〈语言学〉答疑库
1. Explain the following definition of linguistics: Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
Key: Linguistics investigates not any particular language, but languages in general. Linguistic study is scientific because it is based on the systematic investigation of authentic language data. No serious linguistic conclusion is reached until after the linguist has done the following three things: observing the way language is actually used, formulating some hypotheses, and testing these hypotheses against linguistic facts to prove their validity.
2. Is modern linguistics mainly synchronic or diachronic? Why?
minimalKey: Modern linguistics is mainly synchronic, focusing on the present-day language. Unless the various states of a language are successfully studied, it will not be possible to describe language from a diachronic point of view.
3. How is Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole similar to Chomsky’s distinction
between competence and performance?
Key: Both Saussure and Chomsky make the distinction between the abstract language system and the actual use of language. Their purpose is to single out the language system for serious study.
4. What features of human language have been specified by C. Hockett to show that it is essentially different from any animal communication system?
Key: Arbitrariness--- a sign of sophistication only humans are capable of
Creativity--- animals are quite limited in the messages they are able to send
Duality--- a feature totally lacking in any animal communication
Displacement--- No animal can “talk” about things removed from the immediate situation
Cultural transmisson--- Details of human language system are taught and learned while animals are born with capacity to send out certain signals as a means of limited communi
cation
5 What are the two major media of communication? Of the two, which one is primary and why?
Key: Speech and writing. Speech is considered primary over writing. The reason are: speech is prior to writing in language evolution, speech plays a greater role in daily communication, and speech is the way in which people acquire their native language.
6 What are the three branches of phonetics? How do they contribute to the study of speech sounds?
Key: Articulatory, auditory, and acoustic phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics describes the way our speech sounds and how they differ.
Auditory phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds, and reaches the important conclusion that phonetic identity is only a theoretical ideal.
Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds, the way sounds travel from the speaker to the hear.
7 What is voicing and how is it caused?
Key: An articulatory dimension of speech sound production. It distinguishes meaning in many languages such as English; therefore it is a phonological feature. It is caused by the vibration of the vocal cords.
8 Explain with examples how broad transcription and narrow transcription differ?
Key: Broad transcription---one letter symbol for one sound
Narrow transcription---diacritics are added to the one-letter symbols to show the finer differences between sounds.
9 How do phonetics and phonology differ in their focus of study?
Key: Phonetics: description of all speech sounds and their fine differences.
Phonology: description of sound systems of particular languages and how sounds function to distinguish meaning.
10What is a phone? How is it different from a phoneme? How are allophones related to a phoneme?
Key: Phone--- a speech sound, a phonetic unit.
Phonology---a collection of abstract sound features, a phonological unit.
Allophones---actual realizations of a phoneme in different phonetic contexts.
11 What is a minimal pair and what is a minimal set? Why is it important to identify the minimal set in a language?
Key: Minimal pair---Two sound combination identical in every way except in one sound element that occurs in the same position.
Minimal set---A group of sound combinations with the above feature.
By identifying the minimal pairs or the minimal set of a language, a phonologist can identify its phonemes.
12 What are suprasegmental feature? How do the major suprasegmental features of English function in conveying meaning?
Key: Suprasengmental features---phonological features above the sound segment level.

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