语言学精华术语概念(英文版)

Linguistics - TermsMetafuncion: The general roles language plays are termed metafunctions. Language plays three metafunctions: 1. the ideational function, to identify things, to think, or to record info; 2. the interpersonal function, to use it as a medium to communicate in a community; 3. the textual function, to organize message in a logical way; to bring units of language into unity.Contractive distribution: sounds appearing in the same environment. a. minimal pairs: two words differing by only one sound in the same position (e.g. sip, zip); b. minimal sets: words distinguished by one segment in the same position (e.g. beat, bit, bet, bat). Complementary distribution: allophones that are not found in the same position, but share phonetic featuresFree variation: if segments appear in the same position but the mutual substitution does not result in change of meaning, they are said to be in free variation. Segments in free variation are generally dialectal variation (e.g. economics).Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit of language is called a morpheme. The morpheme can be classified into free morphemes, bound morpheme (inflectional morpheme and derivational morphemes).Allomorphs: a morpheme may be represented by different forms, called allomorphs.(E.g. the prefix：in has four allomorphs as found in the words impossible, immoral, irregular, irresistible.)Inflectional morphemes: indicating grammatical categories (e.g. indicates case and number of nouns, tense and aspect of verbs, and degree of adjectives and adverbs.) Derivational affixes: Derivational affixes are bound morphemes added to existing forms to construct new words. The process of putting affixes to existing forms to create new words is called deviation.Syntagmatic relations: chain relations, supported by TG grammar, regarding language as an abstract system, analyzing its form; It is a method of analyzing sentences by looking into their constituents and generalizing the pattern.Paradigmatic relations: choice relations, supported by SF grammar, emphasizing the vertical relations in order to explain the realization of the function of language; It focuses on the language in use.Transitivity: Transitivity is the syntactic structure as representation of experience. The ideational function is realized by the transitivity system of language. It is a type of linguistic process which represents what exists and what is going on around us andinside us. The three main linguistic processes are termed material processes, relational processes and mental processes.Mood: The unique contribution by systematic-functional grammar is the observation that only a particular element of syntactic structure, called mood, realizes the interaction between the speaker and hearer.All purposes in conversations fall into two fundamental categories: giving or demanding. Giving goods-and services is offer; giving information is statement. Demanding g&s is command; demanding information is question.Mood is a syntactic constituent made up of the subject and the finite. The subject is the first noun phrase in a statement. The finite is a verbal operator that expresses tense or modal meaning as well as positive or negative form.Modality: Modality expresses the semantic space between yes and no. It can be categorized into modalization and modulation. Modalization relates to how valid the information is (probability, usuality); Modulation relates to how confident the speaker can be in the eventual success of the speech act (obligation, inclination). Reference: reference is one aspect of meaning and the relation by which a word picks out or identifies an entity in the world. E.g. London refers to the capital of Great Britain. The word dog denotes a kind of domestic animal.Sense: It is mental representation and the association with something in the speaker/ hear’s mind. E.g. when you hear the expression dog, you will naturally reflect on its features in addition to the kind of animal as the referent of the expression. Homonymy: Homonyms are words which have the same form but different meanings. Homograph: same spelling, different meaningsHomophone: same pronunciation, different meaningsFull Homonym: same spelling and pronunciation, different meaningsHyponymy: Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion. Tiger, lion, elephant and dog are hyponyms of the word animal. Words like animal are called superordinates. Componential analysis: The approach that analyzes word meaning by decomposing it into its atomic features is CA. Advantages: 1. It is a breakthrough in the formal representation of meaning. 2. It reveals the impreciseness of the terminology in the traditional approach to meaning analysis. 3. It examines the components of senses. The more semantic features a word has, the narrower its reference is. Limitations: It cannot be applied to the analysis of all lexicons, merely to words within the same semantic field.Prototype: The theory of prototype introduces a notion of degree of membership. 1. Some members of a category are typical and central while others are peripheral. 2. There is no clear dividing line between the judgments of two entities. Rather, the one category is gradually merged into the other. 3. Categories are gradable. This approach allows for marginal members. 4. This theory eliminates the dilemma of the traditional conception of category as it postulates that typical members may possess more features than non-typical members.Deixis: Deixis means “pointing”via language. An expression used by speaker to identify something is called deictic expression. (E.g. “what’s this”. The deictic expression “this” is to indicate something in the immediate context.) Deixis can be put into person deixis (comprising personal pronouns), place deixis (specifying the locations relative to the speech event), time deixis (indicating the time of speaking and hearing) and discourse deixis (an expression that has its reference within the discourse or text).Anaphoric reference: the reference of a deixis to a preceding expression is technically termed anaphoric reference. E.g. “a boy and a girl are planting a tree, she is holding it and he is shoveling earth”“he,she” is used as anaphoric reference to refer to “a boy and a girl.”Cataphoric reference: the reversal of the antecedent-anaphora pattern is known as cataphoric reference. E.g. it’s a good idea to have a picnic. It is used as cataphoric reference to refer to “to have a picnic”.Speech act: actions performed via speaking are called speech acts. A speech act consists of three dimensions. The act of producing a meaningful linguistic expression is called locutionary act. The act of communication intention through utterance is termed illocutionary act. The act of bringing an effect is known as perlocutionary act. As functions may not correspond to forms, speech acts can be direct and indirect. 1. Direct speech act: corresponding to the structure of an utterance (straightforward)2. Indirect speech act: those in which there is no correspondence between a structure and a function (polite). It takes longer to process on the part of the hearer.Code model: Communication is achieved by encoding and decoding messages. Inferential model: Illocutions and implicatures are not directly represented by linguistic codes; they must be inferred.Back-channel signals: People always use indications to indicate that he/she is listening. There are two types of indication: paralinguistic signals such as nodding, gestures, smiles, and other facial expressions; vocal signals, uh-uh, yeah, mmm and so on. These vocal and paralinguistic signals are called back-channel signals.Variety: the form of a language used by any group pf speakers or used in a particular fieldFour types: 1. The standard variety(the form of a language used by the governments and communication media, taught in schools and universities and is mainly or only written form) 2. Regional dialect(a variety of language spoken by people living in an area) 3. Sociolects (forms of languages that characterize the speech of different social classes) 4. Registers (a term referring to “varieties according to use”, vs. the former “according to user”) Three dimensions: field (the purpose and subject-matter of communication); mode (the means by which communication takes place); tenor (the relations between the communicators)Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Language, culture and thought are interdependent. That different people speak differently – that they think differently – that their language offers them different ways of expressing Relativism: Culture affects the way we think through language, especially in our classification of the physical world, the social world, and the ideological world. E.g. kinships in different languages. Communicative competence: the tacit knowledge of language and the ability to use it Four parameters underlining a speakers CC: (1) Whether/to what degree sth is formally possible (good in grammar); (2) Whether/to what degree sth is feasible (acceptability); (3) Whether/to what degree sth is appropriate; (4) Whether/to what degree sth is in fact done (effectiveness).。