Chapter 6 Pragmatics
Ⅰ. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:
1. F 2. F 3. T 4. T 5. F 6. F 7. F 8. F 9. F 10. T 11. T 12. F
Ⅱ. Fill in each blank below with one word which begins with the letter given:
13. Pragmatics 14. semantics 15. context 16. utterance 17. abstract
18. Constatives 19. Performatives 20. locutionary 21. illocutionary
22. commissive 23. expressive 24. quantity
Ⅲ. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:
25. A 26.C 27.D 28.B 29.C 30.B
31. A 32.C 33.B 34.C 35. A 36.D
Ⅳ. Define the terms below:
37. pragmatics: Pragmatics can be defined as the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication.
38. Context: Generally speaking, it consists of the knowledge that is shared by the speaker and the hearer. The shared knowledge is of two types: the knowledge of the language they use, and the knowledge about the world, including the general knowledge about the world and the specific knowledge about the situation in which linguistic communication is taking place.
39. utterance meaning: the meaning of an utterance is concrete, and context-dependent. Utterance is based on sentence meaning; it is realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context.
40. sentence meaning: The meaning of a sentence is often considered as the abstract, intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of a predication.
41. Constative: Constatives were statements that either state or describe, and were verifiable.
42. Performative: performatives, on the other hand, were sentences that did not state a fact or describe a state, and were not verifiable. Their function is to perform a particular speech act.
43. locutionary act: A locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology.
44. illocutionary act: An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker's intention; it is the act performed in saying something.
45. perlocutionary act: A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance; it is the act performed by saying something.
46. Cooperative Principle: It is principle advanced by Paul Grice. It is a principle that guides our conversational behaviours. The content is: Make your conversational contribution such as is required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or the talk exchange in which you are engaged.
Ⅴ. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary:
47. How are semantics and pragmatics different from each other?
Traditional semantics studied meaning, but the meaning of language was considered as something intrinsic, and inherent, i.e. a property attached to language itself. Therefore, meanings of words, meanings of sentences were all studied in an isolated manner, detached from the context in which they were used. Pragmatics studies meaning not in isolation, but in context. The essential distinction between semantics and pragmatics is whether the context of use is considered in the study of meaning. If it is not considered, the study is restricted to the area of traditional semantics; if it is considered, the study is being carried out in the area of pragmatics.
48. How does a sentence differ from an utterance?
A sentence is a grammatical concept. It usually consists of a subject and predicate. An utterance is the unit of communication. It is the smallest linguistic unit that has a communicative value. If we regard a sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication, it becomes an utterance. Whether “Mary is beautiful.” is a sentence or an utterance depends on how we look at it. If we regard it as a grammatical unit or a self-contained unit in isolation, then it is a sentence. If we look at it as something uttered in a certain situation with a certain purpose, then it is an utterance. Most utterances take the form of complete sentences, but some utterances are not, and some cannot even be restored to complete sentences.
49. How does a sentence meaning differ from an utterance meaning?
A sentence meaning is often considered as the intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of a predication. It is abstract and independent of context. The meaning of an utterance is concrete, and context-dependent. The utterance meaning is based on sentence meaning; it is realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context. For example, “There is a dog at the door”. The speaker could utter it as a matter-of-fact statement, telling the hearer that the dog is at the door. The speaker could use it as a warning, asking the hearer not to approach the door. There are other possibilities, too. So, the understanding of the utterance meaning of “There is a dog at the door” depends on the context in which it is uttered and the purpose for which the speaker utters it.
50. Discuss in detail the locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.
A locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology. An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention; it is the act performed in saying something. A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance; it is the act performed by saying something. For example:
You have left the door wide open.
The locutionary act performed by the speaker is that he has uttered all the words “you”, “have”, “door”, “left”, “open”, etc. and expressed what the word literally mean.
