linguistics is more descriptive than prescriptive. Descriptive is to

describe how things are. E.g. People don’t say X. While, Prescriptive is to prescribe

what things ought to be. E.g. Don’t say X. Unlike traditional grammar, Linguistics is a

descriptive science because the linguist tries to discover and record rules of language

rather than lay down rules for standard use of language. And they endeavor to state

objectively the regularities of language and explain why.

What is the distinction between synchronic and diachronic?

A Synchronic description takes a fixed instant as its point of observation. For example,

“The Structure of Shakespeare’s English’’ is a synchronic description of a past state of

the language.

Diachronic linguistics is the study of language over time. E.g. A study of changes in

English since Middle Age would be a diachronic study.

(Why modern linguistics is more synchronic than diachronic? A: Because linguists are

more interested in the study of contemporary language than in the study of the

evolution of language.)

What are Competence and performance? (Chomsky’s theories 的一部分)

Competence and performance are proposed by Chomsky who looks at language from

a psychological point of view.

Competence refers to a language user's underlying knowledge about the system of

rules. Performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations.

Chomsky thinks that what linguists should study is the speaker's competence, not his

performance.

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What are langue and parole? (Saussure’s theories 的一部分)

This distinction is made by Swiss linguist Saussure who looks at language from a

sociolinguistic point of view.

Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech

community. It is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to

abide by. It is abstract and relatively stable. Parole refers to the realization of langue

in actual use. It is the concrete use of conventions and the application of the rules.

What are the features of modern linguistics?(思考题)

What do you think of Saussure’s langue and parole and Chomsky’s competence

and performance?

Chomsky's distinction apparently corresponds in some degree to that of Saussure. It

represents a similar classification of knowledge and behavior and a similar dichotomy

of the scope of linguistic inquiry. However, their views are not exactly the same.

Chomsky's competence is a psychological construct and de Saussure's langue is a set

of social conventions. There are other minor differences, but perhaps the underlying

considerations are the same. Whether we adopt a psychological view or a sociological

one, the principle is to abstract rules from immediately observable language use and

try to describe the system governing particular examples of speaking or writing.

How do you distinguish schools of linguistics from branches of linguistics?

Schools of linguistics are divided by views of language and methodology of research

while branches of linguistics are divided by subject matters. The same aspect of

language may be the subject matter of different schools of linguistics. For example,

syntactic structure is studied both in transformational-generative grammar and in

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systemic-functional grammar, and the findings are quite different. The two types of

grammar adopt different perspectives in studying syntactic structure, and what has

been generalized is necessarily different. This does not mean they are contradictory;

they are complementary.

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Chapter two speech sounds

Phonetics and

Phonology

Phonetics

Phonology

Articulatory phonetics

Acoustic phonetics

Auditory phonetics

Speech organs

Consonants (3)

Vowels (4)

RP VS GA

Speech sounds

transcription (2)

Phonological

theory

Minimal pair

Phone, phoneme, allophone

Phonetic contrast and free variation

Complementary distribution

Suprasegmental

Distinctive features

Phonological process

Assimilation

Deletion

Epenthesis

Phonological rules

Tone

Intonation

Stress

Syllable

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How is phonetics different from or similar to phonology?

Both phonetics and phonology studies speech sounds. Phonetics studies how speech

sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived. It also studies the description and

classification of speech sounds. Phonetics includes three branches: articulatory

phonetics, auditory phonetics, and acoustic phonetics. Phonology is not very

concerned with the physical properties of the speech production. It studies the rules

governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape

of syllables.

What are consonants and vowels?

…..

A consonant is a speech sound where the airstream from the lungs is either completely

blocked (e.g. [p] and [b]), partially blocked (e.g. [l]) or where the opening is so

narrow that the air escapes with audible friction (e.g. [f] and [v])

A vowel is a speech sound in which the airstream from the lungs is not blocked in any

way in the mouth or throat, and which is usually pronounced with vibration of the

vocal cords. .(classification and description)

( an obstruction of airstream in vocal tract)

How to describe a vowel or a consonant?

C: consonants are usually described from three aspects: Manner of articulation, place

of articulation, and voicing.

For instance: the consonant [b] is a voiced bilabial stop.

V: Vowels are differentiated by a number of factors:

(1) The height of the tongue raising -high, middle or low,

(2) The position of the highest part of the tongue -front, central or back,

(3) The length of the sound –tense (long), lax (short),

(4) The shape of the lips -rounded, unrounded.

For example, [i:] is a high front tense unrounded vowel.

The dividing line between consonants and vowels is clear-cut?(思考)

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How are speech sounds transcribed?

There are two ways to transcribe speech sounds. One is called phonemic transcription.

Using letter-symbols only, it is placed between slant lines. The other is phonetic

transcription. With letter-symbols and diacritics, it can bring out the finer distinctions

and it is placed between square brackets. For example, the word peak can be

transcribed in both ways differently.

What is phoneme? Why can it distinguish meaning?

It is a basic unit of phonological study, and it is usually regarded as the smallest

linguistic unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning.

Phonemes can distinguish meaning because a phoneme is a collection of distinctive

features. By distinctive features, one phoneme can be distinguished from another. For

instance, /p/ is a voiceless bilabial stop while /b/ is a voiced bilabial stop. In minimal

pair test, because /p/ and /b/ are two different phonemes, “pit” is distinguished from

“bit”.

How do you understand “allophone”?

It refers to the different phones representing a phoneme in different phonetic

environments. They can also be understood as variants of the same phoneme. In the

words peak and speak, the morpheme /p/ has two allophones an aspirated ‘p’ and an

unaspirated ‘p’.

What is a minimal pair and what is used for?

When two different phonetic forms are identical in every way except for one sound

segment which occurs in the same place in the string, the two forms are said to form a

minimal pair, e. g. pill and bill. Minimal pairs test can be used to find out which sound

substitutions cause differences of meaning. It leads to the identification of Phonemes.

In the minimal pair pill and bill, phonemes /p/ and /b/ are distinguished.

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Explain the term complementary distribution?

It refers to the relation between sounds whose distribution never overlaps. Allophones

of the same phoneme never occur in the same context, then the allophones are said to

be in complementary distribution. For example, [p] and [ph] in the word speak and

peak are in complementary distribution. However, sounds in complementary

distribution are not necessarily allophones of the same phoneme.

What is phonemic contrast?

If two or more sounds can occur in the same environment and the substitution of one

sound for another brings about a change of meaning, they are in contrastive

distribution. Obviously, the different sounds involved in a minimal pair, such as [p] in

pet and [b] in bet are in contrastive distribution because substituting [p] for [b] will

result in a change of meaning.

How would distinguish contrastive distribution from complementary

distribution?(思考)

What is your understanding of phonological process?

