新编简明英语语言学教程》第二版第1-3章练习题参考答案Chapter1IntroductionP131
Howdoyouinterpretthefollowingdefinitionoflinguistics:Linguisticsisthescientificstudyoflanguage答:Linguisticsisbasedonthesystematicinvestigationoflinguisticdata,conductedwithreferencetosomegeneraltheoryoflanguagestructure
Inordertodiscoverthenatureandrulesoftheunderlyinglanguagesystem,thelinguistshastocollectandobservelanguagefactsfirst,whicharefoundtodisplaysomesimilarities,andgeneralizationsaremadeaboutthem;thenheformulatessomehypothesesaboutthelanguagestructure
Thehypothesesthusformedhavetobecheckedrepeatedlyagainsttheobservedfactstofullyprovetheirvalidity
Inlinguistics,asinanyotherdiscipline,dataandtheorystandinadialecticalcomplementation,thatis,atheorywithoutthesupportofdatacanhardlyclaimvalidity,anddatawithoutbeingexplainedbysometheor