The illocutionary act performed by the speaker is that by making such an utterance, he has expressed his intention of asking the hearer to close the door.
The perlocutionary act refers to the effect of the utterance. If the hearer understands that the speaker intends him to close the door and closes the door, the speaker has successfully brought about the change in the real world he has intended to; then the perlocutiohary act is successfully performed.
51. Searle classified illocutionary act into five categories. Discuss each of them in detail with examples.
1) representatives: representatives are used to state, to describe, to report, etc.. The illocutionary point of the representatives is to commit the speaker to something's being the case, to the truth of what has been said. For example:
(I swear) I have never seen the man before.
(I state) the earth is a globe.
2) directives: Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something. Inviting, suggesting, requesting, advising, warning, threatening, ordering are all specific instances of this class. For example:
Open the window!
3) commissives: Commissives are those illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action. When the speaker is speaking, he puts himself under obligation. For example:
I promise to come.
I will bring you the book tomorrow without fail.
4) expressives: The illocutionary point of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the utterance. The speaker is expressing his feelings or attitude towards an existing state of affairs, e.g. apologizing, thanking, congratulating. For example:
I’m sorry for the mess I have made.
5) declarations: Declarations have the characteristic that the successful performance of such an act brings about the correspondence between what is said and reality. For example:
I now declare the meeting open.
52. What are the four maxims under the cooperative principle?
The maxim of quantity
(1) Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purpose of the exchange).
(2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
The maxim of quality
(1) Do not say what you believe to be false.
(2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
The maxim of relation
Be relevant.
The maxim of manner
(1) Avoid obscurity of expression.
(2) Avoid ambiguity.
(3) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
(4) Be orderly.
53. How does the flouting of the maxims give rise to conversational implicatures?
A: Do you know where Mr. Smith lives?
B: Somewhere in the southern suburbs of the city.
This is said when both A and B know that B does know Mr. Smith’s address. Thus B does not give enough information that is required, and he has flouted the maxim of quantity. Therefore, such conversational implicature as “I do not wish to tell you where Mr. Smith lives” is produced.
A: Would you like to come to our party tonight?
B: I’m afraid I’m not feeling so well today.
This is said when both A and B know that B is not having any health problem that will prevent him from going to a party. Thus B is saying something that he himself knows to be false and he is violating the maxim of quality. The conversational implicature “I do not want to go to your party tonight” is then produced.
A: The hostess is an awful bore. Don’t you think?
B: The roses in the garden are beautiful, aren’t they?
This is said when both A and B know that it is entirely possible for B to make a comment on the hostess. Thus B is saying something irrelevant to what A has just said, and he has flouted the maxim of relation. The conversational implicature “I don’t wish to talk about the hostess in such a rude manner” is produced.
A: Shall we get something for the kids?
B: Yes. But I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M.
This is said when both A and B know that B has no difficulty in pronouncing the word “icecream”. Thus B has flouted the maxim of manner. The conversational implicature “I don’t want the kids to know we are talking about ice-cream” is then produced.
Chapter 7 Historical Linguistics
Ⅰ. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:
1. T 2. T 3. T 4. F 5. F 6. T 7. F 8. F 9. T 10. F
11. T 12. F 13. T 14. F 15. F 16. F 17. T 18. T 19. F 20. T
Ⅱ. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:
21. Historical 22. diachronic 23. Renaissance 24. Vowel 25. Apocope
26. epenthesis 27. Law 28. Metathesis 29. Backformation 30. broadening
31. protolanguage 32. assimilation 33. internal 34. comparative 35. morphosyntactic
Ⅲ. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:
36. D 37. A 38. B 39. C 40. A 41. C 42. B 43. B 44. A 45. C
46. D 47. A 48. D 49. D 50. C
Ⅳ. Define the following terms:
51. Apocope: Apocope is the deletion of a word-final vowel segment.
52. Metathesis: Sound change as a result of sound movement is known as metathesis. It involves a reversal in position of two neighbouring sound segments.
