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
2014-12-26
32
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/w2h7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
"Nothingraisesmorefearinarepressivegovernmentthanchallengestothecontrolofinformation.Andnothingismoreimportan
Themost【B1】______problemcreatedbytherapidincreaseinpopulationisa【B2】______offood.Moremouthshavetobe【B3】______eve
Economicgrowthreliesonthreegroupsofpeople.Itreliesonpeoplewhomakegoodsor(36)______services.Itreliesonpeoplew
A、Hedisagreeswiththewoman.B、Heagreeswiththewoman.C、Heholdsaneutralattitude.D、Hehasnocomment.B男士的话Theirsensit
Althoughwealreadyknowagreatdealaboutinfluenza,itisdifficultforepidemiologists(流行病学家),whostudyinfectiousdisease,
Althoughwealreadyknowagreatdealaboutinfluenza,itisdifficultforepidemiologists(流行病学家),whostudyinfectiousdisease,
Theresearch,ledbyRobinDunbar,headoftheInstituteofCognitiveandEvolutionaryAnthropologyatOxfordUniversity,showed
AccordingtothemostrecentAmericanFreshmansurvey,conductedannuallybytheUniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles,undergra
A、Exercisingtheentirebody.B、Havingyourbloodpressuretakendaily.C、Losingweightpriortoexercising.D、Weighinginbefor
Ourbodiesexperienceanebbandflowofenergythroughouttheday.Thisiscalledacircadianrhythm,andithasbeenstudied【C
随机试题
#include<stdio.h>intf(t)intt;{intx;if(t<=1)x=1;elsex=t*f(t-1);returnx;}main()
已知某曲线在(x,y)处的切线斜率满足y′=+4x2,且曲线通过(1,1)点。求由y=1,曲线及y轴围成区域的面积;
Themajorityofnursesarewomen,butinthehigherranksofthemedicalprofessionwomenareina______.
女性,45岁,双侧颊黏膜反复糜烂,疼痛不适,进食时加重,组织病理检查结果为上皮过度不全角化,基底细胞液化变性,固有层淋巴细胞带状浸润,最可能的诊断是
根据《刑法》的规定,下列行为中构成资敌罪的是:
红星商场有两辆客货两用汽车,专门用于为顾客送货,其载货净吨位为4吨。按当地政府规定,与此类似客车的年税额为120元/辆,载货汽车的年税额30元/吨。该企业年应纳车船使用税为()元。
不同时代的人,由于受到主客观条件、实践水平以及生命的有限性等各种限制,他们的思维具有()的特点
JonathanSwiftmadeafamousModestProposalin1729thatthebabiesoftheIrishpoorshouldbeeatentopreventthemgrowingu
某公司为便于员工在家里访问公司的一些数据,允许员工通过Internet访问公司的FTP服务器,如图6-11所示。为了能够方便地实现这一目标,决定在客户机与FTP服务器之间采用TLS对数据进行加密。客户机与FTP服务器之间协商相互认可的密码发生在(41)。
Mostgeologistsbelieveoilresultsfromchemicaltransformationsofhydrocarbonsderivedfromorganismsburiedunderancientse
最新回复
(
0
)