It refer to the processes in which a target or affected segment undergoes a structural

change in certain environments, in each process the change is conditioned or triggered

by a neighboring sound. Assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, epenthesis (insertion),

metathesis are all phonological processes.

Present some examples of assimilation.

Assimilation is a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics

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of a neighboring sound in phonology such as Nasalization in the word ‘can’. And

devoicing is also a kind of assimilation. It refers to the process where a voiced sound

becomes a voiceless sound. For example, in “five past”, the voiced consonant /v/

becomes a voiceless sound /f/.

What are suprasegmentals?

Suprasegmentals are called suprasegmental features. They are those aspects of speech

that involve more than single sound segments. The principal suprasegmentals are

syllable, stress, tone, and intonation.

Explain the structure of “syllable”.

Syllable can be divided into onset, nucleus and coda. Nucleus is a must, and the last

two together is called rhyme or rime. All syllables must have a nucleus but not all

syllables contain an onset and a coda. A syllable that has no coda is called an open

syllable, while a syllable with coda is known as closed syllable.

How are consonants classified?

In terms of manners of voicing, consonants can be divided into voiced and voiceless

consonants.

According to manners of articulation, consonants can be stops, nasals, fricatives,

affricatives etc.

By means of places of articulation, consonants can be categorized into bilabials,

labiodentals, dentals, alveolars, velars etc.

How do vowels differ from consonants?

（思考）

What do you think are the major phonological differences between English and

Chinese?

（思考）

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Chapter 3Words and Morphology

Morphology

Words

Morpheme

Morphological

Process

Lexeme and lexicon

Classification of words

The new categories of words

Definition of morpheme

Stem and root

Bound and free morpheme

Classification of affix

Definition of Morphology and Morphological Process

Minor Morphological Process

Major Morphological Process

Definition of word

Allomorph

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What is your understanding of the definition of word?

As the smallest free units of language, words unite sounds with meaning. The total

number of words stored in the brain is called (mental) lexicon, which can be

understood as a mental dictionary.

A word contains one or more morphemes that can stand on its own. “Stand alone”

means no pause will fall within a word when it is pronounced. It can also mean that a

word cannot be divided by inserting an extra word in it.

Say something about morphological study ( Explain Morphology).

Morphology is concerned with the internal organization of words. It studies the

minimal units of meaning- morphemes and word-formation processes.

(Morphology, as a sub-branch of linguistics, primarily studies the internal structure of

words and the rules by which words are formed. Generally speaking, morphology can

be further divided into two broad categories, namely, inflectional morphology and

derivational morphology, which are both concerned with the smallest unit at the

grammatical level.)

Explain how words are classified.

In terms of variability, words can be divided into variable words and invariable words.

In terms of meaning expressed by words, they can be divided into grammatical words

and lexical words.

In terms of membership, words can be divided into closed-class words and open-class

words.

Based on Latin tradition, eight or nine word classes are established: “ noun”,

“ pronoun”, “adjective”, “verb”, “adverb”, “preposition”, “conjunction”, “interjection”

and “article”.

How do content words differ from function words?

Content words, also called lexical words , usually express semantic content or lexical

meanings such as substance, action and quality.

Function words specify grammatical relations and have little or no semantic content.

They are also referred to as grammatical words.

What is your understanding of the meaning of word?

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The meaning of a word is usually analyzed in terms of grammatical meaning and

semantic meaning.

On the one hand, word is a grammatical unit because it possesses some grammatical

features. “Book” is a noun, a countable noun.

On the other hand, a word expresses concrete and semantic meaning such as

substance, action and quality. Book is something one can read.

It’s worth noting that some words only have grammatical meaning. For example, “it”

in the sentence “it is hard to get there”.

Make a brief introduction about the newly introduced categories

They are particles, auxiliaries, pro-forms and determiners.

A particle is an adverb or a preposition that can combine with a verb to make a

phrasal verb. For example“by” in phrasal verb such as get by.

Auxiliaries are unique kind of verbs showing tense, degree of certainty etc. For

example, modal auxiliaries (can, shall, ought to, etc )

A Pro-form is like a pronoun used to substitute for a word.

(Pro-adjective: Your pen is red. So is mine.

Pro-verb: He knows English better than he did.

Pro-adverb: He hopes he’ll win and I hope so too.

Pro-locative: James’s hiding there, behind the door.)

Determiners are used before the noun acting as head of a noun phrase and determine

the kind of reference the noun phrase has. They are grouped into predeterminers,

central determiners and postdeterminers. In the NP all my other friends

What is lexeme?

Lexeme refers to the notion of word in an abstract sense. A lexeme can be understood

as a family of words that differ only in their grammatical ending. The concrete words

perform, performs, performed and performing can be seen as forms of the lexeme

PERFROM.

What is morpheme, and how can it be classified?

Morpheme can be understood as the smallest unit of language that has its own

meaning. (a smallest meaningful unit)

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Semantically:

Structurally:

Explain the term ALLOMORPH with proper examples

The different morphs of the same morpheme are called allomorphs. The choice

between them is determined by the context. For instance, the English prefix in- has

four allomorphs in words “impossible, irregular, illegal, incorrect.” The plural form of

English countable nouns is also a morpheme which has three allomorphs:[s] in cats, [z]

beds and [iz] in horses.

What is affix and its classification?

An affix is a bound morpheme that cannot serve as a root.

There are prefix (an affix that precedes other morphemes in a word), suffix (an affix

that follows other morphemes in a word), infixes (affixes that are inserted between a

morpheme) and circumfix (a prefix and a suffix simultaneously)

Root

Root is the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total loss of

identity. It is the part that is left when all the affixes are removed. Root can be further

divided into free root and bound root. Bound roots are roots that cannot function as

words independently (astro- in astronaut). Free roots are root that can function as

words. For instance, nation in national. Content words

Stem

When a root is combined with an extra bound morpheme, a stem is formed, which can

be either an independent word, or a base to which an extra bound morpheme can be

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added. It is the part left when all inflectional affixes are removed. For example, in

English the inflectional affix -s can be added to the stem work to form the plural. In

the word ‘works’ the stem is work.

How does a affix differ from a root both semantically and structurally? （思考）

How does derivation differ from inflection?

Though both derivation and inflection involve adding an affix to an existing word,

derivation gives rise to a new lexeme while inflection only yields different word

forms of the same lexeme.

Introduce some word-formation processes

Invention/Coinage: refers to the introduction of a completely new word. E.g. Coke

Cola, Iphone, Ipad.

Blending refers to a process of combining parts of two lexemes which themselves are

not morphemes. The words formed in this process are called blends. A typical

example of blends is the English word brunch, which is the result of combing br- from

breakfast and –unch from lunch.

Back-formation: It refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word

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is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the language.

Take \"televise\" for example, the word \"television\" predated the occurrence of

\"televise\" and “televise” is created from “television”.

