Anglistik 3 | Department of English Language and Linguistics

General

Quiz

Mark those statements below which describe aspects of human language appropriately:
1. There is usually no natural connection between linguistic form and meaning.
2. Speakers are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances.
3. Learning a language implies learning its phonemes, morphemes, and sentences.
4. Human language can discuss topics which are remote in space and time.
5. Learning a language system alone enables us to communicate successfully.
Which of the following concepts are not properties of language (as discussed by Yule)?
1. Displacement
2. Duality
3. Cultural transmission
4. Arbitrariness
5. Performance
The major tenets of Structuralist linguistics are:
1. Innateness
2. Primacy of parole
3. Primacy of synchrony
4. Separation of linguistic knowledge from general cognition
5. Arbitrariness of the linguistic sign
Mark those statements below which are correct:
1. A diachronic view of language is a description of the language e.g. in 1955.
2. A synchronic view of language is a comparison of the language between e.g. 1500 and 1700.
3. People who have a prescriptive view of language often say you should never start a sentence with But.
4. People who have a descriptive view of language will say that sometimes people start sentences with But.
5. Linguists tend to have a more descriptive than prescriptive attitude towards language.