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1) What does theoretical

Phonetics study?
Speech is a complicated process, and to study it requires a whole scientific subject
the science of phonetics. In phonetics, we must be able to use a particular symbol
to represent a particular sound. The International Phonetic Alphabet is a part of it
too. Taking English as an example of a writing system that does not always give a
reliable guide to pronunciation it is helpful to use phonetic transcription instead of
ordinary spelling. Through the system of rules of reading phonetics is connected
with grammar and helps to pronounce correctly singular and plural forms of nouns,
the past tense forms and past participles of English regular verbs. One of the most
important phonetic phenomena sound interchange is another manifestation of
the connection of phonetics with grammar. Phonetics formulates the rules of
pronunciation for separate sounds and sound combinations. Theoretical significance
of phonetics is connected with the further development of the problem of the
synchronic study and description of the phonetic system of a national language, the
comparative analysis and description of different languages and the study of the
correspondences between them, the diachronic description of successive changes in
the phonetic system of a language or different languages.

2) What does style refer to?


Stylistics is a branch of general linguistics that studies the styles used in literary and
verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the
reader/hearer.
Style may refer to:
* Design, the process of creating something;
* Fashion, a prevailing mode of expressing, e.g. clothing;
* Human physical appearance;
* In visual arts style can refer either to the aesthetic values followed in
choosing what to paint (and how) or
to the physical techniques employed;
* Style of music genre that shares a certain basic musical language;
* Style in fiction is an aspect of literary composition;
* Style guide in writing.
The main object of stylistics is a text, interpretation of its various
kinds, in other words, reading and studying texts (in our case, mostly,
literary texts or fiction). A stylistician learns a text from the linguistic
point of view.

3) Briefly characterize Middle


English period

From 1066 (according to some scholars 1150) to 1500 the language is known
as Middle English. During this period the inflections, which had begun to break
down towards the end of the Old English period, became greatly reduced, and
it is consequently known as the period of leveled endings/inflections. Three
features of Middle English contrasted with Old English: a greatly reduced
system of grammatical inflections; greatly increased lexical borrowings from
other languages, in particular French and Latin; a highly varied orthography.
Middle English dialects are more numerous than Old English dialects. The four
great dialect boundaries of Old English developed into Middle English as
follows:1)The vast Mercian area divided into East Midland and West Midland. 2)
Kentish became part of a wider South-Eastern dialect to the south of the River
Thames. 3) West Saxon, latterly the most prestigious Old English dialect,
especially for literature, shrank westward to become the South-Western dialect.
4) Northumbrian divided into the Northern dialect of England and the Lowland
of Scotland.

4) Briefly characterize the family


of the Germanic languages
Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising
of languages which descended from Proto-Germanic. Indo-European is a vast family,
comprising many cognate languages of Europe and Asia. Different Indo-European
languages are spoken by over 1600 million people. The German language, as a
native language, is spoken by approximately 100 million people. It is the state
language in Germany and Austria. One of the state languages in Switzerland and
Luxemburg. On the territory of France it is used in Elzas and Lorraine. Germanic
languages are subdivided into three groups:
East Germanic languages are: Gothic, Vandalic and Burgundian (all extinct).
North Germanic languages comprise Danish, Swedish, Norwegian,
Icelandic, Faroese languages.
West Germanic languages include: English, German, Netherlandish (Dutch
+ Flemish), Frisian, Afrikaans, Yiddish.
The Danish language, spoken by around 6 million people is the state
language of Denmark.
The Swedish language, the state language of Sweden is spoken by 10
million people in Sweden and parts of Finland.
The Norwegian language is a state language in Norway and is spoken by 5
million people.
The Icelandic language is the main language of Iceland, spoken by 250 000
people.
Faroese is a language spoken by 48 000 people in the Faroe Islands and
25 000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere

5) What are World Englishes?


From around 1600, the English colonization of North America resulted in the
creation of a distinct American variety of English. Some English pronunciations and
words froze when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more
like the English Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some expressions that
the British call Americanisms are in fact original British expressions that were
preserved in the colonies while lost for a time in Britain. Spanish also had an
influence on American English with words that entered English through the
settlement of the American West. French and West African words also influenced
American English. Today, American English is particularly influential, due to the
USAs dominance of cinema, television, popular music, trade and technology,
including internet. But there are many other varieties of English around the world
including: Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African
English, Indian English and Caribbean English. These varieties are not particularly
influential but, nevertheless, they are worth exploring.

