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第二篇：北 京 外 国 语 大 学
北 京 外 国 语 大 学
20xx年硕士研究生入学考试语言学与应用语言学专业试卷
All the questions are to be answered in English on the answer sheets provided
1. Examine the following two statements about language, and discuss the similarities and differences between them. Do you agree with the two statements? Explain your answer.(25 points)
1) Sapir (1921:Language): “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols”(p.8).
2) Bloch and Trager (1942: Outline of Linguistic Analysis ): “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates”(p.5).
2. What are phonemes, phones and allophones? Explain their relationship with examples from English or Chinese. (15 points)
3. Is it possible to separate semantics and pragmatics? Why or why not ?What are the implications of your answer for second language teaching?(30points).
4. It has been noticed that Chinese learners of English tend to make mistakes in the marking of past tense ,even at the advanced level of proficiency. What do you think are the possible causes of this problem? How can language teachers help solve this problem and why? (30points)
5. Look at the following real newspaper headlines and explain why they are considered ambiguous. Then revise the headlines so that they can express the intended meanings unambiguously.(20 points).
(1) Complaints about NBA Referees Growing Ugly
(2) Milk Drinkers Are Turning to Powder
(3) Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years at Checkout Counter
(4) Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax
(5) Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted
6. In interpreting utterances such as (1) and (2), the hearer generally treats the events described in the two sentences in each group as causally related even though such relationship is not encoded in the meanings of the sentences. That is, the hearer tends to think that Helen fell on the ground because of Tom’s pushing and that the vase broke because it was dropped. Explain why. (30 points).
(1) Tom pushed Helen. Helen fell on the ground.
(2) Peter dropped the vase. It broke.
北 京 外 国 语 大 学
20xx年硕士研究生入学考试语言学与应用语言学专业试卷
All the questions are to be answered in English on the answer sheets provided
1. Shakespeare has Juliet say:
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
What do the above lines ay to you about the relationship between the form (sounds) and meaning (concept) of a word in spoken language?
Explain with positive evidence as well as exceptions from the English language. (15points)
2. How much does our language influence the way we think? How deeply do language and culture interpenetrate and influence one another? These questions about language have fascinated thinkers throughout the ages.
For example, Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt in the German Romantic tradition regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the world so that each language reflects a different worldview. Write a short essay to explain your position on this view. (35points)
3. Is English a language that uses a phonetic alphabet system? Explain briefly why or why not with examples.
(15points).
4.Suppose you were given four cards, each of which had a different phoneme of English printed on it:
K b l i
Now arrange these cards to form all the “possible” words that these four phonemes could form. Discuss what rules you have followed to come up with these words.(20points).
5. Paraphrase each of the following sentences in two different ways to show that you understand the ambiguity
involved10points)
a. Dick finally decided on the boat.
b. The professor’s appointment was shocking. c. The governor is a dirty street fighter.
d. Terry loves his wife and so do I.
e. No smoking section available.
6.It is argued that grammaticality judgments do not depend on whether the sentence is meaningful or not, as shown by the sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”, which does not make much sense but is syntactically well formed. How would you respond to this argument?(25points).
7. TOEFL often requires the examinees to specify the situational context after listening to a conversation. See for example a tape-script below for an exam item.
Voice A (male): How much is this tie?
Voice B (female): Forty.
Voice C (male): Where does this conversation most probably take place?
What do you think is the TOEFL people’s belief about what constitutes linguistic competence and how linguistic competence can be tested? (30points)