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1、First of all, language is a system, because elements of language are combined according to rules. Secondly, language is arbitrary because there is no intrinsic connection between form and meaning, or between the sign and what it stands for. Different languages have different words for the same objec
2、t in the world. This fact is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. This also explains the symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. Thirdly, language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for a
3、ll languages, no matter how well - developed their writing systems are. The term human in the definition indicates that language is possessed by human beings only and is very different from the communication systems of other living creatures. The term communication means that language makes it possi
4、ble for its users to talk to each other and fulfill their communicative needs.2.Why do people take duality as one of the important design features of human language? Can you tell us what language will be if it has no such design feature?Duality makes our language productive. A large number of differ
5、ent units can be formed out of a small number of elements for instance, tens of thousands of words out of a small set of sounds, around 48 in the case of the English language. And out of the huge number of words, there can be astronomical number of possible sentences and phrases, which in turn can c
6、ombine to form unlimited number of texts. Most animal communication systems do not have this design feature of human language. If language has no such design feature, then it will be like animal communicational system which will be highly limited. It cannot produce a very large number of sound combi
7、nations, e.g. words, which are distinct in meaning.3. What are the seven functions of human language? Informative; Interpersonal Function; Performative; Emotive Function; Phatic Communion; Recreational Function; Metalingual Function4. How is phonology different from phonetics? They differ in their a
8、pproach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature;it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how theyare produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified. Phonology, on the other hand, is interested in the system
9、 of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.5. How many types of morphemes are there in the English language? What are they? Free morphemes: They are the independent
10、 units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, for example, bookish bound morphemes: They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word such as “” the word “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into
11、roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning, such as “ene-”in the word generate. Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical ca
12、tegories such as “s” in the word books to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word such as “mis-”in the word misinform What are the advantages of using tree diagrams in the analysis of sentence structures?6. What are the 7 types of meaning reco
13、gnized by G. Leech? Please list and explain them. (1) Conceptual meaning: logical, cognitive, or denotative content(2) Connotative meaning: what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to.(3) Social meaning: what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.(4) Affective mea
14、ning: what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer.(5) Reflected meaning: what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression.(6) Collocative meaning: what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word. (7) Thematic meaning: what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.7. Explain Grices Cooperative Principle with examples.
