电大语言与应用语言学

语言与应用语言学》复习指导

一、课程说明

“语言与应用语言学”是本科开放教育英语专业的限选课程之一。本课程的目的是使学生了解语言这一抽象的符号系统的形成和发展，以及它在人类生活的各个方面所产生的重要影响。着重要求学生了解语言的重要功能以及它与民族、地区，政治等社会各方面的关系。课程的重点是提高学生对语言一般规律的认识，并有助于他们对所学语言有更深刻的理解。

本课程采用的教材文字教材：由顾曰国教授主编，外语教学与研究出版社出版的《语言与语言学：实用手册》（试用版）；辅助教材：《语言与语言学：实用手册》中涉及的听力练习磁带两盒，由北京外语音像出版社出版。

二、考试说明

本课程考核包括两部分：形成性考核和课程终结考试。课程总成绩采用百分制，形成性考核占20% ，课程终结考试占80％，终结考试为闭卷考试，考生不得拾携带任何教材、参考资料、电子读物或工具书等。本课程终结考试的命题依据是中央广播电视大学本科开放教育英语专业教学计划、课程教学大纲以及“高级英语自学系列教程”中的《语言与语言学：实用手册》 教材。

课程终结考试试题结构及分值比例 考试内容 1、对课程总体内容的了解 题型 得分比例 考试时间 真空、选择填空、辨认错误并改正、定义配对、30%（15小题） 多项选择等（每次考试选其中三种题型） 简答问题 30%（10小题） 2、对语言和语言学基本原理的理解 3、对语言和语言学专门知识的理解和分析 4、运用理论知识分析语言现象和问题 120分钟 完成命题、图表填空、20%（5小题） 回答问题等 分析问题 20%（2小题） 三、复习要点

教材共分10 个教学单元，每个单元的标题如下：第一单元：认识我们的语言 Awareness of our language；第二单元：语言的物理属性 Physical aspects of language；第三单元：语言的符号性本质 The symbolic nature of language；第四单元：语言功能1：构筑我们对物质世界的感官认识 Language function: Organizing our experiences of the material world；第五单元：语言功能2：以言行事 Language function: doing things with language；第六单元：语言功能3：协调处理人际关系 Language function: managing interpersonal relations；第七单元：语言功能4：说说谈谈 Language function: talk, talk and talk；第八单元：语言与社会 Language in society；第九单元：语言、大脑、思维 Language, brain and mind；第十单元：复习与课程评估 General review and course assessment.

下面简要地描述了各个单元的核心内容。同学们在学习时可以参考。

Unit 1 Awareness of Our Language

In English, when we use the word language without an indefinite or definite article, like

“Language is a tool of communication”, it means any language or all languages put together. Here is the first important point about this book: It is about language, not confined to any particular language. When English and Chinese are being talked about, they are used as two specific examples of language. So the title of Unit 1 reads: Awareness of Our Languag. In this context it means any language we as humans speak: It can be Chinese, or English, or French, or German, or Japanese, or Russian, or many others, of course.

To summarize Unit 1 in one sentence, this sentence will be: we must appreciate the fact that we owe our humanity and civilization to language. Other animals can beat us in many different ways, but what makes us superior to all of them is our possession of language.

In this unit we also attempt to seek an answer to the question: Is language inside or outside the brain? It is known as the nature-nurture controversy. The position we adopt is: humans are born with language capacity that enables them to acquire language, any language, during their formative years. They can also learn any foreign language through efforts in their adulthood. Unit 2 Physical aspects of language.

The key points of this unit are: what we hear, and what we read about are physical aspects of language: they are physical representations of language. Language can also be represented in many other ways such as Braille and British manual alphabet. Speech sounds are given a detailed discussion, considering the fact that most of our learners are either in-service teachers or would-be teachers.

Unit 3 The symbolic nature of language

This is the most difficult unit, and at the same time a very important one. From Unit 1 we know that other animals including our closest cousins --- chimpanzees and apes, cannot learn a human language. What makes human language so unique is its symbolic nature. Language in its symbolic nature cannot be heard, or read, or seen or touched. We have to find ways (i.e. media) to make it tangible to us. So as a linguist, our job is to see the true nature of language through its media. To help you understand this point, you can think of a situation like this: different media such as

sounds, writing systems, Braille, signs, etc. are like different colourful skins that wrap language up. Unit 3 is to peel the colourful skins off to reveal the true nature.