6) What were the priorities of


Georgian translators?

Old Georgian translations were mainly interpretations of foreign (mainly, Greek


eclessiatic) texts. The texts translated were mostly eclessiastic: the bible, biblical
commentaries, etc. According to the translated texts Georgia had cultural
connections mainly with the Eastern Christian and Muslim countries like Byzantine,
Iran, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Armenia, later with Russia and Western Europe. The
Old Georgians translated texts because they were looked for and managed to find
answers to the most important questions which worried them. Georgian translation
of religious texts were unique as the pagan sacred forms in the translation of the
first Bible gave it a national coloring. It is claimed that Georgian translators of the
period paid considerable attention to the works that they found important for the
country. However, following the method of free translation, they often added or
deleted certain episodes which they found either unacceptable or unattractive to
the Georgian society. In addition to this, while translating poetry, Georgian
translators used a number of Georgian poetic forms. Later, Georgian translators
applied the method of word to word translation and closely compared the source
and target texts of the Gospel. In the second part of the 18th century and the
beginning of the 19th century Georgia started to look towards Western Europe. One
more tendency observed was that the translations of the second half of the 19th
century were made from more available Russian versions. Nevertheless, they still
played a significant role in the development of Georgian translation. Moreover, the
translators of that period made it absolutely sure to follow Georgian syntactic and
semantic rules.

7) Characterize Shakespeares
sonnets
Shakespeare's Sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets by William
Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and
mortality. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a
woman. The sonnets were first published in a 1609 quarto with the full stylised title:
Shakespeares sonnets. The sonnets to the young man express overwhelming,
obsessional love. The main issue of debate has always been whether it remained
platonic or became physical. The first 17 poems, traditionally called the procreation
sonnets, are addressed to the young man urging him to marry and have children in
order to immortalize his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets
express the speaker's love for the young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and
the transience of life; seem to criticize the young man for preferring a rival poet;
express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name.
The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the
"little love-god" Cupid.

8) Briefly characterize Old


English period

Old English is the name given to the closely related dialects spoken in England
from the fifth century to when raiders from north Germany (Anglo-Saxons),
(The word English was derived from the name Angles), began their
settlements, until the Xl century, when the effects of the Norman Conquest
began to appear in the language. Almost all knowledge of English before the
c.600 is hypothetical, a reconstruction is based on later documents in English
and on earlier documents in related languages. Old English was a synthetic
language, i.e. it indicated the relation of words in a sentence largely by means
of inflections that is why the Old English period is sometimes described as the
period of full endings. Old English was not an entirely uniform language. There
were four main dialects: Kentish (dialect of the Jutes), Mercian, Northumbrian
(the Anglian dialect) and West Saxon. The first written form of the language
was runic, later replaced during the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-
Saxons after 597 by the Latin alphabet, which was adapted to serve Old
English, making use of some runic letters.
9) Why are stylistics and literary
criticism complimentary?

Stylistics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of characteristic choices


in use of language, especially literary language, as regards sound, form, or
vocabulary, made by different individuals or social groups in different situations of
use. Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is
often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though
the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
The purpose of linguistic stylistics is to recognize and categorize the constituents of language in a certain
text. The purpose of literary stylistics is typically to analyze certain literary texts (basically fiction).
In certain cases, analysis of text can be supported by computer programs. It is often used to make value
judgments about the quality of imagination and creativity in the writing (of particular texts). It is important
to note that the study of language moves into either linguistic stylistics or literary studies or literary
stylistics. As we can see, there is a difference between stylistics (linguistic stylistics) and literary criticism
(literary stylistics).

10) What does lexicology study?

Lexicology is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and
the properties of words as the main units of language. Lexicology is a branch of
linguistics its own aims and methods of scientific research, its basic task being a
study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development
and current use. Lexicology is concerned with words, variable word-groups,
phraseological units, and with morphemes which make up words. There are two
types of lexicology:
1 General Lexicology is concerned with the general study of words and
vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language.
2 Special Lexicology is concerned with the study and description of vocabulary
and vocabulary units of a given language. There are two parts:
1 Special descriptive lexicology Synchronic lexicology deals with the
vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain
time.
2 Special historical lexicology Diachronic lexicology deals with the
changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time.
11) What does theoretical
grammar study?