53. Derivation: It is a process by which new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots, stems or words.
54. back-formation: It is a process by which new words are formed by taking away the supposed suffix of an existing word.
55. semantic narrowing: Semantic narrowing is a process in which the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its historically earlier meaning.
56. Protolanguage: It is the original form of a language family that has ceased to exist.
57. Haplology: It refers to the phenomenon of the loss of one of two phonetically similar syllables in sequence.
58. Epenthesis: A change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word is known as epenthesis.
59. Compounding: It is a process of combining two or more than two words into one lexical unit.
60. Blending: It is a process of forming a new word by combining parts of other words.
61. semantic broadening: Semantic broadening refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation.
62. semantic shift: Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related, meaning.
63. Great Vowel Shift: It is a series of systematic sound change at the end of the Middle English period approximately between 1400 and 1600 in the history of English that involved seven long vowels and consequently led to one of the major discrepancies between English pronunciation and its spelling system.
64. Acronym: An acronym is a word created by combining the initials of a number of words.
65. sound assimilation: Sound assimilation refers to the physiological effect of one sound on another. In an assimilative process, successive sounds are made identical, or more similar, to one another in terms of place or manner of articulation, or of haplology.
Ⅴ. Answer the following questions:
66. What is the purpose or significance of the historical study of language?
1) Researches in historical linguistics shed light on prehistoric developments in the evolution of language and the connections of earlier and later variants of the same language and provide valuable insights into the kinship patterns of different languages.
2) The identification of the changes that a particular language has undergone enables us to reconstruct the linguistic history of that language, and thereby hypothesizes its earlier forms from which current speech and writing have evolved.
3) The historical study of language also enables them to determine how non-linguistic factors, such as social, cultural and psychological factors, interact over time to cause linguistic change.
67. What are the characteristics of the nature of language change?
All living languages change with time and language change is inevitable. As a general rule, language change is universal, continuous and, to a considerable degree, regular and systematic. Language change is extensive, taking place in virtually all aspects of the grammar.
Although language change is universal, inevitable, and in some cases, vigorous, it is never an overnight occurrence, but a gradual and constant process, often indiscernible to speakers of the same generation.
68. What are the major periods in the history of English?
The major periods in the history of English are Old English period (roughly from 449 to 1100), Middle English period (roughly from 1100 to 1500), and Modern English period (roughly from 1500 to the present). Old English dates back to the mid-fifth century when Anglo-Saxons invaded the British Isles from northern Europe.
The pronunciation of Old English is very different from its modem form. For example, the Old English word “ham” is pronounced as /ha:m/. In terms of morphology, nearly half of the nouns are inflected to mark nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative cases. In addition, suffixes are added to verbs to indicate tense. Syntactically, the verb of an Old English sentence precedes, hut does not follow, the subject.
Middle English began when the Norman French invaders invaded England under William the Conqueror in 1066. Middle English had been deeply influenced by Norman French in vocabulary and grammar. For example, such terms as “army”, “court”, “defense”, “faith”, “prison” and “tax” came from the language of the French rulers.
Modern English period starts with European renaissance movement. A direct consequence of the Renaissance movement was the revival of Latin as a literary language. In the post-Renaissance period, the “British Empire” set up English-speaking colonies in many parts of the world. By the nineteenth century, English was recognized as the language of the government, the law, higher education, and business and commerce in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Today Modern English is widely used and has in fact become an important tool of international communication among peoples of different countries.
69. As language changes over time, the meaning of a word may deviate from its original denotation. Discuss the major types of semantic changes.
Major types of semantic changes are semantic broadening, semantic narrowing and semantic shift.
Semantic broadening refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation. Take the word “holiday” for example, the older meaning was a “holy day”. Today everyone enjoys a holiday, whether he or she is religious or not.
Semantic narrowing is a process in which the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. For example, “wife”, used to mean “any woman”, but now it means “married females” only.
Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related, meaning. For example, the word silly meant “happy” in Old English, and naive in Middle English, but “foolish” in Modern English.
70. Over the years from Old English period to the Modern English period, English has undergone some major sound changes. Illustrate these changes with some examples.
The major sound changes include changes in vowel sounds, and in the loss, gain and movement of sounds.
The changes in vowel sounds can be seen in the Great Vowel Shift in the history of English, which led to one of the major disagreements between the pronunciation and the spelling system of Modern English. These changes involve seven long, or tense vowels, for example
Words Five Mouse Feet Mood Break
Middle English fi:v Mu:s fe:t Mo:d Brε:ken
Modem English faiv maus fi:t mu:d breik
Sounds do not just change, they can be lost. Vowel sounds change, but some sounds simply disappeared from the general pronunciation of English. One example of sound loss is the /kn-/ clusters in the word-initial position. In Old and Middle English, both /k/ and /n/ were pronounced, as is shown in the spelling of such words as “knight” and “knee”. Although Modern English spelling of these words still keeps the initial letter k, its sound is no longer pronounced.
Sound changes can also take the form of sound addition. Sound addition includes the gain or insertion of a sound, for example:
spinle spindle
emty empty
Sound change can take the form of sound movement. It involves a reversal in position of two neighbouring sound segments. For example, the /r/ sound in the Old English words “bridd” (“bird”) and “hros” (“horse”) was moved to the right of the vowel sounds in their Modem English counterparts “bird” and “horse”.
71. What are the most widely-spread morphological changes in the historical development of English?
The most widely-spread morphological changes in the historical development of English are the loss and addition of affixes. A number of morphological rules in Old English are now lost in Modern English. Some of these rules are about derivational affixes, such as suffixes “-baere” and “-bora”. In Old English an adjective would derive if “-baere” was added to a noun, such as:
lust (“pleasure”) + baere lustbaere (“agreeable”)
But this rule has been lost in modern English.
The most dramatic morphological loss concerns the loss of gender and case marking. In Old English, for example, “st?n” (“stone”) was marked masculine, while “gief” (“gift”) and “d…or” (“wild animal”) were marked respectively feminine and neuter. In modern English, the gender markers of these words have been lost.
Some affixes have been added to the English morphological system. Take “-able” for example, it has been added to English since the Old English period. At first, words ending in “-able”, such as “favourable” and “conceivable”, were borrowed altogether from French. Then this suffix became a productive rule in English. It was used with other verbs to form adjectives. Contemporary English speakers apply this suffix rule to more stems, thus producing new adjectives such as “payable”, and “washable”.
72. What are the causes of language change? Discuss them in detail.
Language changes are due to the following causes:
1) Sound assimilation: Sound assimilation refers to the physiological effect of one sound on another. In an assimilative process, successive sounds are made identical, or more similar, to one another in terms of place or manner of articulation, or of haplology, the loss of one of two phonetically similar syllables in sequence. For example, the Old English word “Engla-land” (“the land of the Angles”) came to be pronounced “England” through the assimilation of la-la sounds.
2) Rule simplification and regularization: Some changes are the result of simplification and regularization. The plural forms of borrowed words are usually irregular, thus complex. For example, the plural forms of “agendum”, “datum”, “curriculum” and “memorandum” are “agenda”, “data”, “curricula” and “memoranda”. The irregular plurals of these nouns have been replaced by regular plurals of “agendas”, “curriculums”, and “memorandums” among many speakers, thus making them simplified and regularized.
3) Internal borrowing: In order to reduce the number of exceptional or irregular morphemes, speakers of a particular language may borrow a rule from one part of the grammar and apply it generally. For example, by analogy to the plural formation of “foe-s” and “dog-s”, speakers started saying “cows” as the plural of “cow” instead of the earlier plural kine.
