Linguistics Questions for Aement
Directions: You are required to answer the following questions independently.You should base your discuion on existing literature, not just make it up as you go along.I suggest that you first look at the chapters aigned in this course and the references I suggested to you.Then try to look further recent references beyond what\'s aigned in the course.This will show how independently you have worked on the aement.
What do you think is the difference between descriptive linguistics and prescriptive linguistics? Give your reasons.
Words are in different sense relations with each other.What sense relation is illustrated in each of the pairs of words below? Add one more example to each pair:
casual – informal
intelligent--stupid
steal --steel
animal – dog
Describe with tree diagrams the transformation involved in forming the question “Does John like the book?”.
To what extent can we say that constituent analysis is more informative
than traditional linear structure analysis?
A speech act consists of three related acts according to John Austin’s Speech Act Theory.What are they? Analyzing the following conversation in the light of Speech Act Theory.
Customer: Waiter! There is a fly in my soup.
Waiter: Don\'t worry, there is no extra charge.
Read the following paage carefully and then state your own position concerning the use of knowing some linguistics.
Language is an interesting subject to study on its own right, for the simple reason that everybody uses it every day.It is unbelievable that we know very little about something we are so familiar with.Just a few questions will arouse our interest in language.Why should we call the thing we sit on chair? Can’t we call chair table and table chair? How is ti that children don’t seem to make a big effort in learning their first language while we adults have to work very hard to learn a second language? Why can we talk about yesterday and last year while cats and dogs never seem to make noises about their past experience? Do you think we can think as clearly without language as with language? Does language determine what we think or thought determines what we say? These questions make us curious about language and linguistics
can satisfy our curiosity.To seek the answer to any of these questions is a good reason for studying linguistics.
