 Study Questions for The Study of Language by George Yule |
The lectures and most of the exam questions will be based around these questions. Read the appropriate chapters in
The Study of Language by George Yule.
Chapter 1 1. What is the origin of language? What evidence exists? Describe experiments to ascertain the origins of language. 2. What is meant by ?
.
theory.
Glossogenetics
Chapter 3 1. How do signals?
in human language. Expand on this. What is the role of arbitrariness in animal signals.
How does this differ from human communication?
. Chapter 5 and 6 1. Define (see Chap 6)
are articulated?
and what is its essential property?
? Provide an example (preferably one of your own)
. Provide two more examples of each type that are not presented in the book (if you can). Questions for further reflection: Imagine that you are a 6 grade teacher and your class complains that English spelling is chaotic. They firmly believe that spelling should reflect pronunciation. As an example they claim that if electricity were spelled <elektrisity> and electrical <elektrikal>, then learning to read English would be much easier. What arguments (if at all) would you offer for keeping traditional spelling? How would you explain the change in sound of <k> to <s>?
. How do (i) and (ii) differ? What are the principal reasons for the discrepancy between the written representations of many English words and their actual pronunciation? Chapter 7 1. There is a lot of regularity involved in the word formation processes of all languages. How can such a statement be justified? 2. Describe the least common and most common process of word formation in English. 3. What is a ? There are none (a few ?) English calques in Swedish? Why are there no (or hardly any?) calques between Swedish/English when compared to Spanish/English?
.
.
, the word changes class. Does the meaning change too. Exemplify.
.
greenhouse, highlife, milkman, outlook, takeaway Chapter 8 1. Define and distinguish the following terms: allomorphs.
= re + place +s Unpalatable Margin Endearment Holiday Carefully 3. In morphological terms, what is the difference between (i) ?
?
mean? How do they differ from derivational morphemes?
? What kind of morpheme is this? Are there any other morphemes which are like this?
past tense, superlative, possessive, 3rd person singular present, progressive, comparative, plural, past participle
8. Consider the word . What kind of suffixes are there in this word? In which order do these suffixes appear? Is this order always the case?
Yesterday, Ophelia picked wildflowers in the churchyard. Frustrated parents decided to relocate their children in a neighbouring school. Chapter 9 A brief but comprehensive introduction which reveals the essential idea has recently been published by the New York publishers. 1. Use the grammatical categories of words (as used in Greenbaum Chap 5 ) to label the words in the sentence above. 2. Does English have a ? How can you express the future in English? (See Greenbaum Chap 4.16).
grammar (see Greenbaum 1.7)
Chapter 10 1. What is syntax? 2. What is ? What are its aims? How does it differ from traditional and descriptive grammar? 3. Please Note! In class we will discuss deep structure & surface structure and structural ambiguity. These concepts may be hard to grasp at first glance. 4. Study pages 104-106. Then produce a ‘tree-diagram’ to show the structure of the following sentences. (use the abbreviations at the top of page 105). Remember – you are trying things out – give it a go!!) 5. The girl kicked the ball into the goal. 6. The cat sniffed the tiny mouse very quickly.
. (d) Yesterday, the strange looking boy who lives across the street stole three milk bottle from the corner shop. 7. What are rules? Try transforming the following sentence using a phrase structure tree. 8. How can politicians stop the flow of drugs into Sweden? 9. The ball was kicked into the goal by the girl. 10. How do ? Why have the two formats? Chapter 11 1. What is ?
meaning.
father, mare, Fanta, nightmare What difficulties did you encounter when doing this exercise? 4. Study pages 116-117 carefully. Then apply semantic (also known as thematic) roles to the following sentences. (see Greenbaum 3.14) (a) The boy carried the shopping basket from the car to the door (b) The girl broke a window with the stone. NOTE!! A particular thematic role may appear only once in a sentence .
.
(r): good bad beautiful ugly expensive cheap hot cold parent offspring employer employee 7. Define and distinguish the following terms (provide two of your own examples of each type) homophony, homonymy, polysemy, metonymy and collocation. Chap 12 1. syntax.
?
in this text. “They were walking to Drayton Gardens. She saw them from close by as she pretended to tie her shoelace as they walked past. Yesterday she followed them too. Then they behaved nonchalantly but now they were more cautious. Obvious really. Better safe than sorry.” 4. Identify the in the text above.
a)How fast was the car going when it went past the red traffic lights? b)Your room is a pigsty. 6. Provide three examples of ‘ . (see Greenbaum 6.1-6.5)
less common in Sweden than in, for example, Spain or Italy? Chapter 13 1. Define ?
?
in the following text? Also secure, by 1689, was the principle of representative government, as tested against the two criteria for valid constitutions proposed in the previous chapter. As to the first criterion, there was a genuine balance of power in English society, expressing itself in the Whig and Tory parties. As narrowly confined to the privileged classes as these were, they none the less represented different factions and tendencies. Elections meant real choice among separate, contending parties and personalities. 4. What are used by long-winded speakers, who do not want to give up their turn?
