31. Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994)—Novelist : Invisible Man (1952).
32. Saul Bellow (1915 )—Novelist : Dangling Man (1994), The Victim
(1947), the Adventures of Augie March (1953), Henderson the Rain King
(1959), Herzog (1964), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), Humboldt’s Gift (1975),
The Dean’s December (1982), Seize the Day (1956).
33. J.D. Salinger (1919)—Novelist : The Catcher in the Rye (1951),
Nine Stories (1953), Tranny and Zooey (1961), Raise High the Roof Beam,
Carpenters (1963).
34. John Barth (1930)—Novelist : Lost in the Fun House, The Floating
Opera (1956), The End of the Road (1958), The Sot, Weed Factor (1960),
Giles Goat Boy (1966), Chimera (1972), Letters (1979), The Armies of the
Night, Sabbatical, A Romance (1982).
35. John Gardner (1933-1982)—Novelist : Grendel (1971), The
Resurrection (1966), The Sunlight Dialogues (1972), Nickel Mountain (1973),
October Light (1976), Mickelson’s Ghosts (1982), On Moral Fiction (1978).
36. Toni Morrison (1931 )—African-American Novelist : The
Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981),
Beloved (1987).
37. Alice Walker (1944 )—African-American Novelist : The Color
Purple, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), The Piano Lesson (1989).
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. Why is Walt Whitman Called “the poet of Democracy”?
Ans. Walt Whitman has been called as “the poet of Democracy” because
he favours the ideals of democracy such as self-government, freedom of the
individual, love of the common man etc.
Q. 2. What are Robert Frost’s principal poetic works?
Ans. Robert Frost’s principal works are—
1. A Boy’s Will (1913).
2. North of Boston (1914).
3. Mountain Interval (1916).
4. New Hampshire (1923).
5. West Running Brook (1928).
6. A Further Range (1936).
7. A Witness Tree (1942).
8. A Masque of Reason (1945).
9. A Masque of Mercy (1947).
10. Steeple-Bush (1947).
Q. 3. Who has been called “The Father of American Poetry”?
Ans. William Cullen Bryant (1994-1878) has been called “the father of
American poetry.” It was Bryant, who provided grace, dignity and romantic
charm to his poems.
According to R.W. Emerson, “He is our native, sincere, original patriotic
poet. He is original because he is sincerely a true painter of the face of the
country and of the sentiments of his own people.”
Q. 4. What is your opinion about Robert Frost as a modern poet?
Ans. Critics like Isidor Schneider, William Van O’ Connor, Granville Hicks
and Yvor Winters had the opinion that Robert Frost is a modern poet. Frost is
regarded as a modern poet because Frost’s best poetry exhibits the structure of
symbolist metaphysical poetry, much more clearly than many a modern poet
does.
Q. 5. Tell us the important novels of Ernest Hemingway?
Ans. The important novels of Ernest Heingway are Man Without Women,
The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon, Green Hills
of Africa, To Have and Have not, For whom the Bell Tolls, Across the River
and into the Trees, The Old Man and the Sea.
Q. 6. Tell us Henry James Contribution to American novel?
Ans. Henry James is the father of psychological novel. Concord called
him, “The historian of fine consciences.” Henry James had achieved the first
completely satisfying way of writing a novel. His famous novels are Roderick
Hudson, The Americans, Dairy Miller, The European Confidence, Washington
Square, The Princes Casmassima, The Tragic Muse, The Real Thing, The
Wings of Dove, The Golden Bowls.
Q. 7. Give the names of the collections of the short stories of O. Henry?
Ans. The names of the collections of the short stories of O. Henry are,
‘Cabbages and Kings’ and ‘The Four Million’.
Q. 8. Tell us the symbolism in Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man
and the Sea’?
Ans. In Santiago story the reader is to find struggles of Ernest Hemingway.
The fisherman is the writer, the sea his craft, the gulf stream is time, the voyage
is soul’s jounrey, the struggle with the fish is the struggle between good and
evil. Perhaps the messages is, “Man is not made for defeat, a man can be
destroyed but not defeated. The hero of the ‘Old Man And the Sea’ Santiago
says, I do not care who cares who.”
Q. 9. Tell us the contribution of Eugene O’ Neill to American drama?
Ans. Eugene O’ Neill contributed to the strengthening of conventional
drama. O’ Neill also became the symbol of the American renaissance. O’ Neill’s
famous dramas are Beyond the Horizon. Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape,
Strange Interlude, Mouring Becomes Electra. The Iceman Cometh, A Long
Days Journey Into Night.
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Q. 10. What is the theme of Eugene O’ Neill’s play ‘The Hairy Ape’?