The best way to summarize this unit is the graphic picture on page 97, about the relationship between the abstract form / abstract existence and material existence.

Unit 4 Language function 1: organizing our experiences of the material world

Up to now, we can see language as an abstract entity with tangible skins. From Unit 4 onwards, the focus of our attention is on what sort of things we do in using language. Technically we call such understanding of language as functional analysis. There are four major functions which are discussed in four units. Unit 4 is on the function of organizing our experiences of the material world. We experience an object through our senses. This experience is vague, slippery and temporary. We use language to make it clear, frozen and stored for future use.

The figure on page 150 shows how different people experience the same thing differently. Unit 5 Language function 2: doing things with language

This unit introduces the notion of speech acts. We do speech acts all the time everyday: we make a request, ask a question, invite someone to dinner, apologize for being late, etc., etc. Unit 6 Language function 3: managing interpersonal relations

There are all sorts of people and all sorts of relations in the social world. For example, there are teacher-student relation, shop-keeper-customer relation, employer-employee relation,

husband-wife relation, etc. Some people are more powerful than others; some are older or more senior than others. All these differences in status, power, gender, and age are carefully handled through the use of language.

Unit 7 Language function 4: Talk, talk and talk

Most of our waking life is spent on talking, and a great deal of real business is done through talking. The examination of how talk is being carried out is a recent event in the history of linguistics. It is known as conversation analysis or discourse analysis. Unit 8 Language in society

Up to now we have discussed four major functions of language: We use language to (1) organize our experiences of the material world; (2) perform speech acts; (3) manage interpersonal relations; and (4) talk. This unit looks at language from a much broader perspective, namely language in a

social and political context. Specifically we focus on language and identity, bilingualism, and language and politics.

Unit 9 Language, brain and mind

In Unit 1 we suggested that apes and chimpanzees could not learn human language because their brain is different from human brain. It is human brain that makes it possible for humans to develop language. In this unit we are going to take a closer look at the relationship between the brain/mind and language.

At this point you may want to know the difference between the brain and mind. The word brain here refers to the physiological substance inside the skull. The word mind, on the other hand, refers to psychological activities we do by using the brain, activities such as thinking, perceiving, memorizing, imagining, getting emotional, and so on.

The major issue of this unit is concerning language acquisition. For a child to acquire its mother tongue, it needs three things: (1) language exposure environment, (2) cognitive capacity, and (3) innateness.

Unit 10 General review and Course assessment

As the title suggests, this unit tries to give you a general review of the previous nine units; it also gives you some idea of how to prepare for the course assessment.

四、综合练习

Section 1 Checking content awareness of the course:

I. Complete the following items by providing the information based on the course book.

1. Unit 1 is entitled “ Awareness of Our Language”. “Our language” refers to _________. (human language in general)

2. The emperor’s words were powerful, not because they had ______ power, but because the emperor had ______. (magic, social and political power)

3. According to the author, the language you utter is both yours and not yours. It is yours because _______, and it is not yours because _______. (you are responsible for what you have uttered, language belongs to the speech community, not to any individual speaker)

4. According to the author, _____ and _____ are the two major physical aspects of language. (speech, writing)

5. In the written form of communication, there are two fundamental skills involved: _____ and ____, whereas in the oral form of communication, there are also two fundamental skills: _____ and _____. (writing, reading; speaking, listening)

6. Everyday we have to cope with all sorts of relations. According to the author, the interpersonal relation are largely _____.(managed through language)

7. According to the author, we live not in one world, but in three world:_______. (the material world, the subjective world, and the symbolic world)

8. In Unit 3, the author seems to suggest that the fact that readers find linguistics difficult to understand is largely because ______. (language is abstract in nature) 9. According to the author our experiences of the world are not chaotic, but _____ through ____. (organized, categorization)

10. According to the author, the best approach to linguistics is not learning it by rote, but _____. (learning it by doing it)

11. Activity 1 of Unit 1 Professor Guide delivered a public lecture entitled “Be Grateful to Language”. The key message Professor Guide wanted to drive home is _____.(Other animals cannot learn human language. Human beings owe civilized and meaningful life to language.)

