《当代语言学》期末考试
英文谚语-社会实践论文格式
《当代语言学》期末考试
试题
Please
give your answers to the following questions in a
separated answer sheet provided by the
examiner.
1. Do you think the following
words are permissible in English? Why? 5%
a)
tpray b) btry c) tgharg
2. What is the
difference between open-class words and closed-
class words? 5%
3. What role can English
inflection play in the expression of meaning? 5%
4. Draw the tree diagrams for the following
sentences: 10%
(1) She found a book on
Madison Street.
(2) Jack advised Henry to see
the dentist.
(3) Jack promised Henry to see
the doctor.
5. What is the difference between
sentence meaning and utterance meaning? 5%
6. What is the use of metaphor in verbal
communication? 5%
7. In each case below
decide which maxim of the cooperative principle
has been flouted and
what implicature might be
drawn. 15%
1) A: Where does Miss Rosebery
live?
B: Somewhere in the suburbs of the
city.
2) A: I'm out of petrol.
B: There
is a garage round the corner.
3) A: How do you
think of Cathy's singing?
B: Well, she has
produced a series of sounds that correspond
closely with the score of
sweet home
4)
Teacher: (towards the end of a lecture) What time
is it now?
Student: It's 10:44 and 35.6
seconds.
5) A: Do you want some coffee?
B: Coffee would make me awake.
8. The New
information in each of the following utterances is
bold-typed. Please use a different
sentence
structure for each so that the New information can
be highlighted. 10%
1) He owed the tailor
twenty dollars.
2) The impossible has often
proved possible.
3) We have oral practice
every other day.
4) We didn't leave the flat
until we could smell the smoke in the corridor.
5) The football match was cancelled because of
the rain.
9. What is a regional dialect? And
what is the relationship between a regional
dialect and a
standard dialect? 5%
10.
Do you agree to the claim that all languages in
the world derived from one common ancestor?
5%
11. Please explain the primacy of human
language over animal communication. 10%
12.
The following are some questions taken from some
test papers. Decide which type of test
they
belong to: (a) the discrete point test, (b)
integrative test, and (c) the communicative test.
10%
Directions: There are 30
incomplete sentences in this part. For each
sentence there are four
choices marked A, B,
C, and D. Choose the ONE answer that best
completes the sentence. Then
mark the
corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a
single line through the center.
1). By the
time he arrives in Beijing, we _________ here for
two days.
A. have been staying B. have
stayed
C. shall stay D. will have stayed
2) Directions: In this section, you will, you
will hear a passage three times. When the passage
is
read for the first time, you should listen
carefully for the general idea. When the passage
is read
for the second time, you are required
to fill in the blanks numbered from S1 to S7 with
the exact
words you have just heard. For
blanks numbered S8 to S10 you are required to fill
in the missing
information. You can either use
the exact words you have just heard or write down
the main
points in your own words. Finally,
when the passage is read for the third time, you
should check
what you have written.
If you
are a college student, most of your concerns about
your health and happiness in life are
probably
(S1) __________ on the present. Basically, you
want to feel good physically, mentally,
and
(S2) __________ now. You probably don't spend much
time worrying about the (S3)
__________, such
as whether you will develop heart disease, or (S4)
__________, how you will
take care of yourself
in your (S5) __________ years, or how you are
going to live.
13. What do you think are the
strong points and drawbacks of each of the
following types of test:
(a) the achievement
test, (b) the proficiency test, (c) the aptitude
test, (d) the diagnosis test, (e)
the
subjective test, and (f) the objective test. 10%
参考答案
1. These words are not
permissible in English. All languages have
constraints on the permitted
sequences of
phonemes. *tpray, *btry, *tgharg do not sound like
an English word because it does
not conform to
the restrictions on the sequencing of phonemes.
When three consonants occur,
the first must be
[s].
2. Open-class words refer to those
classes of words to which we can add new words. In
English,
nouns, notional verbs, adjectives and
adverbs belong to this category. Such words
normally
convey certain semantic contents and
thus are also called -class words
refer to
those classes to which new words can hardly be
added. In English, closed-class words
include
pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, relatives,
prepositions, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs
and
the linking verb
and thus are also called
3. Inflection refers to the process of adding
an affix to a word or changing it in some other
way
according to the grammatical rules of the
language. English inflections are used to express
certain
grammatical meanings: the plural
morpheme {s} to change the noun into the plural-
number form,
the generative-case morpheme {'s}
to indicate the relation of possession, the
feminine-gender
morpheme {ess} to change the
masculine noun into its corresponding feminine-
gender form, the
third-person singular {s} to
change the verb into the third-person singular
form, the -ing participle
{ing} to change the
verb into the -ing participle, the past-form
morpheme {ed} to change the verb
into the
past-tense form, the past-participle morpheme {ed}
to change the verb into the -ing
participle,
the comparative {er} to change an adjective into
the comparative-degree form, and
the
superlative {est} to change an adjective into the
superlative-degree form.
4. 1) (a)
(b)
2)
3)
5.
Sentence meaning refers to the conventional
content or literal meaning of a sentence. It is
the
context-independent meaning. Utterance
meaning refers to the meaning of an utterance in
the
context. In other words, it is the meaning
dependent on the context. In some cases, the
sentence
meaning coincides with the utterance
meaning. But in many situations, the utterance
meaning
differs from the sentence meaning.