Abbreviation: It is also called clipping, referring to the process of shortening of an

existing longer word, often in casual speech. E.g. Info refers to information. Flu for

influenza, fridge for refrigerator etc.

What do you think are the major differences between English and Chinese in

terms of morphology?(思考)

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Chapter 4 From word to Text (syntax)

Syntactic Category

Generative grammar

Phrase structure rule

Syntax

Introduction

Syntactic relation Relation of substitutability

Co-occurrence

Positional relation

Generative approach

Systemic-Functional

approach

Formalism VS Functionalism

Discourse Analysis

Coherence

Cohesion

Traditional approach

Agreement

Category

Word class and Function

Number Gender and Case

Tense, Aspect and Mood.

Structural approach

Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic

IC analysis

Endocentric and Exocentric Constructions

Functional approach

(FSP)

Theme

Rheme

Functional grammar

Systemic grammar

The innateness hypothesis

Deep structure and surface structure

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Make a brief introduction of syntax (What does syntax study?)

Syntax, a branch of general linguistics, refers to the study of the rules governing the

ways different constituents are combined to form sentences in a language. To put it in

a simple way, it is about the study of the formation of sentences. It also studies the

interrelationships between elements in sentence structures. The main approaches to

syntax study are the traditional approach, the structural approach, the generative

approach, the functional approach (the Prague school) and the systemic-functional

grammar ( Halliday's approach).

What is the syntactic relation?

The syntactic relation refers to the relation between words in a sentence, namely

positional relation, relation of substitutability and relation of co-occurrence

Positional relation refers to word order or the sequential arrangement of words in a

language. E.g. English is SVO but for Japanese sometimes it is SOV.

Relation of substitutability: Firstly, it refers to classes or sets of words substitutable

for each other grammatically in sentences with the same structure. E.g. smoking/

/Singing /Sleeping is not allowed in the lecture room.

(Secondly, it refers to groups of more than one word which may be jointly

substitutable grammatically for a single word of a particular set. E.g He went there

yesterday/last week/the day before.)

Co-occurrence: It means that words of different sets may permit, or require, the

occurrence of a word of another set or class to form a sentence or a particular part of a

sentence. For instance, a co-occurs with boy, but not with information. The word”

look” co-occurs with at usually. She looks at me.

Introduce some schools of grammar

Among all schools of grammar, four appear to be well recognized, namely, traditional

grammar, structural grammar, transformational generative grammar and

systemic-functional grammar.

Traditional grammar was initially based on European languages, particularly on

Latin and Greek. It is widely used in language teaching, thus termed pedagogic

grammar. In traditional grammar a sentence is seen as a sequence of words. The study

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of sentence formation, therefore, involves a great deal of study of the word, such as

the classification of words in terms of parts of speech and functions.

Its weaknesses are exposed by modern linguists. Firstly, it is prescriptive in nature,

attempting to lay down rules for speakers of a language. Secondly, its grammatical

categories are merely based on European languages and are found inadequate in

describing other languages. Thirdly, it lacks a theoretical framework and thus fails to

account for the nature of language.

What is the relation between (word) class and functions?

Classes and functions determine each other, but not in a one to one relation.

A class item can perform several functions. For instance, a noun or nominal phrase

can function as the subject, object, modifier, adverbial, complement etc.

Similarly, a function can be fulfilled by several classes. For instance, the subject of a

sentence can be realized by a noun, pronoun, infinitive, etc.

What does category mean in syntax?

The term syntax in some approaches refers to the parts of speech and functions of

words, such as noun, verb, subject, predicate, noun phrase, etc.. More specifically, it

refers to the defining properties of these general units. For example, the categories of

the noun include number, gender, case and countability, and those of the verb are

aspect, tense and voice.

思考： What would you like to say about number and gender as grammatical

categories?

What is the relation between grammar and syntax?

Generally speaking, grammar is a relatively broad concept. Syntax is the central part

of grammar study. Syntax, as we know, studies how words are combined to form

sentences or the internal organization of sentences. In addition to the formation of

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sentences, grammar also studies the internal structure of words such as inflection.

What is the difference between non-finite (clause) and finite (clause)?

Non-finite refers to the verb forms that do not themselves have any time reference

such as (to) write (infinitive), speaking {-ing form) and seen (past participle). Finite

refers to a verb form which shows tense, person and sometimes number. For example

writes or spoke.

How does tense differ from aspect?

Though both tense and aspect are inflectional categories of verb, they show different

functions. Tense indicates the time of an event, etc. in relation to the moment of

speaking. E.g. In English, there are present tense, and simple past tense. Aspect

distinguishes the status of events, etc in relation to specific periods of time. E.g. In

English, there are perfective aspect and progressive aspect.

What is the structural approach to syntax?

The structural approach to the analysis of language was started by Ferdinand de

Saussure. The linguistic theories of this approach regard linguistic units as interrelated

with each other in a structure ( or system) , not as isolated bits.

Explain your understanding of Immediate Constituent Analysis (IC Analysis)?

IC analysis is the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents-word

groups or phrases, which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their

own, and the process goes on until the ultimate constituents are reached. It is usually

conducted in tree diagram or bracket.

Through IC analysis, the internal structure of a sentence may be demonstrated clearly,

and ambiguities, if any, will be revealed. E.g. Leave the book on the shelf.

(Problems: First, at the beginning, some advocates insisted on binary divisions. Any

construction, at any level, will be cut into two parts. But this is not always possible.

Second, constructions with discontinuous constituents (look the word up) will pose

technical problems for tree diagrams in IC analysis. The most serious problem is that

there are structural ambiguities which cannot be revealed by IC analysis. The love of

God)

Explain syntagmatic relation and paradigmatic relation with examples.

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Syntagmatic relation is a relation between elements that form part of the same form,

sequence, construction, etc. For example, the relation between s, p, and r in the word

spring, or between I and like in the sentence I like books is a kind of syntagmatic

relation. Paradigmatic relation is a relation holding between elements replaceable with

each other at a particular place in a structure. For example, in the sentence He/ Lily

likes books. The relation between “He” and “Lily” is a type of paradigmatic relation.

What are tree diagrams used for?

A tree diagram is a formal representation of sentence structure with syntactic

categories provided (it is also referred to as a constituent structure tree). It is widely

applied in IC analysis and Chomsky’s TG grammar. With its help, we can analyze the

structure of sentences and reveal ambiguities if there any. For example, the sentence

“They can fish” is ambiguous. The ambiguity can be shown clearly if the syntactic

category of each constituent is marked.

Tree diagrams can reveal three aspects of speakers' syntactic knowledge:

1) The linear structure of the sentence (i.e. the order of words in the sentences);

2) The hierarchical structure of the sentence (what category is above what other

category and what are its immediate constituents);

3) The lexical category of each word (what class of words each lexical item at the

bottom belongs to)

What is the Generative Approach to Syntax (TG grammar)?

