2. 职称英语
  3. Most words are "lexical words", i.e. nouns signifying "things", the

Most words are "lexical words", i.e. nouns signifying "things", the

游客2024-01-11  8
问题             Most words are "lexical words", i.e. nouns signifying "things", the
       majority of which are abstract concepts rather than physical objects in the
       world; only "proper nouns" have specific and unique referents in the everyday
Line    world. The communicative function of a fully-functioning language requires the
(5)     scope of reference beyond the particularity of the individual instance. While
       each leaf, cloud or smile is different from all others, effective communication
       requires general categories or "universals". Anyone who has attempted to
       communicate with people who do not share their language will be familiar with
       the limitations of simply pointing to things, given that the vast majority of
(10)    lexical words in a language exist on a high level of abstraction and refer to
       classes of things such as "buildings" or to concepts like "construction".
           We lose any one-to-one correspondence of word and thing the moment we
       group instances into classes. Other than lexical words, language consists of
       "function words" or grammatical words, such as "only" and "under" which do
(15)    not refer to objects in the world at all, and many more kinds of signs other than
       simple nouns. The notion of words as labels for concepts assumes that ideas
       exist independently of words and that ideas are established in advance before the
       introduction of linguistic structure. Clearly, language is not limited to naming
       things existing in the physical world, but includes non-existent objects and ideas
(20)    well.
           The nomenclaturist stance, in viewing words as labels for pre-existing
       ideas and objects, attempts unsuccessfully to reduce language to the purely
       referential function of naming things. Things do not exist independently of the
       sign systems which we use; "reality" is created by the media which seem simply
(25)    to represent it.  Language does not simply name pre-existing categories;
       categories do not exist in "the world" .e.g. "where are the boundaries of a
       cloud; when does a smile begin". Such an emphasis on reality as invariably
       perceptually seamless may be an exaggeration; our referential categories do
       seem to bear some relationship to certain features which seem to be inherently
(30)    salient. Within a language, many words may refer to "the same thing" but
       reflect different evaluations of it. For example, "one person’s ’hovel’ is
       another person’s ’home’"
           Meanwhile, the signified of a word is subject to historical change. In this
       sense, "reality" or "the world" is created by the language we use: this
(35)    argument insists on the primacy of the signifier. Even if we do not adopt the
       radical stance that "the real world" is a product of our sign systems, we must
       still acknowledge the lack of signifiers for many things in the empirical world
       and that there is no parallel correlation between most words and objects in the
       known world at all. Thus, all words are "abstractions", and there is no direct
(40)    correspondence between words and "things" in the world. [br] It can be inferred from the passage that the author is LEAST likely to agree with which of the following?
选项 A、Words can be categorized into different grammatical functions.
B、Some relationship between signifier and signified can be articulated.
C、Every signifier points to a single pre-existing signified.
D、Words may name imaginary, non-physical things.
E、The use of categories is essential to the operation of language.
答案 C
解析
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