◎Animals make much the same sounds around the world, but each language expresses them differently. English and Chinese cows sound thesame, but not in English and Chinese! ◎The arbitrary link between a linguistic sign 语言符号and its meaning, however, is also conventional 符合习俗的. 2) Productivity / Creativity◎----Peculiar to 是…特有的human languages ，users of language can understand and produce sentences they have never heard before.◎Language is resourceful 资源丰富的because of its duality 二元性and its recursiveness [ri'kə:sivnis]递归性. We can use it to create new meanings.◎Words can be used in new ways to mean new things, and can be instantly 立即地understood by people who havenever come across 讲得清楚明白that usage before.◎The recursive nature 递归性of language provides a potential to createan infinite number of sentences. For instance: ①He bought a book which was written by a teacher who taught in a school which was known for its graduates who ... ②This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt 麦芽that lay in the house that Jack built.3) Duality (double articulation) Lower level----sounds (meaningless)Higher level----meaning (larger units of meaning)二层性是指拥有两层结构这种特性，上层结构的单位由底层结构的元素构成，每层都有自身的组合规则。

（Lyons, 1981)1.1.3 Important distinctions in linguistics P3-6Descriptive vs.prescriptiveSynchronic vs.diachronicSpeech vs. writingLangue & paroleCompetence andperformance1) Descriptive vs. prescriptive◎Don't say X. People don't say X.The first is a prescriptive command, while the second is a descriptive statement.◎The distinction lies in在于prescribing how things ought to be and describing how things are.◎Descritptive: the linguists tries to discover and record the rules to which the members of a large community actually conform遵照and does not seek to impose upon them other rules or norms of correctness.◎Prescriptive：the grammarians文法家tries to lay down制定rules for the correct use of language and set the disputes over就…进行辩论usage once and for all彻底地. ( right / wrong)◎Humorous grammar rules：⊕Never end a sentence with a preposition.⊕And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.⊕It is wrong to ever split分离an infinitive不定式.⊕No sentence fragments.2）Synchronic vs. diachronic◎A synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its point of observation. Most grammars are of this kind.◎Diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through the course of its history .◎Synchronic study 共时性研究---- description of a language at some point of time (modern linguistics)◎Diachronic study 历时性研究---- description of a language through time (historical development oflanguage over a period of time)3） Speech vs. writing◎Speech ---- primary medium oflanguage◎Writing ---- later developed4）Langue 语言 vs. parole 言语 (F. de Saussure)◎Langue ---- the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of the speech community.◎Parole ---- the realization of langue in actual use.◎Saussure takes a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.5) Competence and performance (Chomsky)◎Competence ---- the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language◎Performance ---- the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication◎Chomsky looks at language froma psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of themind of each individual.6) Traditional grammar vsmodern linguisticsboth spoken and written forms.7.Which of the following statements is not the concern of sociolinguists?A. The language a person uses reveals his social background.B. There exist social norms that determine the type of language to be used on a certain occasion.C. How does the human mind work when they use language.D. To investigate the social aspects of language.8. Language is ___________ in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.A. systematicB. culturally transmittedC. intuitive 凭直觉获知的D. productive9. ___________ studies the internal structure of words and the rules that govern their formation.A. PhonologyB. SemanticsC. SyntaxD. Morphology10.The study of language as a whole is often called ____________ linguistics.A. generalB. applied B. generative D. particular11. The fact that different languages have different words for the same object is a good illustration of the ___________ nature of language.A. productiveB. dualC. arbitraryD. displacing12. Which of the following is not a major branch of linguistics?A. phoneticsB. phonologyC. speechD. syntax13. The application of linguistictheories and principles to language teaching is ______________.A. computational linguisticsB. anthropological linguisticsC. mathematical linguisticsD. applied linguistics14. Modern linguistics regards the written language as ____________.A. primaryB. correctC. secondaryD. stable15. In modern linguistics, speech is regarded as more basic than writing, because ___________.A. in linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writingB. speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.C. speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongueD. All of the above16. A historical study of language is a ____ study of language.A. synchronicB. diachronicC. prescriptiveD. comparative17. Saussure took a (n)__________ view of language, while Chomsky looks at language from a ________ point of view.A. sociological,psychologicalB.psychological,sociologicalC. applied, pragmaticD. semantic and linguistic18. According to F. de Saussure, ____ refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community.A. paroleB. performanceC. langueD. Language19. The details of any language system is passed on from one generation1) Lips硬腭5)Soft palate (velum) 软腭Uvula['ju:vjulə]小舌舌尖舌面4. The description of English consonants:3、The description of English vowels needs to fulfill four basic requirements:1）The openness of the mouthThe difference may be caused by dialect or personal habit, instead of any distribution rule.E.g.either /ai/i:/direction /ai/i/7、Principles used for distinguish or assimilate 吸收/使同化phonemes：1）Phonemic contrast(音位对立原则)2）Complementarydistribution(互补分布原则)3）Minimal pair(最小对立体)1）Phonemic contrast①Phonetically similar sounds might be related in two ways.