The theory of generative approach originated with the American linguist Noam

Chomsky. He who is well known for his generative grammar (TG grammar) changed

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the direction of linguistics from empiricism towards rationalism. To him, a TG

grammar must account for all grammatical sentences and the grammar is a system of

finite rules by which an infinite number of sentences can be generated. The task for

the linguist is to describe adequately this system of rules and explain how they work.

In 1957, he published Syntactic Structures after that the theory has undergone a

number of changes.

What is the Innateness Hypothesis?

Chomsky believes that language is somewhat innate and that children are born with

what he calls a language acquisition device (LAD), which is a unique kind of

knowledge that fits them for language learning. This is called the Innateness

Hypothesis.

What is generative grammar?

it refers to a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns

structural descriptions to sentences. He believes that every speaker of a language has

internalized a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language.

(Thus, a generative grammar attempts to specify what the speaker actually knows, not

what he may report about his knowledge.)

What is your understanding of phrase structure rules?

In TG grammar, a type of grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of

elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule. To put it in a simply

way, they are rules that govern the structure of phrases and allow for the generation of

grammatical sentences in a language. These rules are part of speakers syntactic

knowledge. Such knowledge exists in the mind of speakers.

What is Deep Structure and Surface Structure?

Deep structure: It refers to the abstract representation of the syntactic properties of a

construction, i. e. the underlying level of structural relations between its different

constituents.

Surface structure: It is the final stage in the syntactic derivation of a construction,

which closely corresponds to the structural organization of a construction people

actually produce.

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For example, the passive sentence “the chair is pushed by you” is a surface structure

coming from the deep structure the active form you push the chair.

What is the possible relation and difference between IC analysis and

transformational grammar?

IC analysis has been very widely used since the L. Bloomfield era. It also underlies

much of Chomsky's theory of trans-formational grammar which developed out of, and

in reaction, to such analyses.

The main difference between Chomsky's phrase structure grammar and constituent

analysis is that phrase structure grammar is a formalized system of rules which

emphasizes the generation of sentences and not the discovery of structures.

What does “grammar” refer to in Chomsky’s transformational grammar ?

The grammar in transformational grammar should be understood in the broadest sense.

It is not the the “grammar” we often talk about in foreign language learning and

teaching. TG grammar includes phonology and semantics; Syntax is its core

component as it has been developed by Chomsky.It provides the generative power of

the model. By this grammar, Chomsky created phrase struture rule, explaining all

sentences.

(Chomsky’s model

In the earliest version of transformational grammar Chomsky put forward a model

which consisted of three parts: a set of phrase structure rules, transformation rules and

morphophonemic rules. The phrase structure rules were based on constituent structure

analysis but formalised as a set of new rules. Chomsky emphasized the generative

aspect of such rules. A transformation rule was a sequence of symbols which could be

rewritten conventionally as a different sequence. The original formulation of the

passive transformation was as follows:

The morphophonemic rules would apply to the output of the transformational rules.

Their function was to provide the correct morphological shape to the various parts of

the structure and finally to give the appropriate phonological description. For example,

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these rules might give the correct past tense form of a verb and its pronunciation, e.g.

turning be + en + V\" in the rule into has been repaired.)

What is universal grammar?

It is a system of linguistic knowledge and a human species-specific gift which exists

in the mind of a normal human being. It can also be understood as a certain set of

structural rules that are innate to humans. It is generally believed that UG consists of

two components: parameter and principle.

Why English is a SVO structure?

It is determined by parameter.

According to Chomsky’s universal Grammar, human language knowledge consists of

two kinds of knowledge: one is genetically endowed and the other is acquired later.

The former is identical when people were born and it is called principle. For example,

all languages have subject and object.

Well the latter is related to a particular language and it is called parameter. It shows

language variations and supercial differences. Parameter explain why English is SOV

strutured while Japanese is SOV.

Functional Approach

The Prague school thinks that a sentence can be analyzed in terms of their function. A

sentence contains a point of departure and a goal of discourse. The point of departure

is equally present to the speaker and to the hearer-it is their rallying point, the ground

on which they meet. This is called the Theme. For example: The thief stole the bag.

\"The thief\" is the departure of the sentence, and the given information of the discourse.

Rheme is the goal of discourse. It presents the very information that is to be imparted

to the hearer. This is called Rheme. For example: The thief stole the bag.\" stole the

bag is the goal of the sentence, and the new information of the discourse.

Systemic-Functional Grammar ( Halliday's Approach)

This linguistic theory has been developed by linguist M. A. K. Halliday. It contains

two parts: systemic grammar and functional grammar. Halliday tried to relate the

functions of language to its structures.

The system is a list of choices that are available in the grammar of a language. For

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example, the number system in English contains two choices : singular and plural.

In the functional grammar, there are three general functions of language: ideational,

interpersonal and textual function.

Explain coordination and subordination with proper examples.

Coordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units which are

usually of equivalent syntactic status, e.g. a series of clauses, or phrases, or words.

The marker of linkage is and, but, and or. For example, John walked and Mary ran.

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. They can be called modifiers.) The boy that we like the most comes.

What are the two camps of (approaches to) Modern linguistics?

Generally speaking, schools of linguistics can be divided into two major camps: One

is functionalism, and the other is formalism.

Functionalism or functional linguistics refers to the study of the forms of language in

reference to their social function in communication. Functionalism tends to explain

the forms of language by attributing a determining role of its function. It holds that the

use of language influences its form. Prague School and Halliday’s systemic-functional

grammar is functional.

Formalism or formal linguistics is the study of the forms of language and their

internal relations. It fixes on the forms of languages without considering how these

forms function in communication and the ways of social life in different communities.

The most out-standing representative of formalism is Noam Chomsky's

transformational-generative grammar (TG grammar). In TG grammar, Chomsky also

stressed that this phrase structure rules were context free, that is, they generated

strings that did not depend on any particular speech situation.

Which linguist do you like the best and why? What kind of theories about the

linguist do you know?

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The linguist I admire best is Chomsky because I am very interested in his idea about

the nature of language grammar. Chomsky is a very famous lingusit known for his TG

grammar. Chomsky sees grammar as a theory of language and an automatic system

capable of generating an infinite set of sentences each with an associated structural

description. Chomsky thinksTG grammar can best explain the language nature, and

how sentences are formed. TG grammar consists of phrase structure and

transformational syntactic rules and contains three levels: phrase structure ，

transformational structure and morphorphonemics rules, which together explain

language generation from pronunciation to morphological level, from words to

sentential formation. The ultimate goal of generative grammar is to devise a theory of

Universal Grammar(UG for short) about the nature of the grammar of human

languages

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Chapter 5 Semantics

Semantics

Theories of meaning

The Referential theory

Sense and reference

The conceptual view (conceptualism)

Contextualism

Semantics

Definition of semantics

Seven types of meaning by G. Leech

Seven types

Denotation and connotation

Sense relations

Synonymy

Antonymy

Polysemy

Homonymy

Hyponymy

Sentence meaning

Meronymy

Sentence relation

Componential analysis

Principle of Compositionality

An Integrated Theory

Logical Semantics

Predication analysis

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How do you understand Semantics?