4) Elaboration: Rule elaboration occurs when there is a need to reduce ambiguity and increase communicative clarity or expressiveness. If a particular grammatical feature is lost as a result of a change in the phonological system, some other feature may be added in another component of the grammar.
5) Social triggers: Socio-political changes such as wars, invasions, occupation, colonization, and language planning and standardization policies lead to language changes. For example, in the history of English, the Norman Conquest marked the beginning of the Middle English period. And British colonial settlement, and the country’s political, cultural and economic advances in distant lands such as North America, Oceania, South Africa, and India lead to the change of English into British, American, Australian, South African and Indian varieties.
6) Cultural transmission: Although a new generation has to find a way of using the language of the previous generation, it has to find expressions that can best communicate the views and concepts of the time and the changed and ever-changing social life, and recreate the language of the community. For example, while old people tend to call a refrigerator “icebox”, the younger generation is more often heard speaking of a “fridge”. This tenuous transmission process adds up to the inevitable and ongoing language change and variation.
7) Children’s approximation toward the adult grammar: The way children acquire the language is another basic cause for language change. Children usually construct their personal grammars by themselves and generalize rules from the linguistic information they hear. Children’s grammar never models exactly after that of the adult speech community, because children are exposed to diverse linguistic information.
All the above factors contribute to language changes.
Chapter 8 Sociolinguistics
Ⅰ. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:
1. F 2. F 3. T 4. T 5. T 6. F 7. F 8. F 9. F 10. F
11. F 12. T 13. F 14. F 15. F 16. T 17. F 18. F 19. T 20. F
Ⅱ. Fill in each of the blanks below with one word which begins with the letter given:
21. community 22. variety 23. dialectal 24.planning 25. sociolects
26. Stylistic 27. official 28. superposed 29. vernacular 30. inflectional
31. social 32. linguistic
Ⅲ. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:
33. B 34. C 35. A. 36. A. 37. C 38. D 39. A 40. C 41. A 42. D
Ⅳ. Define the following terms:
43. sociolinguistics: Sociolinguistics is the study of language in social contexts.
44. speech community: The social group isolated for any given study is called the speech community or a speech community is a group of people who form a community and share the same language or a particular variety of language. The important characteristic of a speech community is that the members of the group must, in some reasonable way, interact linguistically with other members of the community. They may share closely related language varieties, as well as attitudes toward linguistic norms.
45. speech variety: Speech variety, also known as language variety, refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or group of speakers. The distinctive characteristics of a speech variety may be lexical, phonological, morphological, syntactic, or a combination of linguistic features.
46. language planning: language standardization is known as language planning. This means that certain authorities, such as the government or government agency of a country, choose a particular speech variety and spread the use of it, including its pronunciation and spelling systems, across regional boundaries.
47. Idiolect: An idiolect is a personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines aspects of all the elements regarding regional, social, and stylistic variation, in one form or another. In a narrower sense, what makes up one’s idiolect includes also such factors as voice quality, pitch and speech rhythm, which all contribute to the identifying features in an individual’s speech.
48. standard language : The standard language is a superposed, socially prestigious dialect of language. It is the language employed by the government and the judiciary system, used by the mass media, and taught in educational institutions, including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language.
49. nonstandard language: Language varieties other than the standard are called nonstandard languages.
50. lingua franca: A lingua franca is a variety of language that serves as a medium of communication among groups of people for diverse linguistic backgrounds.
51. pidgin: A pidgin is a variety of language that is generally used by native speakers of other languages as a medium of communication.
52. Creole: A Creole language is originally a pidgin that has become established as a native language in some speech community.
53. diglossia: Diglossia usually describes a situation in which two very different varieties of language co-exist in a speech community, each with a distinct range of purely social function and appropriate for certain situations.
54. Bilingualism: Bilingualism refers to a linguistic situation in which two standard languages are used either by an individual or by a group of speakers, such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation.