The aim of the theoretical Grammar of a language is to present a description of its


grammatical system i.e. to scientifically analyze and define its grammatical
categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of
words in the process of speech making. A pedagogical grammar typically provides
paradigms of regular constructions, lists of prominent exceptions to these
constructions and descriptive commentary at various levels of detail and generality
about the form and meaning of expressions in a language. By contrast, a theoretical
grammar, in Chomsky's framework, is a scientific theory: it seeks to provide a
complete theoretical characterization of the speaker-hearer's knowledge of her
language, where this knowledge is interpreted to refer to a particular set of mental
states and structures. The difference between a theoretical grammar and a
pedagogical grammar is one important distinction to bear in mind in order to avoid
confusion about how the term 'grammar' operates in theoretical linguistics.

12) Write about W. Goldings


works
Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet and a playwright. In 1954,
Golding published his first novel, Lord of the Flies, which details the adventures of
British schoolboys stranded on an island in the Pacific who descend into barbaric
behavior. Although at first rejected by twenty-one different publishing houses,
Golding's first novel became a surprise success. E.M. Forster declared Lord of the
Flies the outstanding novel of its year, while Time and Tide called it "not only a first-
rate adventure story but a parable of our times." Golding continued to develop
similar themes concerning the inherent violence in human nature in his next novel,
The Inheritors, published the following year. This novel deals with the last days of
Neanderthal man. The Inheritors posits that the Cro-Magnon "fire-builders"
triumphed over Neanderthal man as much by violence and deceit as by any natural
superiority. His subsequent works include Pincher Martin, the story of a guilt-ridden
naval officer who faces an agonizing death, Free Fall, and The Spire each of which
deals with the depravity of human nature. The Spire is an allegory concerning the
protagonist's obsessive determination to build a cathedral spire regardless of the
consequences. In addition to his novels and his early collection of poems, Golding
published a play entitled The Brass Butterfly in 1958 and two collections of essays,
The Hot Gates and A Moving Target. In 1983, Golding received the Nobel Prize for
literature for his novels which, according to the Nobel committee, "with the
perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth,
illuminate the human condition in the world of today."

13) Briefly characterize the


history of the Georgian translation
theory
Georgia has a strong tradition of tranlsations which were conducted both in Georgia
and outside of the country. Old Georgian translations were mainly interpretations of
foreign (mainly, Greek eclessiatic) texts. The texts translated were mostly
eclessiastic: the bible, biblical commentaries etc. The attitude to the process of
translation used in that period was not word to word translation but rather free
interpretation that was deeply connected to the Georgian culture. According to the
translated texts Georgia had cultural connections mainly with the Eastern Christian
and Muslim countries like Byzantine, Iran, Syria, later with Russia and Western
Europe. The main objective was to produce extremely precise translations, which
would be as close to the original as possible. Ephraim the Small, a well-known
Georgian translator of the 11th century, used the word of Greek origin
(gadmotviprva into our language) as one of the synonyms of translation. It has two
meanings: 1. a trace left by something; 2. a model or a mould for making
something. By making this association, he minimized the difference between the
translation and the original. In the comparatively short period from the late 11th
century to the early 12th century, the Bible and the main theological works were
translated anew or substantially revised three times. However, the Georgian
language did not undergo any substantial changes at all, which means that the
translators didnt need linguistic enrichment. In metatexts the Georgian translator-
editors of the 11th and 12th centuries analysed in detail the shortcomings of the old
translations, admitting that the Georgian translations of Greek philosophical and
theological terms were not precise and that various Greek terms were translated
with a single word. At the beginning of the 19th century Georgia started to look
towards Western Europe.
14) Name and characterize the
types of Grammar

The grammatical system is a whole set of regularities determining the combination


of naming means in the formation of utterances as the expression of thinking
process. There are three types of grammar:
1 Prescriptive or traditional grammar. Its purpose is to give strict rules of
writing and speaking correctly.
2 Descriptive grammar is a system of approach to language units at the
present stage of development.
3 Communicative grammar states which grammar structures are used to
express a linguistic meaning. Grammatical structures are connected with
situation, use and meaning. The emphasis is not on the formation, but the
usage of grammatical forms.
4 Historical grammar studies the development of various grammatical units in
diachrony.
5 Historical comparative grammar studies the peculiarities of similar
structures of different languages within the framework of historical
development.
6 The aim of the theoretical Grammar of a language is to present a description
of its grammatical system i.e. to scientifically analyze and define its
grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation
of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.

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