语言学问答题及答案.docVIP

1.Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written? First, the spoken form is prior to the writ-ten form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of language. Second, the spoken form plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed and it serves a wider range of purposes Finally, the spoken form is the medium through which we acquire our mother tongue. 66. What are the major distinctions between langue and parole? The distinction between langue, and parole was made by the famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early this century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow while parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use, but parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable; it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation. 2．What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How do they differ? One of the oldest was the naming theory, proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato, who believed that the words used in a language are taken to be la-bels of the objects they stand for. The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a lin-guistic form and what it refers to. The form and the meaning are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized; the situational context and the linguistic context. For example, the meaning of the word seal in the sentence The seal could not be found can