第一章
Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics
一 Design features of language 语言的结构特征
成熟的人Design features------ refers to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication. They are arbitrariness, duality, creativity/ productivity, displacement, clutural transmission and interchangeability.
Design features----- are features that define our human languages,such as arbitrariness,duality,creativity,displacement,cultural transmission,etc.(指决定了人类语言性质的特征.例如任意性,二重性,创造性,移位性,文化转移性等.)
The American linguist Charles Hockett specified twelve design features.
法国有哪些城市What is arbitrariness?任意性
a. arbitrariness---- arbitrariness(任意性): one design feature of human language,which ref
ers to the fac英语课程表t that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.(人类语言的本质特征之一,指语言符号的形式与意义之间没有自然的联系.)
It was discusd by Saussure first.The link between them is a matter of convention.
E.g. “hou” uchi (Japane)
Mansion (French)
房子(Chine)
reject(1)arbitrary between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning语言的音和义之间的任意性
a. By “arbitrary”, we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. 语言的意义和语音之间没有逻辑关系。
A gog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had ud it for a gig. Language therefore is largely arbitrary.
b. But language is not absolutely em to be some sound-meaning association, if we think of echo words, like “bang ” ”crash” ”roar ” ” rumble ” ”cakle”, which are motivated in a certain n.”
onomatopoeia拟声词---words that sound like the sounds they describe那些发音像它们的描写的声音的词
c. some compounds (words compounded to be one word ) are not entirely arbitary either. “type ” and ”write ”are opaque or unmotivated words, while “type -writer” is less so, or more transparent or motivated than the words that make it . so we can say “arbitrariness” is a matter of degree.
arbitrary and onometopoeic effect may work at the same time.任意性和拟声可以同时起作用。
Eg. The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.夏日黄昏，群蝇嗡嗡地非。
(2)Arbitrary at the syntactic level 句法上的非任意性
According to systematic-functionalists and American functionlists, language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level. 对于系统功能语言学家和美国功能语言学家来说，语言在句法上是非任意的。
Syntax-----it refers to the ways that ntences are constructed according to the grammar of arrangement.句法就是依据语法安排造句之法。
(3)Aribrtary and convention任意性和约定性
The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention.语言学上的符号和它的意义之间是约定俗成的关系。
The other side of coin of arbitrariness , namely, conventionality.任意性的相反面，即约定性。
conventionality----It means that in any language there are certain quences of sounds that have a conventionally accepted meaning. Tho words are customarily ud by all speakers with the same intended meaning and understood by all listeners in the same wa
y.
Arbitrainess of langauge makes it potentially creative, and conventionality of language makes learning a language laborious.任意性赋予语言潜在的创造力，而语言的约定性又使学习语言变得费力。
There are two different schools of belief concerning arbitrariness. Most people, especially structural linguists believe that language is arbitrary by nature. Other people, however, hold that language is iconic, that is, there is a direct relation or correspondence between sound and meaning, such as onomatopoeia.(cuckoo; crash)
For the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be a clear connection between the conveyed message and the signal ud to convey it, And for them, the ts of signals ud in communication is finite.
b. duality(二重性):--- one design feature of human language,which refers to the property of having two levels of structures , such as units of the primary level春欲晚 are compod of ele
ments of the condary.level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization.(人类语言的本质特征之一,指拥有两层结构的这种特性,底层结构是上层结构的组成成分,每层都有自身的组合规则.)
duality网页打开速度慢----language is simultaneously organized at two levels or layers, namely, the level of sounds and that of meaning.
the higher level ----words which are meaningful
the lower or the basic level----sounds which are meaningless, but can be grouped and regrouped into words.
To talk about duality we must notice that language is hierarchical.说到语言的二重性，我们必须注意语言的等级性。
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新年快乐的句子c. Creativity----language is resourceful. It makes possible the construction and interpreta
tion of new signals by its urs.(novel utterances are continually being created.) non-human signals ,on the other hand, appears to have little flexibility.
creativity(创造性): one design feature of human language ,by creativity we mean language is resourceful becau of its duality and its recursiveness. (指语言的能产性,因为语言有二重性和递归性.)
productivity----productivity refers to the ability to construct and understand an indefinitely large number of ntences in one’s native language , including tho that has never heard before , but that are appropriate to the speaking situation.人们能够利用语言中原有的规则来理解从未碰到过的语言符号的特征。suggest的用法
