名词解释1

Chapter 1: Introduction

1. Linguistics: Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language.

2. general linguistics: The study of language as a whole.

3. applied linguistics: the application of linguistic theories and principles to language teaching, especially the teaching of foreign and second languages.

4. prescriptive: If linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct and standard” behavior in using language, i.e. to tell people what they should and should not say, it is said to be prescriptive.

5. descriptive: If a linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive.

6. synchronic study: The description of language at some point of time in history is a synchronic study. (06C/ 04)

7. diachronic study: The description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. (06C)

8. langue: Lange refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community.

9. parole :Parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use.

10. competence : The ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language.

11. performance : The actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.

12. language : Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

13. design features : Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication.

14. arbitrariness: Arbitrariness refers to no logical connection between meaning and sound.

15. productivity: Users can understand and produce sentences that they have never heard before.

16. duality: Language consists of two sets of structure, with lower lever of sound, which is meaningless, and the higher lever of meaning.

17. displacement: Language can be used to refer to the contexts removed from the immediate situation of the speaker no matter how far away from the topic of conversation in time or space. (04)

18. cultural transmission: Language is culturally transmitted. It is taught and learned from one generation to the next, rather than by instinct.