55. ethnic dialect: Within a society, speech variation may come about because of different ethnic backgrounds . An ethnic language variety is a social dialect of a language, often cutting across regional differences. An ethnic dialect is spoken mainly by a less privileged population that has experienced some form of social isolation, such as racial discrimination or segregation.
56. Sociolect: Social dialects, or sociolects, are varieties of language used by people belonging to particular social classes.
57. register: Registers are language varieties which are appropriate for use in particular speech situations, in contrast to language varieties that are associated with the social or regional grouping of their customary users. Format reason, registers are also known as situational dialects.
58. Slang: Slang is a casual use of language that consists of expressive but non-standard vocabulary, typically of arbitrary, flashy and often ephemeral coinages and figures of speech characterized by spontaneity and sometimes by raciness.
59. taboo: taboo, or rather linguistic taboo, denotes any prohibition by the polite society on the use of particular lexical items to refer to objects or acts.
60. euphemism: A euphemism, then, is a mild, indirect or less offensive word or expression substituted when the speaker or writer fears more direct wording might be harsh, unpleasantly direct, or offensive.
Ⅴ. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary:
61. Discuss with examples that the speech of women may differ from the speech of men.
In normal situations, female speakers tend to use more prestigious forms than their male counterparts with the same general social background. For example, standard English forms such as “I did it” and “he isn’t” can be found more often in the speech of females, while the more colloquial “I done it” and “he ain’t” occur more frequently in the speech of males.
Another feature often associated with so-called women’s language is politeness. Usually, tough and rough speeches have connotations of masculinity and are not considered to be desirable feminine qualities. In general, men’s language is more straightforward, less polite, and more direct, and women’s language is more indirect, less blunt, and more circumlocutory.
This phenomenon of sex-preferential differentiation is also reflected in the relative frequency with which males and females use the same lexical items. For example, certain words that are closely associated with women may sound typically feminine as a result of that association. For example, some English adjectives like “lovely”, “nice”, “darling” and “cute” occur more often in female speeches and therefore cause feminine association. Females have also been shown to possess a greater variety of specific color terms than males, in spite of the fact that men do not necessarily possess less acute color perception than women. On the other hand, males have the reputation of possessing a larger vocabulary in traditionally male-dominated domains such as sports, hunting and the military.
A request in English such as “Close the door when you leave” can be phrased in a number of ways ranging from a harsh command to a very polite request:
a. Close the door when you leave.
b. Please close the door when you leave.
c. Would you please close the door when you leave?
d. Could you close the door when you leave?
Although the above options are all available to both men and women, it is usually the more polite forms that are selected by female speakers. In general, females are found to use more questions than declarative statements in comparison with males.
62. Discuss with examples some of the linguistic differences between Standard English and Black English.
One of the most prominent phonological characteristics of Black English is the frequent simplification of consonant clusters at the end of words when one of the two consonants is an alveolar /t/, /d/, /s/, or /z/. The application of this simplification rule may delete the past-tense morpheme, so “past” and “passed” are both pronounced like “pass”.
Another salient characteristic of Black English phonological system concerns the deletion of some word-final stop consonants in words like “side” and “borrowed”. Speakers of Black English frequently delete these word-final stops, pronouncing “side” like “sigh” and “borrowed” like “borrow.”
One prominent syntactic feature is the frequent absence of various forms of the copula “be” in Black English, which are required of Standard English. Compare the following expressions in Black English and Standard English:
(1) Black English Standard English
They mine. They’re mine.
You crazy. You’re crazy.
Another distinctive syntactic feature of Black English is the systematic use of die expression “it is” where Standard English uses “there is” in the sense of “there exists”:
Is it a Mr. Johnson in this office?
Another aspect of Black English is the use of double negation constructions. Whenever the verb is negated, the indefinite pronouns “something”, “somebody”, and “some” become the negative indefinites “nothing”, “nobody”, and “none”, for example:
He don’t know nothing. (He doesn’t know anything.)