Semantics is a branch of linguistics which studies how meaning is encoded in a

language. It is the study of meaning, especially the meaning of linguistic units, words

and sentences in particular.

What is conceptual meaning?

G. Leech has recognized 7 types of meaning in his Semantics, conceptual meaning is

the central part of meaning. It refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content. and it

is denotative (it roughly equals with the literal meaning). E.g. The conceptual

meaning of the word “dog” will be a domesticated canine mammal.

What is associative meaning?

In contrast to referential meaning, they are less stable and more culture-specific.

Associative meaning is actually an umbrella term and it can be further classified. It

includes the following types:

Connotative meaning: What is communicated by virtue of what language refers to,

over and above its purely conceptual content. It refers to some additional, especially

emotive meaning. For example, the connotative meaning of the word “dog” would be

“a little helper”, “a friend” “loyal” etc. Father represents strength, strong-will, and

tolerance.

Social meaning: what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.

E.g. Someone may say:” I ain’t done nothing” and this can indicate that the person is

probably a black American person who is uneducated.

Affective meaning: what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the

speaker/writer. For example, “politician and statesman\" differ in affective meaning,

and the latter is usually more approvingly or complimentary, the former is more

derogatory. （swear words）

Reflected meaning: what is communicated through association with another sense of

the same expression. For example, the meaning of red light in the traffic system

means stop. The word “gay” used to mean funny, but today its meaning is associated

with homosexual men.

Collocative meaning: what is communicated through association with words which

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tend to occur in the environment of another word. E.g. The word “accuse” tends to be

used with “of ”, while “ charge” with “ for”. “Pretty” collocates with girls and

“handsome” with men.

Thematic meaning: What is communicated by the way in which the message is

organized in terms of order and emphasis. It is more peripheral since it is only

determined by the word order and emphasis. E.g. The dog chased the boy around the

park. Around the park, the dog chased the boy. The thematic meaning of these two

sentences is different.

Explain sense and reference with proper examples

Sense and Reference are two different, though related aspects of meaning.

Sense refers to the abstract properties of an entity, and it is concerned with the

inherent content of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the

linguistic form; it is abstract and decontextualized. For example, the word dog is

given in the definition of \"a domesticated canine mammal”. And this is the sense of

the word \"dog\".

Reference refers to the concrete entities having these properties, that is, it means what

a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship

between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. If we say

“The dog is barking”, we must be talking about a certain dog existing in the situation;

the word dog refers to a dog known to both the speaker and the hearer.

Introduce some approaches to meaning

The referential theory/The naming theory: It is one of the theories of meaning

which relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to, or stands for. Words are

just names or labels for concrete things. For example, when we say M.A.K Halliday ,

we do use M.A.K Halliday to mean a particular person. It is problematic because It

cannot refer to abstract concept.

The conceptual view (conceptualism): it is about the symbol or a word signifying

things by virtue of the concept in the mind of the speaker, and the concept from this

point of view is the meaning of the word. According to the semantic triangle proposed

by Ogden and Richards, the relation between a word and the thing it refers to is not

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direct. It is mediated by concept.

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Contextualism:

The contextualist view of meaning is based on the presumption that one can derive

meaning from observable contexts which include situational context and the linguistic

context. That is to say, meaning is found in the context within which a particular

expression is uttered. For example, the meaning of the word “black” differs in the two

collocations of “black hair” and “black coffee”.

Name some lexical sense relations ( How words are related in sense? )

Synonymy is the technical name for the sameness relation. Words that are close in

meaning are called synonyms. E.g. Buy and purchase, world and universe. Total

synonymy is rare. They all differ one way or another. Thus, synonyms can be further

divided into the following categories: dialectal synonymy, stylistic synonymy,

emotive synonymy, collocational synonyms, semantically different synonyms.

What are three types of antonymy?

Antonymy: It is the name for oppositeness relation. There are three main sub-types:

gradable antonymy, complementary antonymy and converse antonymy.

Gradable Antonymy: First, they are gradable, i. e. the denial of one is not necessarily

the assertion of the other. There is something in between. As such, they can be

modified by very\". And they may have comparative and superlative degrees.

Sometimes the intermediate degrees may be lexicalized. Second, there is no absolute

criterion. They are graded against different norms. Third, one member of the pair,

usually the term for the higher degree, serves as the cover term.

Complementary Antonymy, it refers to antonyms that are in contradictory position.

Concept ( sense, reference ,thought)

Word ( symbol) Thing (referent)

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The assertion of one means the denial of the other, and the denial of one means the

assertion of the other. The adjectives in this type cannot be modified by very and they

do not have comparative or superlative degrees either. The norm in this type is

absolute and there is no cover term for the two members of a pair.

Converse Antonymy: This is a special type of antonymy in that the members of a pair

do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a

relationship between two entities. E.g. buy and sell, above and below, teacher and

student

Polysemy means that one word has more than one meaning. Such a word is called

polysemic word. E.g. The word “table” can mean a piece of furniture and it can also

mean all the people seated at the table.

Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the

same form, i. e. different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. E.g.

Knight and night. Record(n) and record(v). It contains the following three types:

homophones, homographs and complete homonyms.

(When two words with different meanings are identical in sound, they are

homophones, night/knight. When two words are identical in spelling, they are

homographs, such as tear (v) /tear(n). When two words are identical in both sound and

spelling, they are complete homonyms, such as fast (adj)/ fast (v) Scale(v)/ scale

(n) )

Hyponymy: Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion. That is to say, It is a relation

between a more general, inclusive word and a more specific word. It is a matter of

class membership. That is to say, when x is a kind of y, the lower term x is the

hyponym, and the upper term y is the superordinate. Hyponyms of the same

superordinate are co-hyponyms. g. under flower, there are tulip, violet, rose, etc.

Meronymy: meronymy refers to sense relation between parts and the whole, such as

wheel and car or leg and knee.

What is you understanding of componential analysis?

Componential Analysis is a way proposed to analyze word meaning in terms of

semantic components or semantic features. The approach is based on the belief that

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the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic

features. For example, the meaning of the word “boy” may be analyzed into three

components: HUMAN, YOUNG and MALE.

(Advantages of CA: Componential analysis gives a better account for sense relations

and those between sentences. For example, bachelor and unmarried man are both said

to have the components of HUMAN, ADULT, MALE AND UNMARRIED, so they

are synonymous with each other. Words which have a contrasting component are

antonyms. Words which have all the semantic components of another are hyponyms

of the latter. For example, boy has the features of [+MALE], [-ADULT], and child has

the feature of [-ADULT]. boy has all the features of child, so they are in a relationship

of hyponymy.)