②If they are two distinctive phonemes, they are said to form a phonemic contrast. E.g. [pit] vs. [bit]2）If they are allophones of the same phoneme, then they do not distinguish meaning, but complement each other in distribution. So the allophones are said to be in complementary distribution.E.g. Clear [l] always occurs before a vowel.Dark [l] always occurs between a vowel and a consonant, or at the end of a word.3）Minimal pairMinimal pair----when two different forms are identical (the same) in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair.当两个或两个以上意义不等的语音组合(即语言单位) 仅仅在一个语音上显示出差异of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules, e.g.spring, strict, square, splendid, scream.a) the first phoneme must be /s/,b) the second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/,c) the third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/.⊕[ŋ ] never occurs in initial position in English and standard Chinese, but it does occur in some dialects, e.g. in Cantonese广东话: “牛肉，我，俄语……”2) Assimilation rule⊕----assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar, e.g. the prefix in- is pronounced differently when in different phonetic contexts:⊕in discreetalveolar⊕in conceivable velar⊕in putbilabial⊕cap vs. can3) Deletion rule⊕---- it tells us when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented, e.g. design, paradigm ['pærədaɪm]范例, there is no [g] sound; but the [g] sound is pronounced in their corresponding forms signature, designation[,deziɡ'neiʃən], paradigmatic范例的.9、Suprasegmental features （超切分特征）⊕----the phonemic音位/音素的features that occur above the level of the segments ( larger than phoneme):1) stress 2) tone 3) intonation1)Stress:Word stress 、Sentence stress2）Tone：Tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords.English is not a tone language, but Chinese is.ma 妈(level) ma 麻(the second rise)ma 马(the third rise) ma 骂(the fourth fall)3）Intonation⊕When pitch音高, stress and length variations are tied to the sentence rather than to the word, they are collectively known as intonation.⊕English has three types of intonation that are most frequently used:•falling tone (matter of fact statement)•rising tone (doubts or question)•the fall-rise tone(implied message)For instance, “That’s not the book he wants.”⊕Grammatical functions of intonations：----Intonation plays an important role in the conveyance of meaning in almost every language, esp. in English.a) It may indicate different sentence types by pitch direction.b) It may impose different structures on the sentence by dividing it into different intonation units, e.g.“John didn’t come because of Marry”Within one intonation unit, it means:in terms of the amount of information conveyed.7. Articulatory phonetics tries to describe the physical properties of the stream of sounds which a speaker issues with the help of a machine called spectrograph.8. The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three important areas: the throat, the mouth and the chest.9. Vibration of the vocal cords results in a quality of speech sounds called voicing.10. English consonants can be classified in terms of place of articulation and the part of the tongue that is raised the highest.11. According to the manner of articulation, some of the types into which the consonants can be classified are stops, fricatives, bilabial and alveolar.12. Vowel sounds can be differentiated by a number of factors: the position of tongue in the mouth, the openness of the mouth, the shape of the lips, and the length of the vowels.13. According to the shape of the lips, vowels can be classified into close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels and open vowels.14. Any sound produced by a human being is a phoneme.15. Phones are the sounds that can distinguish meaning.16. Phonology is concerned with how the sounds can be classified into different categories.17. A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see iflevel of the segments. They include stress, tone, intonation, etc.28. The rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called s_______ rules.29. The transcription of speech sounds with letter-symbols only is called broad transcription while the transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacritics is calledn_________ transcription.30. When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as i_________.31. P___________ is a discipline which studies the system of sounds of a particular language and how sounds are combined into meaningful units to effect linguistic communication.32. The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three important cavities: the pharyngeal cavity, the o_______ cavity and the nasal cavity.33. T_______ are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing ratesof vibration of the vocal cords and which can distinguish meaning just like phonemes.34. Depending on the context in which stress is considered, there are two kinds of stress: word stress ands_________ stress.。