63. What is a linguistic taboo? What effect does it have on our use of language?
A linguistic taboo refers to a word or expression that is prohibited by the “polite” society from general use. Obscene, profane, and swear words are all taboo words that are to be avoided entirely, or at least avoided in mixed company.
In sociolinguistics, a linguistic taboo, denotes any prohibition on the use of particular lexical items to refer to objects or acts. As language use is contextualized in particular social settings, linguistic taboo originates from social taboo. When an act is taboo, reference to this act may also become taboo. Taboo words and expressions reflect the particular social customs and views of a particular culture.
As linguistic taboo reflects social taboo, certain words are more likely to be avoided, for examples, the words related to sex, sex organs and excrement in many cultures. The avoidance of using taboo language mirrors social attitudes, emotions and value judgments, and has no linguistic basis.
The avoidance of using taboo language has led to the creation of euphemisms. A euphemism is a mild, indirect or less offensive word or expression substituted when the speaker or writer fears more direct wording might be harsh, unpleasantly direct, or offensive. For example, we say “portly” instead of “fat”.
In many cultures, people avoid using direct words that pertain to death or dying because it is the subject that everyone fears and is unpleasant to talk about. In the English-speaking world, for example, people do not “die”, but “pass away”.
Euphemisms involve a wide range of fields. Although the use of euphemisms has the effect of removing derogatory overtones, the disassociative effect is never long-lasting. Often when the negative connotation of a word is recognized in its euphemistic form, a new euphemism will have to be sought for. However, an excessive use of euphemism may have negative effects. As a matter of fact, many euphemisms have become cliches that are to be avoided in formal speech and writing. They also tend to be wordy and to give writing a timid quality. In addition, euphemism can be evasive or even deceitful. Because they are often improperly used to obscure the intended meaning, many people find them offensive and prefer plain language.
Chapter 9 Psycholinguistics
Ⅰ. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:
1. F 2. T 3. T 4. T 5. T 6. F 7. F 8. F 9. T 10. T
Ⅱ. Fill in each of the blanks below with one word which begins with the letter given:
11. Psycholinguistics 12. cortex 13. hemispheres 14. lateralization 15. genetically
16. Motor 17. arbitrary 18. sub-vocal, overt 19. relativism 20. critical 21. determinism
Ⅲ. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:
22. A 23. A 24. C 25. D 26. D 27. B 28. C 29. D 30. A
31. C 32. A 33. B 34. D 35. D 36. B 37. C
Ⅳ. Explain the following terms:
38. Psycholinguistics: Psycholinguistics is the study of language in relation to the mind.
39. brain lateralization: The localization of cognitive and perceptual functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain is called brain lateralization.
40.dichotic listening: a research technique which has been used to study how the brain controls hearing and language, with which subjects wear earphones and simultaneously receive different sounds in the right and left ear, and are then asked to repeat what they hear. Dichotic listening research makes use of the generally established fact that anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain, and vice versa. A basic assumption, thus, would be that a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left hemisphere and a signal coming in the left ear will go to the right hemisphere.
41. Broca’s area: It refers to the frontal lobe in the left cerebral hemisphere, which is vital to language. This area is discovered by Paul Broca, a French surgeon and anatomist.
42. angular gyms: The angular gyrus lies behind Wernicke’s area. The angular gyrus is the language center responsible for converting a visual stimulus into an auditory form and vice versa. This area is crucial for the matching of a spoken form with a perceived object, for the naming of objects, and for the comprehension of written language, all of which require connections between visual and speech regions.
43. cerebral plasticity: According to Lenneberg, prior to the end of the critical period, both hemispheres are involved to some extent in language and one can take over if the other is damaged. This neurological flexibility is called cerebral plasticity.
44. linguistic determinism: a theory put forward by the American anthropological linguists Sapir and Whorf, which states that the way people view the world is determined by the structure of their native language.