Ans. ‘The Hairy Ape’ symbolically deals with the conflict between
capitalism and working class, between individual and working class, between
individual and his environment. Death seems to be the only solution to the
problem of alienation.
Q. 11. What are the chief features of the plays of Eugene O’ Neill?
Ans. Eugene O’ Neill presents new subject matters. His other qualities
are absence of humour, free imagination, powerful dialogoues. Many times he
is able to achieve poetic effects.
Q. 12. Name the important plays of Arthur Miller?
Ans. The important of Arthur Miller are : The Man who had All the Luck
(1944), All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953),
A View from The Bridge (1955), A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After
the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), Creation of the
World and Other Business (1973).
Q. 13. What are the chief features of Arthur Miller’s plays?
Ans. Arthur Miller was influenced by the depression of his times. Miller
does not believe in Art for Art’s sake. Arthur Miller tries to deal with intellectual,
the social, the moral, the religious and psychological aspects of Man and society.
Q. 14. What are the important plays of Tennessee Williams?
Ans. The important plays of Tennessee Williams are : A Strectcar Named
Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Sweet Bird of Youth. The Milk train Does not
Stop Here Anymore.
Q. 15. Give theme of Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’?
Ans. In this play, there is no female character. Estagon and Vladimir idle
away their time waiting for Godot, who never comes. Two strangers, a cruel
master and his half-crazy slave, cross their path. In the end of the first Act, a
messenger comes from Godot and tells that he will come tomorrow. The
messenger appears again with the same promise that Godot will come on the
following clay. Their fear of pain has been portrayed effectively.
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Chapter 14
LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS AND PHONETICS
Lingustics is a scientific study of the systems/principles underlying human
languages. Linguisitics has two major aims : to study the nature of language
and establish a theory of language. Language is an arbitrary system of articulated
sounds made use of by human beings for communication and expression.
(1) Phonetics is the study of the articulation, transmission and reception
of speech sounds.
(2) Phonology is the study of the organization of the units of the sounds of
speech into syllables and other larger units.
(3) Morphology is the study of words.
(4) Semantics is concerned with the study of meaning in all its aspects.
(5) Graphology is the study of all the conventions used in representing
speech in writing.
(6) Lexicology is the study of lexical items and their collocational relations.
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. Tell us the definition of Phonetics?
Ans. Phonetics is the study of speech processes, including the anatomy
neurology and phonology of speech, the articulation of classification and
perception of speech sounds.
Q. 2. Tell us the definition of language?
Ans. Language is a system of conventional spoken or written, symbols by
means of which human beings as members of a social group and participants
in its culture communicate.
(1) According to E. Sapir, “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system
of voluntarily means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”
(2) According to Henry Sweet, “Language is the expression of ideas by
means of speech sounds combined into words.”
Q. 3. Define Linguistics?
Ans. Linguistics is the scientific study of language; it is the science of
language. The term linguistics is derived from lingua meaning ‘tongue’ and
estica meaning ‘knowledge or science’.
Q. 4. What are the main branches of linguistics?
Ans. The main branches of linguistics are—
(i) Phonetics,
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(ii) Phonology,
(iii) Morphology,
(iv) Syntax,
(v) Semantics,
(vi) Graphology,
(vii) Lexicology.
Q. 5. What are the major branches of phonties?
Ans. (1) Acoustic Phonetics—It is the study of the physical properties of
speech sound such as frequency and amplitude in their transmission.
(2) Auditory Phonetics—It is the study of hearing and perception of
speech sounds.
(3) Articulatory Phonetics—It is the study of the movement of speech
organs in the articulation of speech.
Q. 6. What is Psycho-linguistics?
Ans. Psycho-linguistics is the mixture of linguistics and psychology.
Q. 7. Define phonology?
Ans. Phonology is the study of vocal sounds and sound changes, phonemes
and their variants in a particular language.
Q. 8. What is syntax?
Ans. Syntax is a branch of linguistics which is concerned with the study
of the arrangements of words in sentences and of the means by which such
relations as inflexion, word-order, etc are shown.
Q. 9. What is vowel?
Ans. Vowels are characterized acoustically by the absence of audible
friction and from the articulatory point of view by a free passage of air.
Q. 10. What is consonant?
Ans. A consonant is a sound characterized by constriction accompanied
by some measure of friction or closure followed by release.
Q. 11. What is a phoneme?
Ans. The smallest unit at the level of sound is called a phoneme. Phonemes
are signficant sounds in specified langauge.
Q. 12. What are active and passive articulators?
Ans. The active articulators are the lower lip and the tongue. These are
the articulators that make contacts with the passive articulators. The passive
articulators are the upper lip, the upper teeth, the roof of the mouth, and the
back wall of the throat or pharynd. The passive articulators are called passive
because they don’t move to touch other articulators.
