Linguistique L3

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ETUDES ET RESSOURCES UNIVERSITAIRES A DISTANCE

Session 1

Décembre 2015

                EPREUVE DE LA LICENCE ALL

Mention LLCER Parcours Anglais  L1

N301B : Linguistique

Durée : 1 heure – Aucun document autorisé

Répondez aux questions suivantes sur votre feuille d’examen.  Merci de respecter l’ordre des questions.

1. Define in 2 to 3 lines: (10 points)

a. Grammaticality/acceptability

Grammaticality refers to the formal conformity with linguistic rules whereas acceptability refers to the judgement/opinion of the listeners/receivers for who an utterance is acceptable, whether grammatical or not based on criteria such as comprehensibility, grammatical “enough”, etc.

b. genetic classification

a system of classification that uses the comparative method to determine which languages belong together in “families”, with sister nodes, daughter and mother nodes, etc.  

c. register

“Register” refers to text-types that share common structural features (unity of structure) in terms of textual organization, syntax, and vocabulary.  For example, scientific writing, journalistic writing or broadcast, legalese, etc.

d. homonymy

Words are homonyms if they are written in the same way but have different meanings;  For example “bank” (river bank, financial institution); tire (fatigue, auto part).  Note that homonyms are homophones (same pronunciation) but homophones are not always homonyms (forth and fourth)

e. allophones

They are predictable variants of the same phoneme.  Unlike phonemes, they are not meaning distinctive but are constrained by the co-text, i.e., the surrounding sounds.  For example, the varieties of “t” in English (aspirated, flap) or of “n” in French (velarized, lengthened, etc.)

(and not “telephone conversations” or “people speaking another language” as some people wrote!)

2. Is ASL a language?  Explain. (10 points)

Yes, it has all the features of other languages: morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, variation, etc. In other words, it has its own linguistic system; one that is different from that of English.  It is not “gestured English”

Note: ASL is American Sign Language!

3. What is the importance of inference in day-to-day conversation? Explain and give examples (10 points)

Inference is implied meaning, the meaning that is not “in the words”, but can only be inferred from the context.  It is the shared context that allows the interlocutors to infer the meaning.  The idea here is that words are only “signals” that cannot be interpreted out of context.  For example, if I say “it’s cold in here”, you might answer, “ok, I’ll close the door”, or “indeed, the heating does not work again”, etc.  If I ask you “Do you know what time it is?” you are unlikely to answer yes or no, etc.  The difficulty with inference is that it is not only highly contextual, but often also very cultural. Therefore, meaning is not only “linguistic”, but also social and cultural.  

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