Teaser questions

1. Why are interjections such as Ouch! considered to be unlikely sources of human speech sounds?

Interjections contain sounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech production. They are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk, produced on exhaled breath.

2. What special features of human teeth make them useful in the production of speech sounds?

Human teeth are upright, not slanting outwards like those of apes, and they are roughly even in height.

3. Which property of language enables people to talk about 'the future'?

Displacement - a property of language that allows users to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment

4. What happens in the process known as rebus writing?

In rebus writing, the symbol for one entity comes to be used as the symbol for the sound of the spoken word used to refer to that entity. That symbol is then used whenever that sound occurs in any words.

5. Which modern language has a (partially) syllabic writing system?

Japanese

6. What is the name given to the writing system used for Russian?

The Cyrillic alphabet

7. Where will you find the writing system with the longest history of continuous use?

China

8. What is the difference between an open and a closed syllable?

An open syllable ends with a vowel (as nucleus) whereas a closed syllable ends with a consonant (as coda).

9. What is the origin of the word nitwit?

It is said to be a borrowing from the colloquial Dutch expression Ik niet weet.

10. What prescriptive rules for the 'proper' use of English are not obeyed in the following sentences and how would they be 'corrected'?

(a) The old theory consistently failed to fully explain all the data.
(b) I can't remember the name of the person I gave the book to.

11. Someone stands between you and the TV set you're watching, so you decide to say one of the following. Identify which would be direct and which would be indirect speech acts.

(a) Move!
(b) You're in the way.
(c) Could you please sit down?
(d) Please get out of the way.

(a) direct, (b) indirect, (c) indirect, (d) direct

12. What is aphasia?

Aphasia is an impairment of language function due to localized brain damage that leads to difficulty in understanding and/or producing linguistic forms.

13. Can you describe four typical features of caregiver speech?

Choose any four of these features: frequent questions, exaggerated intonation, extra loudness, slower tempo, longer pauses, treating actions and vocalizations as conversational turns, baby-talk, simple sentence structures, a lot of repetition.

14. Which of these two utterances was produced by the older child and why?

(a) I not hurt him (b) No the sun shining

The more advanced form is most likely (a) because the negative element is placed before the verb inside the structure and not simply added to the front, as it is in (b).

15. What do you think 'the Joseph Conrad phenomenon' refers to?

The ability of an adult L2 learner to master aspects of the written language, but to speak with a distinct L1 accent, as exemplified by the writer Joseph Conrad.

16. Why do we say that mathematics is learned, not acquired?

Mathematics is learned through a conscious process of accumulating knowledge, typically in an institutional setting. It is not acquired, because ability doesn't gradually develop without conscious effort, as in the development of an L1 by young children.

17. Which of the following words are likely to be from Old English and which from French: bacon, beef, calf, deer, ox, pig, veal, venison?

From Old English: calf, deer, ox, pig. From French: bacon, beef, veal, venison

18. What is the difference between an accent and a dialect?

The term 'accent' is used to refer to pronunciation features only, whereas 'dialect' covers features of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

19. In what specific way is a creole different from a pidgin?

A creole has native speakers, a pidgin has none.

20. What is an idiolect?

An idiolect is the personal dialect of an individual speaker.

21. In AAVE, what is communicated by the use of be in He don't be smoking now?

The use of be communicates 'habitual action', so He don't be smokin now means that smoking is not a habitual action for him now, or that he has stopped smoking.

22. Is the following sentence more likely to be spoken by a woman or a man, and why? I think that golf on television is kind of boring, don't you?

It is more likely to be spoken by a woman because it is expressing an opinion (I think) in a non-assertive way, using a hedge (kind of) and a tag question (don't you?).