Q. 13. What is a diphothong?
Ans. A diphtong is the union of two vowel sounds or vowel letters e.g. the
sounds (ai) in pipe the letters (ou) in doubt.
Q. 14. What is a morpheme?
Ans. A Morpheme is minimal syntactical unit of which forms words, or
grammatical structure.
Q. 15. What is a stress?
Ans. A stress is the intensity or prominence given to a syllable. It may be
described as ‘emphasis on a syllable on word in the form of prominent, relative
loudness’.
Q. 16. What is a Pitch?
Ans. A Pitch is the auditory property of a sound that enables a listener to
place it on a scale going from low to high, without considering the acoustic
properties, such as the frequency of the sound.
Q. 17. What is an allomorph?
Ans. Allomorph is ‘morpheme variant. For example /S/Z/IZ/ etc. are the
allomorphs of the plural morpheme /z/ in English.
Q. 18. What is morphonemics?
Ans. Morphoemics is the code which ties together the grammatical and
the phonological systems. It is the study of the phonological environment of
the morphemes of a language.
Q. 19. What are free and bound morphemes?
Ans. Morphemes which can occur alone are free morphemes e.g. the black,
yet, go. Morphemes which do not occur alone are called bound e.g. ness, less,
ed, un. Free morphemes are generaly the root words and bound morphemes
are the affixes.
Q. 20. What is intonation?
Ans. Intonation refers to significant changes of pitch and stress pertaining
to sentences. Falling and rising are the two basic intonation types.
Q. 21. What is a rhyme?
Ans. Rhyme is harmoncial succession of sounds consisting of or
contributing to the musical flow of language. If the measured movement is
based on syllabic quantity, it is syllable timed.
Q. 22. How many phonemes for English have been set up by Trager
and Smith?
Ans. Trager and Smith have set up forty five phonemes for English—
9 simple vowels
3 semi vowels
21 consonants
4 stresses
4 pitches
1 plus juncture
3 terminal junctures
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Q. 23. What is lexical ambiguity?
Ans. Ifa word has more than one meaning it is lexically ambiguous. For
example the word ‘bank’ may mean ‘the bank’ of a river’ or ‘a financial
institution e.g. (i) I saw him by bank’. (ii) I have 5B Account in a Bank.
Q. 24. What is structural ambiguity?
Ans. It a structure ‘a sentence, clause or phrase’ has more than one meaning,
it is structurally ambiguous.
Q. 25. What are the main Schools of Structural Linguistics?
Ans. (1) Transformational Generative School—Noam Chomsky,
Ternnerie Moor.
(2) The Prague School—This school flourished between the two world
wars. Its leader was Roman Jackbson.
(3) Conpenhagan School—Louis Hjelmslev.
(4) American School—Its leaders were Bloomfield and Sapir.
Q. 26. What is Descriptive Linguistics?
Ans. Descriptive Linguistics is a scientific methodology of studying
languages. Synchronic and not the diachronic description is the main object of
the structural linguistics. Attention to structure, study of the spoken language
use of the inductive method or scientific method of scientific analysis, and
working from to meaning characterize the work of the structural grammarian.
Q. 27. What is dialect?
Ans. A regional, temporal or social variety within a single language is a
dialect.
Q. 28. What is Assimilation?
Ans. Assimilation is the process of two sounds becoming identical or
similar due to the influence of one upon the other.
Q. 29. What is diglossia?
Ans. Where we do find two or more dialects or languages in regular use
in a community we have a situation which Fergueson (1959) has called diglossia.
Q. 30. What is polysemy?
Ans. Polysemy means having several, often quite different meanings
derived from the basic idea or concept.
Q. 31. What is Collection?
Ans. Collection is a lexical item with other lexical items. For example
‘ink’ is a collocation with words such as pen, paper, letter, black etc.
Q. 32. Who has written the book ‘Syntactic Structures (1957)’?
Ans. The book ‘Syntactic Structures (1951)’ is written by Noam Chomsky.
Q. 33. Who has written the following books—
(1) Problems of Knowledge and Freedom (1970).
(2) Reflections on Language (1975)
Ans. These two books are written by Noam Chomsky.
Q. 34. What do you understand by registers?
Ans. Registers are the varieties of language according to use. They are
‘stylistic-functional varieties of a dialect or language,. Registers are also defined
as ‘situationally conditioned field of discourse and oriented varieties of a
language.”
Q. 35. What is Epithesis?
Ans. Epithesis is the insertion of one or more sounds or letters into a
world, particularly in loan words e.g. school/sku : I/in Hindu Urdu dialects/
ISKI/or/Sekul/.
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