《英语语言学概论》精选试题学生版

时间：2026-01-22

《英语语言学概论》精选试题1

1. Which of the following statements about language is NOT true?

A. Language is a system

B. Language is symbolic

C. Animals also have language

D. Language is arbitrary

2. Which of the following features is NOT one of the design features of language?

A. Symbolic

B. Duality

C. Productive

D. Arbitrary

3. What is the most important function of language?

A. Interpersonal

B. Phatic

C. Informative

D. Metalingual

4. Who put forward the distinction between Langue and Parole?

A. Saussure

B. Chomsky

C. Halliday

D. Anonymous

5. According to Chomsky, which is the ideal user's internalized knowledge of his language?

A. competence

B. parole

C. performance

D. langue

6. The function of the sentence "A nice day, isn't it?" is .

A. informative

B. phatic

C. directive

D. performative

7. Articulatory phonetics mainly studies .

A. the physical properties of the sounds produced in speech

B. the perception of sounds

C. the combination of sounds

D. the production of sounds

8. The distinction between vowels and consonants lies in .

A. the place of articulation

B. the obstruction of airstream

C. the position of the tongue

D. the shape of the lips

9. Which is the branch of linguistics which studies the characteristics of speech sounds and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription?

A. Phonetics

B. Phonology

C. Semantics

D. Pragmatics

10. Which studies the sound systems in a certain language?

A. Phonetics

B. Phonology

C. Semantics

D. Pragmatics

11. Minimal pairs are used to .

A. find the distinctive features of a language

B.find the phonemes of a language

C. compare two words

D. find the allophones of language

12. Usually, suprasegmental features include ___ ,length and pitch.

A. phoneme

B. speech sounds

C. syllables

D. stress

13. Which is an indispensable part of a syllable?

A. Coda

B. Onset

C. Stem

D. Peak

三、判断

1.The analyst collects samples of the language as it is used, not according to some views of how it should be used. This is called the prescriptive approach. F

2.Broad transcription is normally used by the phoneticians in their study of speech sounds. F

台州学院考试题

1.Articulatory Phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds.

2.English is a typical intonation language.

3.Phones in complementary distribution should be assigned to the same phoneme.

4.Linguistic c__________ is a native speaker’s linguistic knowledge of his language.

1.The relationship between the sound and the meaning of a word is a________.

2.P ____ refers to the realization of langue in actual use.

3.Linguistics is generally defined as the s ____ study of language.

1. Which of the following branch of linguistics takes the inner structure of word as its main object of study?

A. Phonetics.

B. Semantics.

C. Morphology.

D. Sociolinguistics.

3. Which of the following is a voiceless bilabial stop?

A.[w].

B. [m].

C. [b].

D. [p].

6. What phonetic feature distinguishes the [p] in please and the [p] in speak?

A.V oicing

B. Aspiration

C. Roundness

D. Nasality

11. Conventionally a ________ is put in slashes.

A. allophone

B. phone

C. phoneme

D. morpheme

13. Language is tool of communication. The symbol “highway closed”serves___.

A. an expressive function

B. an informative function

C. a performative function

D. a persuasive function

14. Which of the following groups of words is a minimal pair?

A. but/pub

B. wet/which

C. cool/curl

D. fail/find

16. What are the dual structures of language?

A. Sounds and letters.

B. Sounds and meaning.

C. Letters and meaning.

D. Sounds and symbols.

19. Which of the following is one of the core branches of linguistics?

A. Phonology.

B. Psycho-linguistics.

C. Sociolinguistics.

D. Anthropology.

IV. Translate the following linguistic terms: (10 points, 1 point each)

A. From English to Chinese

B. From Chinese to English

1. acoustic phonetics

6. 應用語言學

2. closed class words

4. distinctive features

VI. Answer the following questions briefly. (20 points)

1. Define phoneme. (4 points)

2. Explain complementary distribution with an example.(5 points)

3. What are the four criteria for classifying English vowels. (4 points)

问答答案1. A contrastive phonological segment whose phonetic realizations are predictable by rules. (4 points)(or: A phoneme is a phonological unit; it is a unit that is of distinctive value.)

2. The situation in which phones never occur in the same phonetic environment.（4 points）e.g. [p] and [p h] never occur in the same position. （1 point）

3. the position of the tongue in the mouth(1 point), the openness of the mouth(1 point), the shape of the lips(1 point), and the length of the vowels. (1 point)

Chapter 1 Introductions to Linguistics

I. Choose the best answer. (20%)

1. Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human __________

A. contact

B. communication

C. relation

D. Community

2. Which of the following words is entirely arbitrary?

A. tree

B. typewriter

C. crash

D. Bang