(Problems of Componential analysis: Firstly, many words are polysemous,

consequently they will have different sets of semantic components. Secondly, the

distinction between components may be vague such as “ADULT” and “YOUNG”.

Thirdly, there may be words whose semantic components are difficult to ascertain.)

What are semantic relations of sentences?

There are some sense relations within and between sentences:

1.X is tautology:

The bachelor is unmarried.

(The sentence is necessarily true. Yet the rheme does not provide any new

information.)

2.X is contradiction:

The bachelor is married. The sentence is necessarily false.

3.X is inconsistent with Y

John is single. John is married.

4. X is synonymous with Y:

John broke the glass. The glass was broken by John.

5.X entails Y:

The meeting was chaired by a spinster. The meeting was chaired by a woman.

(If X is true, Y is automatically true.)

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6. X presupposes Y:

Sam has returned the book. Sam borrowed a book.

X is true on the condition that Y is true.

What is Principle of Compositionality?

In semantics, compositionality is the view that the meaning of the whole is

determined by the meaning of its parts and the way in which they are assembled. It is

also known as the idea that meaning of a sentence depends on the meaning of the

constituent words and the way they're combined.

Make a brief introduction about predication analysis.

Predication Analysis is a way to analyze sentence meaning. Predication is the

abstraction of the meaning of a sentence, applying to all forms of sentence.

Predication analysis is to break down predications into their constituents: argụments

which are the logical participants and a predicate, a relational element.

E.g. Mary and John are arguments in “Mary loves John”. For example, the predication

of “Tom smokes” is said to consist of the argument TOM and the predicate \"SMOKE\",

and the predication can be written as TOM (SMOKE).

What would say about sentences using the same words express different

meanings，explain it and give examples? (思考)

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6. Language and Cognition

Language and

cognition

Psycholinguistics

Cognitive Linguistics

The definition of Psycholinguistics

Language Acquisition

Language Comprehension

Language production

Cognition and cognitive linguistics

Construal and construal operation

Cognitive category and categorization

Metaphor (三种)

Metonymy

Blending theory

Image schema

Prototype Iconicity

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Introduce psycholinguistics.

Psycholinguistics is the study of psychological aspects of language or the study of the

language-processing mechanisms in the mind; it usually studies the psychological

states and mental activity associated with the use of language. As an interdisciplinary

academic field based on psychology and linguistics, psycholinguistics mainly

investigates language acquisition, language comprehension, language production.

What is language acquisition?

Language acquisition refers to the learning and development of a person's language.

The learning of a native or first language is called first language acquisition, and the

learning of a second or foreign language is called second language acquisition.

Introduce some first language acquisition theories.

The most well-recognized theory about first language acquisition theory is Chomsky’s

“The Innateness Hypothesis”. Chomsky believes that language is somewhat innate

and that children are born with what he calls a language acquisition device (LAD),

which is a unique kind of knowledge that fits them for language learning. This is

called the Innateness Hypothesis. Chomsky argues that language acquisition device

(LAD) probably consists of three elements: a hypothesis-maker, linguistic universal

and an evaluation procedure.

Then, reinforcement theory in behaviorism once had its high time, it is the theory of

stimulus-response represented by American linguist, Bloomfield and psycholinguist

Skinner, who deny the fact that human beings are innate with the language acquisition

system and they regard language acquisition as a process of building habits.

Cognitive theory, represented by Piaget, takes the view that children acquire the

language through assimilation and adaptation and learn from the environment through

interaction with the environment.

Do you think language is somehow innate? And why?

I agree with the innateness hypothesis by Noam Chomsky, and there are three reasons

for that.

1.There is no formal instruction in first language acquisition. Children become

competent speakers of a language at a comparatively early age before they are ready

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for other cognitively complex tasks such as learning mathematics.

2. It has also been observed that children all over the world go through the same

stages in language acquisition regardless of their linguistic environment.

3.Children do not choose their first language; they can learn any language equally

well as long as they are in the right linguistic environment.

In your opinion, how is language acquired?

For first language acquisition, it can be analyzed and divided into some stages as

following:

First is the pre-language stages (3 – 10 months) during which children can articulate

some recognizable consonants and vowels when cooing and babbling and they also

can use sounds to express emotions.

The second is the one-word stage (10-18months).During this stage, babies begin to

understand words and start to produce them. First words they learn usually are words

for objects such as food (juice, cookie), body parts (eye, nose). The main linguistic

accomplishments are control of the speech musculature and sensitivity to the phonetic

distinctions used in the parent's language.

Then comes the two-word stage. Around 18 months, children’s vocabulary growth

increases and primitive syntax begins.

The next stage is called stage of three -word utterance. During that stage, children

produce three-word utterances which look like samples drawn from longer potential

sentences and they can express a complete and more complicated idea.

(It is shown by psycholinguistics that children’s use of language is rule-governed

during the process of acquisition. They experience overgeneralization and

undergeneralization. For example, children frequently say tooths and mouses instead

of teeth and mice, and holded and finded, instead of held and found.)

For your understanding, how is language comprehended by people?

As we can see, understanding language, like producing it, is an automatic task. It

seems to be a relatively straightforward process. However, what appears on the

surface turns out to be very complex from the perspective of psycholinguistics.

Language comprehension is usually discussed in terms of spoken and written

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language comprehension.

From a psycholinguistic point of view, we store a great deal of information about the

properties of words in our mental lexicon, and retrieve this information when we

understand language. We can instinctively connect the known items stored in our

mind to the unknown ones and get access to more information in processing and

comprehending language.

Explain how people produce language.

Language production refers to the process involved in creating and expressing

meaning through language. Language production is a difficult to study. A number of

theories have attempted to account for the different processes involved in language

production. Generally, language production contains four successive stages: (i)

conceptualization, (i) formulation, (ii) articulation, and (iv) self-monitoring (Scovel

1998: 27). First, we must conceptualize what we wish to communicate; second, we

formulate this thought into a linguistic plan; third, we execute the plan through the

speech muscles; finally, we monitor our speech, assessing whether it is what we

intended to say and whether we said it the way we intended to.

What is your understanding of cognitive linguistics?

As a branch of applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics is the scientific study of the

relation between the way we communicate and the way we think. It is an approach to

language that is based on our eхреrіеnсеѕ оf thе wоrld аnd thе wау wе реrсеіvе аnd

соnсерtuаlіzе it.

What is image schema?

Image schema is a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions and motor

programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience. Image schemas exist at

a level of abstraction, operate at a level of mental organization between propositional

structures and concrete image, and it can be subdivided into the following items: a

center-periphery schema, a containment schema, a cycle schema, a force schema, a

link schema, a part-whole schema, a path schema, a scale schema and a verticality

schema.

What are the categories of our experience when we understand the world?

