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1、英语语言学教程（胡壮麟版）Chapterone.InvitationtoLinguistic.1.Whatislanguage?“Languageissystemofarbitraryvocalsymbolsusedforhumancommunication.Itisasystem,sincelinguisticelementsarearrangedsystematically,ratherthanrandomly.Arbitrary,inthesensethatthereisusuallynointrinsicconnectionbetweenawork(li
2、ke“book”)andtheobjectitrefersto.Thisexplainsandisexplainedbythefactthatdifferentlanguageshavedifferent“books”:“book”inEnglish,“livre”inFrench,“shu”inChinese.Itissymbolic,becausewordsareassociatedwithobjects,actions,ideasetc.bynothingbutconvention.Namely,peopleusethesoundsorvocalforms
3、tosymbolizewhattheywishtoreferto.Itisvocal,becausesoundorspeechistheprimarymediumforallhumanlanguages.Writingsystemscamemuchlaterthanthespokenforms.Thefactthatsmallchildrenlearnandcanonlylearntospeak(andlisten)beforetheywrite(andread)alsoindicatesthatlanguageisprimarilyvocal,ratherth
4、anwritten.Theterm“human”inthedefinitionismeanttospecifythatlanguageishumanspecific.2.DesignFeaturesofLanguage.“Designfeatures”hererefertothedefiningpropertiesofhumanlanguagethattellthedifferencebetweenhumanlanguageandanysystemofanimalcommunication.Theyarearbitrariness,duality,product
5、ivity,displacement,culturaltransmissionandinterchangeability(1)Arbitrariness:By“arbitrariness”,wemeanthereisnologicalconnectionbetweenmeaningsandsounds.(2)Duality:Thepropertyofhavingtwolevelsofstructures(phonologicalandgrammatical),unitsoftheprimarylevelbeingcomposedofelementsofthese
6、condarylevelandeachlevelhavingitsownprinciplesoforganization.(3)Productivity:Productivityreferstotheabilitytotheabilitytoconstructandunderstandanindefinitelylargenumberofsentencesinone’snativelanguage,includingthosethathasneverheardbefore,butthatareappropriatetothespeakingsituation.T
7、hepropertythatenablesnativespeakerstoconstructandunderstandanindefinitelylargenumberofutterances,includingutterancesthattheyhaveneverpreviouslyencountered.(4)Displacement:“Displacement”,asoneofthedesignfeaturesofthehumanlanguage,referstothefactthatonecantalkaboutthingsthatarenotprese
8、nt,aseasilya
