标准日语课后练习翻译及答案1-18课1.3 Design features of language 语言的结构特征Design features------ refers to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication. They are arbitrariness, duality, creativity/ productivity, displacement, clutural transmission and interchangeability.Design features----- are features that define our human languages,such as arbitrariness,duality,creativity,displacement,cultural transmission,etc.(指决定了人类语言性质的特征.例如任意性,二重性,创造性,移位性,文化转移性等.) The American linguist Charles Hockett specified twelve design features. What is arbitrariness?任意性a. arbitrariness【'ɑːbɪtrərɪnɪs】---- arbitrariness(任意性): one design featureof human language,which refers to the fact that the forms oflinguistic signs bear no natural relationship to theirmeaning.(人类语言的本质特征之一,指语言符号的形式与意义之间没有自然的联系.)It was discussed by Saussure first.The link between them isa matter of convention.E.g. “house” uchi (Japanese)Mansion (French)房子(Chinese)(1) arbitrary between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning语言的音和义之间的任意性a. By “arbitrary”, we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. 语言的意义和语音之间没有逻辑关系。
A gog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had used it for a gig. Language therefore is largely arbitrary.b. But language is not absolutely seem to be some sound-meaning association, if we think of echo words, like “bang ” ”crash” ”roar ” ” rumble ” ”cakle”, which are motivated in a certain sense.”onomatopoeia拟声词---words that sound like the sounds they describe那些发音像它们的描写的声音的词c. some compounds (words compounded to be one word ) are not entirelyarbitary either. “type ” and ”write ”are opaque or unmotivated words, while “type -writer” is less so, or more transparent or motivated than the words that make it . so we can say “arbitrariness” is a matter of degree.arbitrary and onometopoeic effect may work at the same time.任意性和拟声可以同时起作用。
Eg. The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.夏日黄昏，群蝇嗡嗡地非。
(2) Arbitrary at the syntactic level 句法上的任意性According to systematic-functionalists and American functionlists, language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level. 对于系统功能语言学家和美国功能语言学家来说，语言在句法上是非任意的。
Syntax-----it refers to the ways that sentences are constructed according to the grammar of arrangement.句法就是依据语法安排造句之法。
(3) Aribrtary and convention任意性和约定性The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention.语言学上的符号和它的意义之间是约定俗成的关系。
The other side of coin of arbitrariness , namely, conventionality.任意性的相反面，即约定性。
conventionality----It means that in any language there are certain sequences of sounds that have a conventionally accepted meaning.Those words are customarily used by all speakers with the same intended meaning and understood by all listeners in the same way.Arbitrainess of langauge makes it potentially creative, and conventionality of language makes learning a language laborious.任意性赋予语言潜在的创造力，而语言的约定性又使学习语言变得费力。
There are two different schools of belief concerning arbitrariness. Most people, especially structural linguists believe that language is arbitrary by nature. Other people, however, hold that language is iconic, that is, there is a direct relation or correspondence between sound and meaning, such as onomatopoeia.(cuckoo; crash)For the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be a clear connection between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it, And for them, the sets of signals used in communication is finite.b. duality【djuː'ælətɪ】(二重性):--- one design feature of human language,which refers to the property of having two levels of structures , suchas units of the primary level are composed of elements of thesecondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles oforganization.(人类语言的本质特征之一,指拥有两层结构的这种特性,底层结构是上层结构的组成成分,每层都有自身的组合规则.)duality----language is simultaneously organized at two levels or layers, namely, the level of sounds and that of meaning.the higher level ----words which are meaningfulthe lower or the basic level----sounds which are meaningless, but can be grouped and regrouped into words.Dog: woof (but not “w-oo-f ” )This duality of levels is, in fact, one of the most economical features of human language, since with a limited set of distinct sounds we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (e.g.words) which are distinct in meaning.The principle of economy 经济原则Linguists refer “duality” (of structure) to the fact that in all language so farinvestigated, one finds two levels of structure or patterning. At the first, higher level, language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningful units (such as morphemes, words etc.). At the second, lower level, it is seen as a sequence of segments which lack any meaning in themselves, but which combine to form units of meaning.According to HUZHUANGLIN, language is a system of two sets of structures or two levels, one of sound and the other of meaning. This is important for the workings of language.A small number of semantic words /units, and these units of meaning canbe arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences.这些意义单位组成无数个句子。