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In cognitive linguistics, the term “categorization” is used to refers to the mental

process of classifying our experiences into different categories based on

commonalities and differences. The result of categorization is category. Generally,

there are three levels in categories: the basic level, the superordinate level and the

subordinate level.

What is conceptual metaphor and its three types?

In the masterpiece Metaphor we Live by, it is showed that metaphor is not just a literal

device or purely poetic. It is actually very fundamental to our cognitive system.

Metaphor involves the comparison of two concepts in that one is construed in terms of

the other. It's often described in terms of a target domain and a source domain. The

target domain is the experience being described by the metaphor and the source

domain is the means that we use in order to describe the experience. Lakoff and

Johnson classify conceptual metaphors into three types:

1)Ontological metaphor: it means human experiences with physical objects provide

the basis for ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and

substances. E.g. Inflation is lowering our standard of living.

2)Structural metaphor: it plays the most important role because they allow us to go

beyond orientation and referring and give us the possibility to structure one concept

according to another. E.g. Argument is war; Your claims are indefensible.

3)Orientational metaphor: it is one of conceptual metaphors that enable speakers to

make a set of target concepts coherent by means of some basic human spatial

orientation, such as up-down, in-out, center-periphery, etc. Happy is up; Sad is down

I am feeling up/down.

What is your understanding of conceptual metonymy?

Conceptual metonymy: Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one cognitive

category, the source, provides mental access to another cognitive category, the target,

within the same cognitive domain. Several examples are:

1) The producer for the product (the author for the work)

I'm reading Mark Twain.

2) The place for the event.

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Watergate changed American politics

Which is your favorite branch of linguistics?

It is cognitive linguistics. As a branch of applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics is

the scientific study of the relation between the way we communicate and the way we

think. It is an approach to language that is based on our eхреrіеnсеѕ оf thе wоrld аnd

thе wау wе реrсеіvе аnd соnсерtuаlіzе it. Cognitive linguistics studies a lot of things

such as image schema, categorization, prototype theory, construal, construal operation

etc. but I take a particular interest in the study of metaphor. Metaphor we live by is

my favorite book. It changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language

and the mind. Metaphor, the authors George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain, is a

fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our

physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects.

Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience,

they are \"metaphors we live by\"—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and

actions without our ever noticing them.

Which linguistic book do you like the best? ( Make a brief introduction of a

linguistic book you read about.)

I believe it will be Corpus Approaches to Metaphor Analysis by Charteris-Black

(2004). This book explains why metaphors are persuasive and ideologically effective

because metaphors evoke an emotional response. It also introduces a critical approach

to researching metaphors: metaphor identification (identify metaphor use in the

analyzed data), metaphor interpretation (find out cognitive and pragmatic factors

functioning behind) and metaphor explanation (find their social role in persuasion and

establish their ideological motivation). e.g. We shall all fight the vicious Covid-19.

The book is also developed in a series of corpus-based studies of discourses or

speeches related to politics, economy, sports and so on. It helps us to be aware of the

importance of metaphor in persuasive language.

Metaphor We Live by, Multimodal Metaphor and Metonymy in Advertising

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Chapter Seven： Language, Culture and Society

Language, culture

and Society Language and society

Language and culture

Cross-cultural

communication

The relation between language and culture

Anthropological linguistics

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Four principles

The Relationship between

Language and Society

Terms involved in sociolinguistics

Sociological linguistics

Two approaches to sociolinguistic studies

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What is your understanding of culture and what do you think of the relationship

between language and culture?

Culture consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools,

techniques, and works of art, rituals, ceremonies, symbols, etc. Culture reflects a total

way of life of a people in a community. Every human society has its own particular

culture. An individual's attitudes, values, ideals and beliefs are greatly influenced by

the culture in which he lives.

(If viewed from the content, there are generally two types of culture: material and

spiritual. The former is concrete, substantial and observable while the latter usually

refers to the products of mind such as ideologies, beliefs, values and concepts etc.)

As we know, language is the carrier of culture, and it is an essential part of a given

culture and the influence of culture on a given language is intrinsic and indispensable.

Culture finds a better representation through language use.

(A language does reflect the culture of a society, but only in certain aspects, especially

in its hierarchy of vocabulary and its discourse patterns. A language may boast an

abundance of terms in certain domains, which may indicate the focus of culture.

Changes in culture result in new types of discourse. The popularity of certain types of

discourse may also reflect cultural concerns)

What is anthropological linguistics?

Anthropological linguistics aims to look at the relationships between language and

culture in a speech community. For this reason, it can alternatively be called

anthropological study of linguistics. More specifically, it attempts to know more about

a given community by studying the correlation between tradition, beliefs and social

behavior in the community and the language use in it.

What do you think of the relationship between language and thought?

The discussion about the relationship between language and thought is incomplete

without touching upon the famous Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, proposed by Edward

Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, with their studies of American Indian languages.

According to Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, our language helps mould our way of thinking

and consequently, different languages may probably express our unique ways of

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understanding the world. Two important points could be captured in this theory

namely Linguistic Determinism and Linguistic Relativity

On the one hand, language may determine our thinking patterns;

On the other hand, the similarity between languages is relative, the greater their

structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will

be. They are now sometimes interpreted as a strong version and a week version.

I believe that a strong version of the Hypothesis that language determines thought

cannot be supported. However, a weak version of the hypothesis that language

influences thought is reasonable and supportable. That is because if language

determines thought, people speaking diverse languages would never understand each

other. And we will be trapped by the language we speak. But the truth is that people

from different linguistic or cultural backgrounds can communicate with each other

quite effectively.

( I believe there is a correlation between language, culture and thought, but the

cross-cultural differences thus produced in our ways of thinking are relative, rather

than categorical. Through words, each culture presents some unique ideas and

concepts to its members. For instance, the Eskimos have countless words for snow

while in English, the simple word snow will suffice. For Eskimos, snow is very

crucial to life and culture and their thoughts are usually influenced by the words of

snow. But the basic understanding of snow will be the same for any speaker. Thus, we

can say language influences thought.)

What is the relationship between language and society?

Language is regarded as a mirror of society, through which we can understand social

activities of a certain society better. Language is both a scientific system and a social

activity. It is the major bond of people's communication in society.

What is your understanding of sociolinguistics?

As a branch of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics studies all aspects of the

relationship between language and society. It is interested in how the structure and use

of language is influenced by social factors. That is to say, it studies the correlation

between language variables and social variables. Sociolinguists study matters such as

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dialects, language varieties, bilingualism, multilingualism, language maintenance and

shift, language planning, pidgin, creole, diglossia etc.

William Labov and the “r ” sound study in New York [The Social Stratification

of English in New York City (1966)]

William Labov (/ləˈboʊv/) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of

the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He is described as an enormously

influential figure who created much of the methodology of sociolinguistics.