12. There are two of the most common ways of representing language:________. (Speech and writing)

13. According to the author, of the 10 units, the most difficult one is Unit 3. Give the reason why the author says so. (Unit 3 deals with the symbolic nature of

language. It is the abstract existence of language.)

14. Unit 4 deals with issue of how we use language to organize our experiences of the material world. According to the author what do we do with language when we see an animal such as a pig? (We use the words like pig or zhu(猪) to capture our experience of the animal.

15. Unit 5 is concerned with the function of doing things with language. There is a technical term for doing things with language. It is ______. (speech act)

16. Everyday we have to cope with all sort of relations. According to the author one of the important ways we do so is _____. (through language)

17. The talk the teacher gives in class is technically called _____. (classroom discourse)

18. When a new nation is born, one of its first things it does is ______. (to choose its national language.)

19. According to the author our brain is divided into two hemispheres. Language functions are mainly located in _______. (left hemisphere)

20. In the course you are asked to do many tasks. All the tasks fall into different types. What are the main task types? (awareness task, understanding task, analytic task)

21. Activity 2 of Unit 3 is entitled “ An Anatomy of the Word”. The key issue dealt with is _____. (what makes a word a word)

22. According to the author, the best way to study linguistics is _____. (that you learn it by actually doing it yourself)

II. Choose those words or phrases that best complete the missing items. Note that there are more words or phrases than necessary. A. picture great Conceptual meaning Affective meaning How to do things with words Metaphorical extension speech Local accent hedge 1. Words are often attached with ______. (affected meaning)

2. 系头 is an example _____ in the use of language. (metaphorical extension)

3. J. L. Austin was well known for his posthumous work _____. (How to Do Things with Words)

4. In the sentence “It may be the case that the Italian football team won the match”, the italicized part is called _____. (hedge)

5. Song Qin tried to hide her ____ because it might betray her identity. (local accent) B. statement Gun and powder picture Great Human civilization Articulatory phonetics Phonological writings Speech pictographic Conventions writing ideographic 6. Language is a dialect with _______. (gun and powder)

7. The task of ____ is to provide a detailed account of how sounds are produced. (articulatory phonetics)

8. _______ refer to those _____ systems that have a close connection with the way languages are pronounced. (Phonological writings, writing)

9. Chinese writing is _______, rather than _______. (ideographic, pictographic)

10. Words do not stand for things through _____ consciously made by man. (conventions) C. Conventions egressive airflow genius great human civilization names social speech Words women 11. Language is as old as _____. (human civilization)

12. It is wrong to assume that _____ are the persons so named. (names) 13. _____ is only one of the ways that represent language. (Speech)

14. Most of speech sounds are produced by _____. Only a few are uttered by ingressive airflow. (egressive airflow)

15. Words do not stand for things through ______ consciously made by man. (conventions)

Section 2 Checking understanding of some general principles of language and linguistics

I. Give short answers to the following questions. You can answer them in

your own words, or by using the exact expressions from the course book. Use examples to illustrate your point where necessary.

1. What is the popular view towards those who can read and write well?

In a speech community that has a writing system for its language, those who can read and write well are considered as being educated, and are respected by the community. In contrast, those who speak well are often considered as being less trustworthy.

2. In what ways are speech-handicapped people helped with their communications?

Braille and sign language are invented for them. The British manual alphabet and Chinese sign language are two examples.

3. What makes a drawing become icon, and what makes a combination of letters become a symbol? Give a concrete example to illustrate your answer.

That a drawing is made into an icon is due to the fact that it resembles the thing it stands for. For example, I can draw a picture of pen and use the picture as an icon for pen. That a combination of letters, for example, the word “book”, is made a symbol meaning something we can read is due to the fact that there is a convention accepted by everyone who speak English.

4. In Unit 4, you were given an imaginative task of taking pictures of the concept WORK. Explain why you were asked to do such a task.

The concept WORK is an abstraction from a series of concrete things we do for our living. The task was designed to help students understand the process from concrete action to abstract concept.

5. Use address terms to illustrate how interpersonal relations are managed through language.

We live in a network of relations. Some are more senior, or more powerful, than others. Some are close to or even intimate with others. Or to put it differently,