语言学关键术语

然后把它们< /p>

放进一个不同的次序里。

Results of experiments shows that even animals closet in kin to human beings cannot

match children in learning and using language. In the 1930s, Winthrop and Luella Kellogg

raised their infant son together with an infant chimpanzee named Gua. When the boy

could understand I say what I mean and I mean what I say, Gua could understand neither,

although it understood some words. Several decades later, another chimpanzee, named

Nim Chimsky(after the famous American linguist Noam Chomsky, who states that

language is unique to human beings)was taughtSign Language under careful

experimentalcondition

在学习和使用语言上，

也赶不上小孩子。

在十九世纪三十年代，

Winthrop

和

Luella Kellogg

把他们的男婴儿和一个叫

Dua

的幼儿猩

猩一起抚养。

当这个小男孩能够理解

I say what I mean

和

I mean what I say

两个句子的含

义时，而

Gu a

却一个都不懂，尽管它知道一些单词。几十年后，又一个叫

N im Chimsky

的

大猩猩（在著名的美国语言学家

Noam Chomsky

叙述了

“

语言是人类特有的

”

论述后）在细

心照顾的实验环境下，包括保持记录和录像，被传授美国标记语言。在分析

N im

的语言录

音后，研究者发现，在

N im

的言语中，只有

12%

是自发的， 在剩下的

88%

老师传授的标记

中，一 半

Nim

的反应是模仿老师的言语。随着小孩们长得越大，他们 进行对话交流越来频

繁。孩子们在对话中，几乎不模仿。孩子们在语言使用中变得更加创 新。但是，在类似的实

验里，

Nim

和 其他猩猩表明了几乎没有这种创新的趋势。（

Frokin

和

Rodman

，

1998

）这

些事实似乎表明了创新性是区分人类语言和其他动物交际系统的一个特征 。

(ii)Duality

二元性

Language contains two subsystems, one of sounds and the other of meanings. If you are

given the four English speech sounds,[p][l][i][d] and asked to combine them into

sequences that sound like English words, you will find [plid][pild]are permissible ,while

*[pdli]*[dpli]*[lipd]*[idlp], etc. are not. The permissible sequences sound like English words,

and yet they are not, because they do not stand foe anything. On the other hand,

meanings are conveyed by certain speech sounds or sequences of speech sounds. In

English, [DEAD BODY OF A PERSON] is expressed by the word corpse. In this case, we

say the concept or the meaning is lexicalized. In English there is no word to stand for the

concept [DEAD PLANT]. When certain speech sounds correspond to a certain meaning, a

unit of language arises. The same sounds can be recombined to mean something else. In

some cases, the same sequence od sounds can mean different things (such

ashomophones, and polysemes). This shows that meanings and sounds make up two

subsystems of language. No systems of animal communication possess this feature. The

barks of a dog are not communic ation systems cannot be cut into

segments and then be reorganizes into meaningful sequences. In other words, human

languages are discrete while animal communication systems are non-discrete.

（

ii

）二元性

语言包括两个子系统：一个是语音系统，一个是语义系统。假 如给你四个语音

[p]

、

[l]

、

[i]

、

[d]< /p>

，并叫你把它们组合成听起来像英语单词的次序，你会发现

[pl id]

和

[pild]

是行得通的，而

其他的却行不通。行得通的次序听起来像英语，否则就不是，

因 为它们不代表任何东西。从

另一方面来手，语义是通过一定的语音或者是语音的次序来传 达的。在英语里，（

DEAD

BODY OF A PERS ON

）用来表达单词

corpse

（尸 体），在这种情况下，我们说这个概念

或语义被编进了词汇。在英语里，没有一个单词代 表（

DEAD PLANT

）的概念。当特定的

语音和特定的意思一致时，

一个语言的单位产生了。

相 同的语音能够重组来表达其他的事物。

在某些情况下，

相同语音 的次序能表达不同的事物

（比如同音字和多音词），

这表明了语 音

和语义构成了语言的两个子系统。

动物交际系统里就没有这个 特征，

狗的犬叫声是不可被分

析的。

动 物的交际系统不能被分割为几部分，

也不能把它们重新组成有意义的次序。

换句话

来说，人类语言是离散的，而动物交际系统是连续的。

(iii)Arbitrariness

The relationship between speech sounds and the meanings they represent in the

languages of the world is , for the most part, an arbitrary one, The Swiss linguist de

Saussure regarded the linguistic sign as composed of signifier(sound image)and

signified(referent). In his view, there is no inherent relation between the two. A building we

live in with our family is called house in English, maison in French, dom in Russian, casa

in Spanish. If the relationship between speech sounds and meanings were motivated (i.e.

not arbitrary), the words in these languages that stand for the same thing would sound the

same or similar, then people would not need to learn foreign languages. Admittedly, there

are a few words in most languages that are onomatopoetic ---words od which the sounds

supposedly imitate the sounds of nature. This seems to contradict arbitrariness.

Nevertheless, when these words of different languages are compares, it is found that they

still sound different. The English word tick tock is equivalent to Chinese word dida, buzz to

wengweng. In English, cockadoodledoo represents the rooster’crow, but in Russian,

kukareku, both are differert from the Chinese expression. Based on these observations,