45. subvocal speech: a term used to refer to thought when thought and language are identical or closely parallel to each other.
46. cerebral cortex : the outside surface of the brain which receives messages from all the sensory organs and where human cognitive abilities reside.
47. linguistic lateralization: It refers the brain’s neurological specialization for language.
48.right ear advantage: The speech signals presented in the right ear goes directly to the left brain, while the speech signals in the left ear must first go to the right hemisphere, from where it is transferred to the left side of the brain for processing. Since the speech signals in the left ear takes a non-direct route and a longer time before processing than a linguistic signal received through the right ear, linguistic stimuli heard in the left ear are reported less accurately than those heard in the right ear. This phenomenon is called the right ear advantage.
49. critical period hypothesis: The critical period hypothesis refers to a period in one’s life extending from about age two to puberty, during which the human brain is most ready to acquire a particular language and language learning can proceed easily, swiftly, and without explicit instruction.
50. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: a theory put forward by the American anthropological linguists Sapir and Whorf which states that the way people view the world is determined wholly or partly by the structure of their native language.
51. linguistic relativism: Whorf believed that speakers of different languages perceive and experience the world differently, relative to their linguistic background, hence the notion of linguistic relativism.
52. overt thought: When language and thought are identical or closely parallel to each other, we may regard speech as “overt thought”.
53. intrapersonal communication: It means that language users use language to facilitates thinking, speech behavior and action for the individual.
54. interpersonal communication: It means language users use language to convey information, thoughts and feelings from one person to another, or to control each other’s behavior.
Ⅴ. Answer the following questions:
55. What are the biological foundations of language?
Of all organisms, human beings are the only spontaneous creators and users of highly sophisticated languages that permit the communication of a wide range of knowledge and ideas. Evidently, our linguistic ability does not depend primarily on the structure of our vocal cords, for other mammals also have vocal cords. Human linguistic ability largely depends, instead, on the structure and dynamics of the human brain. As far as is currently known, human beings are the only organisms in which one particular part of the left half of the brain is larger than the corresponding part of the right half. This has led to the belief that human language is biologically, or more exactly, neurologically, based.
56. What are the major mental functions under the control of each hemisphere?
Psychological research suggests that both hemispheres perform important mental functions and they differ only in the manner in which they treat incoming stimuli. For example, the right hemisphere processes stimuli more holistically and the left hemisphere more analytically.
Brain lateralization for major mental functions under the control of each hemisphere is given as follows:
(1) Left hemisphere Right hemisphere
language and speech perception of nonlinguistic sounds
analytic reasoning holistic reasoning
temporal ordering visual and spatial skills
reading and writing recognition of patterns
calculation recognition of musical melodies
associative thought
Because each cerebral hemisphere has unique functional superiority, it is accurate to think of the hemispheres as complementarily specialized.
57. What can we do by means of dichotic listening tests?
Dichotic listening research makes use of the generally established fact that anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain, and vice versa. A basic assumption, thus, would be that a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left hemisphere and a signal coming in the left ear will go to the right hemisphere. By means of dichotic listening tests, we can analyze the characteristics of incoming stimuli processed by the individual hemispheres.
Dichotic listening test can show that the left hemisphere is not superior for processing all sounds, but only for those that are linguistic in nature, thus providing evidence in support of the view that the left side of the brain is specialized for language and that it is where language centers reside.
58. What is the safe conclusion from Genie’s case?
A safe conclusion from Genie’s case is that the language faculty of an average human degenerates after the critical period and consequently, most linguistic skills cannot develop.
59. How are language and thought related to each other?
Language and thought may be viewed as two independent circles overlapping in some parts, where language and thought are consistent with each other and one never occurs without the other. When language and thought are identical or closely parallel to each other, we may regard thought as “subvocal speech”, and speech as “overt thought”. In such a case, speaking and thinking take place simultaneously.
