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1、1.1.Whatislanguage?“Languageissystemofarbitraryvocalsymbolsusedforhumancommunication.Itisasystem,sincelinguisticelementsarearrangedsystematically,ratherthanrandomly.Arbitrary,inthesensethatthereisusuallynointrinsicconnectionbetweenawork(like“book”)andtheobjectitrefersto.Thisexplainsandisexplainedbyt
2、hefactthatdifferentlanguageshavedifferent“books”:“book”inEnglish,“livre”inFrench,inJapanese,inChinese,“check”inKorean.Itissymbolic,becausewordsareassociatedwithobjects,actions,ideasetc.bynothingbutconvention.Namely,peopleusethesoundsorvocalformstosymbolizewhattheywishtoreferto.Itisvocal,becausesound
3、orspeechistheprimarymediumforallhumanlanguages,developedor“new”.Writingsystemscamemuchlaterthanthespokenforms.Thefactthatsmallchildrenlearnandcanonlylearntospeak(andlisten)beforetheywrite(andread)alsoindicatesthatlanguageisprimarilyvocal,ratherthanwritten.Theterm“human”inthedefinitionismeanttospecif
4、ythatlanguageishumanspecific.1.2.Whataredesignfeaturesoflanguage?“Designfeatures”hererefertothedefiningpropertiesofhumanlanguagethattellthedifferencebetweenhumanlanguageandanysystemofanimalcommunication.Theyarearbitrariness,duality,productivity,displacement,culturaltransmissionandinterchangeability1
5、.3.Whatisarbitrariness?By“arbitrariness”,wemeanthereisnologicalconnectionbetweenmeaningsandsounds(seeI.1).Adogmightbeapigifonlythefirstpersonorgroupofpersonshaduseditforapig.Languageisthereforelargelyarbitrary.Butlanguageisnotabsolutelyseemtobesomesound-meaningassociation,ifwethinkofechowords,like“b
6、ang”,“crash”,“roar”,whicharemotivatedinacertainsense.Secondly,somecompounds(wordscompoundedtobeoneword)arenotentirelyarbitraryeither.“Type”and“write”areopaqueorunmotivatedwords,while“type-writer”islessso,ormoretransparentormotivatedthanthewordsthatmakeit.Sowecansay“arbitrariness”isamatterofdegree.1.
7、4.Whatisduality?Linguistsrefer“duality”(ofstructure)tothefactthatinalllanguagessofarinvestigated,onefindstwolevelsofstructureorpatterning.Atthefirst,higherlevel,languageisanalyzedintermsofcombinations