6. Metaphor is common in verbal communication.
In the traditional approach, metaphor is
generally interpreted as a rhetorical device
to add novelty to verbal communication. But
according to the cognitive and functional
linguistic approach, metaphor is a basic cognitive
facility
with which human beings organize the
world in the system of language. Much of the
history of
every language, according to
Halliday (1994: 348), is a history of
demetaphorizing: of expressions
which began as
metaphors gradually losing their metaphorical
character. Metaphorical modes of
expression
are characteristic of adult discourse. On the
other hand, metaphor is also an
important
stylistic feature. For example, literary works
(such as novels and poetry) normally
abound in
lexical metaphor while scientific and technical
registers are characterized with
nominalizing
metaphors.
7. 1) In this dialogue, B has
flouted the maxim of Manner. Here B uses an
obscure expression and
fails to give a brief
and direct answer to A's question. The implicature
of B's utterance is probably
suburbs of
the city.
2) In this dialogue, B has flouted
the maxim of Relevance. B's answer is not relevant
to A's
statement. The implicature of B's
utterance is probably
you can have your car
refilled there.
3) In this dialogue, B has
flouted the maxim of Quantity. B's reply is more
informative than is
required for the current
purposes of the exchange. The conversational
implicature of B's
utterance is that
4)
In this dialogue, the student is more informative
than is required for the current purposes of
the exchange and has thus flouted the maxim of
Quantity. The implicature of the student's
utterance is probably
8. 1) He owed the
tailor twenty dollars.
→ It was the tailor
whom he owed twenty dollars.
2) The impossible
has often proved possible.
→ It is the
impossible that has often proved possible.
Or: What has often proved possible is the
impossible.
3) We have oral practice every
other day.
→ It is every other day that
we have oral practice.
4) We didn't leave the
flat until we could smell the smoke in the
corridor.
→ It was not until we could smell
the smoke in the corridor that we left the flat.
5) The football match was cancelled because of
the rain.
→ It was because of the rain that
the football match was cancelled.
9. Regional
dialect is the kind of dialect that is spoken and
used by the people in a geographical
region.
Every local group of people spoke the language a
little differently from other groups. For
instance, these differences may be found in
pronunciation, spelling, and the use of words and
grammatical structures. With the passage of
time, a regional dialect may become the standard
dialect of a nation. This is largely due to a
number of socio-economic and political reasons.
10. Currently, we cannot say that all
languages in the world derived from one common
ancestor.
It might be true that some languages
have diverged from one common ancestor, for
example,
French, Spanish, Italian and other
Romance languages were clearly descended from
Latin, but no
evidence show that all languages
in the world have the same origin. As research
shows, there are
at least 29 language families
in the world. However, this problem will be solved
when we have
enough evidence to show that
human beings have one common ancestor.
11.
Human language is primary over animal
communication in the following aspects:
1)
Human has the ability to refer to things far
remote in time and space. In contrast, it may be
impossible for an animal to convey such
ability.
2) Human has the ability to produce
and understand an indefinite number of novel
utterances,
but no animal can communicate
creatively with another animal.
3) Learning
is much more important as a factor in human
language than in animal
communication.
4)
Human language structure and language use are
vastly more complex than any animal
communication system.
5) Animal
communication systems are closed-ended, whereas
human languages are
open-ended.
12. The
questions in 1) belong to the discrete point test,
because the test consists of many
questions on
a number of linguistic points, but each question
tests only one linguistic point.
Besides, the
questions here are objective so that the test can
be scored objectively and the
results are easy
to be analyzed statistically. The questions in 2)
belong to the integrative test,
because they
are a combination of cloze test and dictation. The
testees are required to fill in the
blanks in
a passage with either a single word, a sentence or
a larger unit while they are listening
to the
same material.
13. (a) The achievement test is
aimed at assessing the testee's mastery of the
knowledge and
skills set by the syllabus as
the teaching goals the contents of a particular
course. It is usually
given at the end of a
period of study. The achievement test focuses on
the result rather than the
process. Thus, it
is of little use in diagnosing how the testee is
getting along with the study of the
target
language. (b) The proficiency test is aimed at
discovering what the testee has already
known
about the target language. It can be used to
predict whether he has the ability to
accomplish a certain task in the future. The
proficiency test does not care what kind of
language
training the testee has ever
received. It focuses more on the result than the
process. (c) The
aptitude test is designed to
measure the testee's aptitude or natural ability
to learn the target
language. It is based on
the assumption that the learner's mastery of his
native language is
closely related to
his potential to learn a foreign language. The
drawback of the aptitude test is its
failure
to assess the effect of the learner's attitude,
learning strategies, learning environment and
other related factors. (d) The diagnosis test
aims at discovering how the testee is getting
along
with his study of the target language. A
well-designed diagnosis test can help the teacher
to find
out what is wrong with the student's
previous study and how it can be remedied in the
future
study. It cares more about the process
than the result. Its drawback is that it only
covers a limited
range of linguistic knowledge
or skills and thus cannot reflect the whole
process of language
acquisition. (e) The
subjective test is a test the result of which may
be influenced by the marker's
linguistic
knowledge, understanding of the scoring standard,
the mental state at the time of
scoring and
other personal factors. Its strong point is its
effective assessment of the testee's
comprehensive mastery of the target language.
(f) The objective test is a test the result of
which
is free of the influence of the marker's
linguistic knowledge, understanding of the scoring
standard, the mental state at the time of
scoring and other personal factors. The result
remains
consistent when the paper is scored by
different markers or even by a machine. However,
the
knowledge andor skill to be examined by a
question is rather restricted, and the multiple-
choice
leaves room for the testee to get the
correct answer simply by guessing and thus
undermines its
reliability.