首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Obtaining Linguistic Data A)Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully plann
Obtaining Linguistic Data A)Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully plann
admin
2020-06-08
53
问题
Obtaining Linguistic Data
A)Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection about one’ s mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home.
B)In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language data—an informant. Informants are(ideally)native speakers of a language, who provide utterances for analysis and other kinds of information about the language(e.g. translations, comments about correctness, or judgements on usage).
C)Often, when studying their mother tongue, linguists act as their own informants, judging the ambiguity, acceptability, or other properties of utterances against their own intuitions. The convenience of this approach makes it widely used, and it is considered the norm in the generative approach to linguistics.
D)But a linguist’ s personal judgements are often uncertain, or disagree with the judgements of other linguists, at which point resource is needed to more object methods of enquiry, using non-linguists as informants. The later procedure is unavoidable when working on foreign languages, or child speech.
E)Many factors must be considered when selecting informants—whether one is working with single speakers(a common situation when languages have not been described before), two people interacting, small groups or large-scale samples. Age, sex, social background and other aspects of identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the kind of language used.
F)The topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting(e.g. the level of formality)are also highly relevant, as are the personal qualities of the informants(e.g. their fluency and consistency). For larger studies, scrupulous attention has been paid to the sampling theory employed, and in all cases, decisions have to be made about the best investigative techniques to use.
G)Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist’s claims about the language to be checked, and provides a way of making those claims more accurate("difficult" pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly).
H)But obtaining naturalistic, good-quality data is never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they are being recorded, and sound quality can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus been devised to minimise the "observer’s paradox"(how to observe the way people behave when they are not being observed).
I)Some recordings are made without the speakers being aware of the fact—a procedure that obtains very natural data, though ethical objections must be anticipated. Alternatively, attempts can be made to make the speaker forget about the recording, such as keeping the tape recorder out of sight, or using radio microphones. A useful technique is to introduce a topic that quickly involves the speaker, and stimulates a natural language style(e.g. asking older informants about how times have changed in their locality).
J)An audio tape recording does not solve all the linguist’s problems, however. Speech is often unclear and ambiguous. Where possible, therefore, the recording has to be supplements by the observer’s written comments on the non-verbal behaviour of the participants, and about the context in general.
K)A facial expression, for example, can dramatically alter the meaning of what is said. Video recordings avoid these problems to a large extent, but even they have limitations(the camera cannot be everywhere), and transcription always benefits from any additional commentary provided by an observer.
L)Linguists also make great use of structured sessions, in which they systematically ask their informants for utterances that describe certain actions, objects or behaviours. With a bilingual informant, or though use of an interpreter, it is possible to use translation technique(’How do you say table in your language?’).
M)A large number of points can be covered in a short time, using interview work-sheets and questionnaires. Often, the researcher wishes to obtain information about just a single variable, in which case a restricted set of questions may be used: a particular feature of pronunciation, for example, can be elicited by asking the informant to say a restricted set of words. There are also several direct methods of elicitation, such as
asking informants to fill in the blanks in a substitution frame(e.g. "I___see a car."), or
feeding them the wrong stimulus for correction("Is it possible to say I no can see?").
N)A representative sample of language, complied for the purpose of linguistic analysis, is known as a corpus. A corpus enables the linguist to make unbiased statements about frequency of usage, and it provides accessible data for the use of different researchers. Its range and size are variable. Some corpora attempt to cover the language as a whole, taking extracts from many kinds of text; others are extremely selective, providing a collection of material that deals only with a particular linguistic feature.
O)The size of the corpus depends on practical factors, such as the time available to collect, process and store the data: it can take up to several hours to provide an accurate transcription of a few minutes of speech. Sometimes a small sample of data will be enough to decide a linguistic hypothesis; by contrast, corpora in major research projects can total millions of words. An important principle is that all corpora, whatever their size, are inevitably limited in their coverage, and always need to be supplemented by data derived from the intuitions of native speakers of the language, though either introspection or experimentation.
A linguist can use a corpus to comment objectively on frequency of usage.
选项
答案
N
解析
本题意为语言学家可以用语料库对用法的频率进行客观的评价。题干中的关键词是“corpus”,“frequency of usage”,可以定位到N段A corpus enables thelinguist to make unbiased statements about frequency of usage,and it provides accessibledata for the use of different researchers.“语料库使得语言学家能够对一种用法的频率加以客观陈述,而且还可以为其他的研究者所用。”题干中comment objectively和原文unbiased statements对应。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/P9P7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Lentmoremoneytothegovernment.B、Decreaseditsmaininterestrates.C、Gavefavorableloanstoprivatecompanies.D、Decreas
A、Atimewhencommoninfectionscouldkillpeople.B、Atimewhennocountryisreadytofightantibiotics.C、Atimewhennonew
A、Womenwouldliketostayathome.B、Peopleweremorefriendly.C、Studentspaidfortheirboard.D、Immigrationwasencouraged.
A、Aliteratureprofessor.B、Anacademicadvisor.C、DeanoftheEnglishDepartment.D、ADoctorofAppliedLinguistics.B在对话开头,女士说
DoBritain’sEnergyFirmsServethePublicInterest?[A]Capitalismisthebestandworstofsystems.Lefttoitself,itwillemb
A、Brighterpeoplegotbetterpay.B、Payscaleswerenotfairatall.C、Maleswerebrighterthanfemales.D、Paysdependedonone’
A、Earthquakesmayhappenanywhereatanytime.B、Thepreciseplaceandtimeofanearthquake.C、Whetherthemajorityofpeoplekn
A、ThedealtostopIranfromobtaininganuclearweapon.B、TheTrans-PacificPartnership.C、A21stcenturytradedeal.D、Asia-Pa
A、Englishisthesoleofficiallanguage.B、FewpeoplespeakZuluthere.C、IthasthelargestIndianpopulationoutsideofAmeric
随机试题
订货系统的数据流程图如题42图。客户提交订单后系统需做订单初检,不合格的订单需要让客户重填;合格订单要核查库存,有库存的订单做发货处理,无库存的订单先暂存起来。采购部可用进货单更新库存账,暂存的订单若满足库存条件后可直接做发货处理。发货时要给客户传递发货单
下列哪些选项属于法律意识的范畴?(2011年卷一第52题)
将项目的定位、产品、建筑风格、开发单位、设计单位、建筑单位等信息,以画面、文字、图示的方式传递给客户,以增加客户的感知的销售资料为()。
在数理统计分析法中的相关分析中,若相关系数|r|=一1,则表明两指标变量之间()。
《巴塞尔新资本协议》对商业银行客户评级、评分的验证提出了许多要求,包括()。
在影响人的身心发展的诸因素中,起主导作用的是()。
一个长方形,若将短边长度增加4厘米,长边长度增加一倍,则面积是原来的3倍,若将长边缩短8厘米,就成正方形,则原长方形面积是多少平方厘米?()
下列说法错误的是()。
考生文件夹下存在一个数据库文件“samp3.accdb”,里面已经设计好表对象“tNorm”和“tStock”,查询对象“qStock”和宏对象“ml”,同时还设计出以“tNorm”和“tStock”为数据源的窗体对象“fStock”和“fNorm”。具体
A、Theyareinterestingtolookat.B、Theyhavelostsomeoftheirlegs.C、Theydonotmatchtheovaltableatall.D、Theyareun
最新回复
(
0
)