In his famous“r ” sound study in New York, Labov found out the higher the social

class of a speaker, the more frequent the occurrence of /r/ sound in speech (The

frequency of the use of (r) is positively related to the social status of speakers in New

York.) The methods he used to collect data for his study of the varieties of English in

New York City have been influential in social dialectology. He collected data through

a variety of methods including, asking participants to read a word list and a passage,

and an informal interview; However, most importantly, he created a new way to

collect natural speech without speakers’ awareness of being interviewed.

Which branch of linguistics do you like the best?

Introduce one linguistic branch you like and theories in it?

That would be sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics studies ……….

There is one interesting research question in sociolinguistics. Do women and men talk

differently? A common stereotype is that women are more talkative than men. You

always hear people say things like: ‘women never stop talking’. Words such as

gossiping and nagging are predominantly used to label women. There has been a lot

of research in this area, and the findings are phenomenal. The evidence strongly

suggests that men on the whole talk far more than women. Studies by Fishman and

Spender also show that on average, a man talks twice as long as a woman does in a

mixed gender group. And that is an important finding because it shows ideology at

work women’s activities tend to be undervalued.

(There are also other differences between female and male speech, women use less

powerful curse words/ vernacular but more tag question or hedges etc.)

There are actually some theories that attempt to explain such variations: the

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Dominance Theory (Such differences are mainly caused by the material differences

between the genders or male-dominant society and male power), The difference

theory etc.

How do women and men differ in talking?

Men and women have been found to differ in a number of ways when it comes to

communication. Research has shown that men tend to interrupt more often, speak in a

louder and more assertive manner, and use language to establish dominance. On the

other hand, women tend to use language to build rapport and express empathy, and are

more likely to use indirect and polite forms of communication. However, it is

important to note that these are general tendencies and not true for every individual.

Additionally, cultural and societal factors can also play a role in shaping

communication styles.

Introduce one linguistic book you like.

I think that will be the book called An Introduction to Sociolinguistics by Janet

Holmes. As an introductory textbook of sociolinguistics, it examines the role of

language in a variety of social contexts and considers how language is used to signal

various aspects of social identity. This book explains many basic sociolinguistic

concepts such as diglossia, code-switching, code-mixing, language death, language

shift, language maintenance, language death, language planning etc. It also provides

numerous vivid examples such as Hebrew for a successful case language revival.

Hebrew was revived in Israel after being dead for nearly 1700 years. Yet strong

feelings of nationalism led to determined efforts by Israeli adults to use it to children,

and as a result it has been successfully revived.

Language, Society and Power ?

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What linguistic courses have you taken at university? 思考

What are the two approaches to sociolinguistic studies?

One is called macro-sociolinguistics or the sociology of language and it looks at

society as a whole and consider how language functions in it and how it reflects the

social differentiations, i. e. a bird's-eye view of the languages used in society,

including the study of language mantenance, language loss, language plannning and

language shift etc.

The second is called Micro-sociolinguistics or sociolinguistics and It looks at society

from the point of view of an individual member within it, or a worm's-eye view of

language in use, including language variation and conversation analysis etc.

What is a speech community?

In sociolinguistics, it refers to a term which describes any regionally or socially

definable human group which can be identified by the use of a shared spoken

language or language variety. It can vary in size from a tiny cluster of speakers to

whole nations or supranational groups (such as the Russian-using speech community

in Asia)

Name some language varieties.

Language variety is sometimes called speech variety and it refers to any

distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or a group of speakers. (Linguistic

features of a speech variety can be found at the lexical, the phonological, the

morphological, or the syntactical level of the language.) There are many types of

speech variety in sociolinguistics, for example, regional dialect, sociolects, gender

dialect, age dialect, idiolect etc.

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Regional dialect is a linguistic variety used by people living in the same geographical

region, whose boundaries often coincide with geographical barriers such as mountains,

rivers, etc. Dialects in China such as Cantonese, or the accent in Dongbei province.

Social Dialect/ Sociolect or social-class dialect refers to the linguistic variety of a

particular social class. Accent is an important marker of sociolect, e.g. A case in point

is the so-called \"Received Pronunciation’’ in British English, which had become

characteristic of upper class speech throughout the country by the 19h century.

Idiolect：It refers to a personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines

elements regarding regional, social, gender, and age variation (The language system

of an individual). In a narrow sense, what makes up a person's idiolect also includes

such factors as voice quality, pitch and speech tempo and rhythm.

Register is a speech variety used by a particular group of people, usually sharing the

same occupation (e. g. doctors, lawyers) or the same interests (e.g stamp collectors,

baseball fans). [A particular register often distinguishes itself from other registers by

having a number of distinctive words, by using words or phrases in a particular way,

and sometimes by special grammatical constructions (e.g. legal language)].

What are pidgin and creole?

Pidgin is a language which develops as a contact language when groups of people

who speak different languages try to communicate with one another on a regular basis.

It can also be understood as a mixed language based on one language and it is not a

native language of anyone E.g. Pidgin English developed in China.

Creole is a pidgin language which has become the native language of a group of

speakers, being used for all or many of their daily communicative needs. Usually, the

sentence structures and vocabulary range of a Creole are far more complex than those

of a pidgin language. (E.g. Jamaican Creole which is based on English.)

Explain the terms Multilingualism and Bilingualism

Multilingualism refers to the use of three or more languages by an individual or by a

group of speakers such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation.

Multilingualism is common in Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, etc.

Bilingualism refers to a situation where two languages are used by an individual or by

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a group of speakers, such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation. Canada,

for example, is an officially bilingual country, with both French and English as

official languages.

What is your understanding of Diglossia?

It refers to a diglossic situation where two varieties of a language exist side by side

throughout the community, with each used for different purposes. (With a handful of

languages, two different varieties of the same language are used side by side for

different sets of functions. A situation of this kind is called diglossia.) Diglossia is a

matter of formality in nature. Usually, the more standard language is used in

government, media, education, and religious services and it is called the high variety

(H); the other language variety is of less prestige and it is used between family

members, friends, and shopping, etc. It is called the low variety (L). Take Arabic,

Modern Greek, Swiss German and Haitian Creole for example, each of these

languages have two varieties.

Explain the term lingua franca.

It is the general term for a language that serves as a medium of communication among

groups of people from diverse linguistic backgrounds. It can mean internationally

used language like English.

Code switching: A speaker does not necessarily have to follow a particular variety or

dialect all the time in the course of communication. Code switching can take place in

a conversation when one speaker uses one language and the other speaker answers in

a different language or a person may start speaking one language and then change to

another one in the middle of their speech.

What is Cross-cultural Communication? And What are the principle we need to

follow in cross-cultural communication?

It is frequently used to refer to communication between people from different cultures,

which implies a comparison between cultures. It centers on significant differences

about social concepts such as language, food, dress, attitude towards time, work habits,

social behavior that can cause frustration in communications and contacts.

1.When in Rome Do as the Romans Do