Describe a real life example when someone ‘flouted’ these maxims. What happened as a result?
? Chapter 15 1. What are the usual names given to the four components of the brain generally considered to relate to language function? 2. Distinguish between the following types of aphasia: Broca’s, Wernicke’s, conduction
slip of the ear
?
” distinction Chapter 16 1. Why is interaction with other language users important? What happens if there is no interaction? 2. What is the ?
?
a language? Do children simply mimic the language of their parents/family environment?
are made by young children speaking Swedish? Can you provide examples from your own family and friends?
Chapter 17 1. What is the difference between ?
). You may have to look at another source. What is the essence of the theory and how could it (did it) affect language teaching methodology during 1960-70 ?
do you recall from your own language learning experiences? (or in fact any other subjects!)
approaches
.
and how does it come about?
Motivation may be as much a result of success as a cause. A language learning situation that encourages success and accomplishment must consequently be more helpful than one that dwells on errors and correction. 8. What justification is given for the use of ?
communicative competence
? How was this language constructed and why?
reconstruct languages by using two basic principles. What are they called and how do they work?
as regards the meaning of words. Can you think of more recent examples during the 1900s? Chapter 20 1. Define .
.
What language level skills are required to be regarded as a bilingual?
language? Chapter 21 1. What do study?
prestige. Can you provide any relevant examples from your own lives?
differences between female and male speech from your own experiences?
. Are there any marked similarities? Can they be compared?
.
in Scandinavia?
linguistic determinism 7. Argue for and against 6. Can you provide any examples of 5. Distinguish between the following terms: 4. Compare 3. Can you provide examples of 2. Distinguish between 4. What evidence exists that most countries of the world are bi or multilingual? (The answer is not clearly obvious from the textbook) 5. What are the characteristic features of a 3. Define 2. Distinguish between an
Chapter 19 3. In what significant ways was Old English different to Middle English? 4. Provide examples of 2. 1. What is 9. Describe three different types of 7. Memorise this statement. Make a firm inscription in your memory!!!!!!! 6. What is 5. Expand on the terms 4. What are the main characteristics of the following teaching methods for language learning? (i) 3. What kind of 2. What is the 7. In terms of syntactical constructions, would it be true to say that some constructions are naturally later acquired than others? i.e. Are more complex syntactical structures acquired later than easier ones? 6. What kinds of 4. Complete the following table Approximate age Characteristic example Pre-language stage One word stage (holophrastic) Two word Stage Telegraphic Stage 5. What does it mean to 3. What are the common characteristics of
5. Discuss “ 4. What is the 3. What causes a language error of the following types? (i) 6. What is the relationship between 5. List and define Grice’s ‘ 3. What are the 2. How does 7. When was the last time you (i.e. you or someone in your group) had to use a 5. What is presupposed in the following: 3. Identify the different types of 2. 6. Indicate whether the following are 5. Distinguish between 3. Semantic features are a notational method for expressing the presence or absence of semantic properties by using pluses (+) and minuses (-). What semantic features would you ascribe to the following words: 2. Distinguish between
(c)
5. Language ‘purists’ believe that language change is corruption and that there are certain ‘correct’ forms that should be used. Others uses are deemed as corrupt. What are your views on this? Should grammar be prescriptive or descriptive? 6. As a language teacher, will you be descriptive or prescriptive? Can you be both, depending on the circumstance? 3. Why is Latin/Greek grammar terminology not suitable for describing English? 4. Distinguish between 9. List all the morphological components in the following sentences. (use the explanation provided on p.78): She wait-s at home She wait-ed at home. She is eat-ing my donut. John has eat-en the donuts They ate the donut-s Adam’s hair is short Simon has short-er hair than Adam Maria’s hair is the short-est 7. What do the 8 English inflectional morphemes below indicate? Match them with the following terms: 6. Consider 5. English has 8 inflectional morphemes. What does 4. What is a 2. Divide these words by placing a + between their separate morphemes. Some of the words may be indivisible. For example, 8. Identify the word class of the following compounds, as (i) a whole, and (ii) in parts: e.g. bird (noun) + cage (noun) = birdcage (noun) 7. Describe the three different types of 6. In the process of 5. Differentiate between 4. Distinguish Consider the underlined sections of the following words: (i)c 6. Distinguish between 5. How are 4. What is a 2. Which of the following are voiceless: p, t, k, m, z, g, l 3. What is the essential difference between the way that 5. Define and distinguish 4. Animal communication has a feature known as 2. Animal communication appears to be limited in time and space to the ‘present moment’ How is human communication different, and what is this defining property known as? 3. There is no logical link between sounds/words and meaning. This relationship is
6. What are the two major functions of language, and how do they differ? 5. Define 4. Contrast the 3. Some linguists suggest that early humans developed language by echoing natural sounds? What is this ‘theory’ known as? Also, define
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