当代语言学期末考试
商陵君养龙-给老师发邮件的格式
《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%
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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
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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.
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→ 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
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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.
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