语言与文化自考2016年10月真题及答案解析

白马王子

Define a proverb and illustrate how proverbs are related to culture by referring to the following sentences.(1) A small leak will sink a great ship.(2) 蝼蚁之穴能溃千里之堤。

Explain the statement that English is a hypotactic language while Chinese is a paratactic one at the sentential level and the textual level.

骄傲是失败的前导。

红茶

pay a visit (translate it into Chinese honourifics)

John hit the pickpocket on the head.

Request the honour of your presence.

What are the language features of advertisement English?

If a schoolboy bites his nails when alone in his bedroom, the behaviour may be interpreted as a habitual one. However, if he does that during an examination, it might be interpreted as an indicator of his nervousness about the examination. What feature of nonverbal communication does this example show?

Which of the following English interjections are used to express surprise in English culture?

Ah, Aha, Well, Bravo, Dear me, Ouch

Body language refers to such meaning_______devices as facial expressions and eye behaviours, gestures, and postures.

What does culture refer lo in its broad sense?

The regional________of English came into being as the results of Britain’s maritime expansion that began in the Elizabethan age.

In English blue is usually associated with_______feelings, as in “It was blue Monday and he didn’t feel like going back to work”.

What one cannot say without offending others is called_______taboos.

If the sentences in a text are linked by meaning alone, they exhibit_______.

That “accountant Smith”， “teacher Jones”，etc. are not accepted as appropriate forms of address in English shows that terms of_______are seldom used in vocatives.

“A Trojan horse” and “Waterloo” are allusions from_______.

1) Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world.2) 上海是世界上最大的城市之一。The above two sentences show there are differences in______between themalthough English and Chinese are both SVO languages.

The word for a male cat in English is______.

The interaction between language, thought and culture has been investigated in several subjects among which_______communication is, perhaps, the best known one.

Text, referring to any piece of spoken or written language, can be as short as one word like “______”.

• A.danger
• B.in
• C.sorry
• D.shall

Nonverbal communication can be defined as_______.

• A.communication with the use of sounds
• B.communication in which words are not used
• C.anything someone docs to which someone else assigns meanings
• D.the study of facial expressions, touch, time, gestures, smell, eye behaviour, and so on

American English differs from British English mainly in________.

• A.tone
• B.pronunciation
• C.vocabulary
• D.sentence order

The same tenors may be associated with the same vehicles in both English and Chinese to express similar meanings, as is seen in “______”.

• A.That young man is a bear at mathematics
• B.“You chicken!”he cried, looking at Tom with contempt
• C.“I’ll have to stop all these between-means snacks. I’m getting as fat as a pig
• D.It’s no use expecting Arthur to stand up for himself: he’s as timid as a mouse

The following idioms are in relation to life philosophy EXCEPT_______.

• A.not to bat an eyelid
• B.milk and water
• C.not for all the tea in China
• D.not in a hundred years

Euphemisms of “die” can be found in “______”.

• A.Wine ended him
• B.It’s a long time since he went cast
• C.The patient passed away during the night
• D.He breathed his last and was buried in the churchyard

Which of the following personal names are very popular in Chinese, but NOT in English?

• A.Names related to knowledge, authority.
• B.Names related to the date of birth.
• C.Names related to historical events.
• D.Names of one’s grandparents or other relatives.

We say that English is more grammatically explicit than Chinese because in English there are more_______.

• A.inflectional morphemes
• B.derivational morphemes
• C.phrasal verbs
• D.non-finite verbs

In England ______is celebrated as a holiday.

• A.Anzac Day
• B.Christmas
• C.Thanksgiving Day
• D.Boxing Day

English speakers prefer to have prolonged eye contact while convening, whereas in Chinese culture, people have eye contact less frequently and intensely. This fact shows_______.

• A.eye behaviours create arousal
• B.eye behaviours are involved in human interaction
• C.there are cross-cultural differences about eye behaviours
• D.eye behaviour is a much more salient interaction signal than most other bodily motions.

Most linguists agree that language is______.

• A.systematic
• B.uniquely human
• C.primarily written
• D.culture-free

Which of the following statements is NOT true?

• A.In legal documents teamed words are used frequently.
• B.Legal documents leave no room for ambiguity or misunderstanding.
• C.Legal documents are normally stable and conservative.
• D.Since legal documents are normally read by judges or lawyers, readability is aserious concern.

The following words are pronounced the same in American and British English EXCEPT_______.

• A.about
• B.but
• C.clerk
• D.will

A boy told his mother in a whimpering voice that it was not he who broke the vase, but didn’t dare to look at his mother in her eyes. In this example, the nonverbal message______the verbal one.

• A.complements
• B.contradicts
• C.repeats
• D.regulates

—Is Jenny coming to the party?

—Yes, she is.

Judging from the way the sentences are connected, we can say that the above testexhibits ________.

• A.cohesion
• B.coordination
• C.coherence
• D.cooperation

Choose one connective to put into the blank to show additive relation between the following sentences: For the whole day he climbed up the steep mountainside, almost without stopping. ______ in all this time he met no one.

• A.Yet
• B.And
• C.So
• D.Then

Nowadays in the United States, the black people are referred to as ______.

• A.niggers
• B.negroes
• C.the blacks
• D.African Americans

People use______when speaking to or about a social superior.

• A.euphemisms
• B.honourifics
• C.taboos
• D.terms of humility

The following sentences are metaphorical expressions about ideas. “______”shows that ideas are food.

• A.Let me stew over that for a while
• B.He breathed new life into that idea
• C.His ideas have finally come to fruition
• D.Here’s an idea that I’d like to plant in your mind

In which of the following expressions, the red colour is associated with certain emotions in English culture?

• A.In the red.
• B.Red tape.
• C.See red.
• D.Reds under the bed.

Which of the following is a proverb related to Christianity?

• A.Homer sometimes nods.
• B.Each cross hath its own inscription.
• C.Never cast your pearls before swine.
• D.I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.

The phrasal verb “look up to”means “_______”.

• A.investigate
• B.seek
• C.admire
• D.inspect

Which of the following is against the general rule of introduction in English culture?

• A.To introduce a man to a woman
• B.To introduce an individual to a group
• C.To introduce a superior to an inferior
• D.To introduce the guest to the host.

We say that Chinese favours_______sentence patters because in it many sentences are like a flowing river without tributaries.

• A.brancing
• B.linear
• C.simple
• D.compound

Among the following names, _______are inherited and more distinctive.

• A.nicknames
• B.given names
• C.surnames
• D.full names

English is often said to be a______language because it uses more conjunctions to link components in sentences.

• A.topic prominent
• B.subject prominent
• C.paratactic
• D.hypotactioc

In the United Slates the fourth Thursday in November is_______.

• A.Boxing Day
• B.Christmas Day
• C.Anzac Day
• D.Thanksgiving Day

The word in American English for “biscuit” is______in British English.

• A.cracker
• B.scone
• C.corn
• D.sweet

Language is______, which means speech is primary while writing is secondary.

• A.symbolic
• B.systematic
• C.vocal
• D.arbitrary

When talking about the relationship between language and thinking, Sapir and Whorf went so far as to state that language______thought.

• A.determined
• B.indicated
• C.conveyed
• D.represented