载体英语苏州大学、武汉大学以及湖南师范大学英语专业考博笔试及面试答题经验分享(含试题回忆及回答)

2021年1月6日发(作者：申纪兰)
A Summary of My Entrance Examination of Doctoral Program

This summary commences with my tentative answers to all the questions in the two rounds
of entrance examinations in the hope of providing you with hints when you are to prepare for your
doctorial program or maybe just for the oral defense of your master thesis. It is comprised of two
sub-sections, the former of which summarizes my written examination in Soochow University,
while the latter recapitulates the major points of re-examination, namely, the interview and
proposal writing. Afterwards, I would like to share some of my thoughts through preparing the
examinations.
We may begin with the key points of the written examination on linguistics of Soochow
University. The exercises on this paper could be categorized into four different types: terminology,
theoretical question, critical reading and theory application, the former two types of which, namely,
terminology and theoretical question will be discussed in detail.
The paper begins with terminology explanation, which requires candidates to select two out
of six terms to interpret. Among the six terms, four of them come from applied linguistics or more
accurately speaking, language teaching and second language acquisition, while the left two lies in
the realm of cognitive linguistics, which were selected by me.
1. What is “category” from the perspective of cognitive linguistics?
Cognitive view of “Category” is quite divergent from classical category theory, which refers
itself as a realm of specific taxonomy according to certain standard with a clear-cut boundary, at
least in the four superseding points:
1) Cognitive linguistics distinguishes prototypes and peripherals in a specific category and
attributes different degrees of typicality to them. Typical members, namely, prototypes, are more
likely to be firstly perceived and processed in conceptualization, compared with peripheral
members. The same could be applied to the properties of a specific thing as well, which could be
divided into prototypical and peripheral features. However, the positions of prototypes and
peripherals, they argue, are not stubbornly stable, but reversible or changeable in different
contexts. For example, penguin might be considered a peripheral member of the category of “bird”
in Africa, but a prototype in Antarctic. The division between prototypes and peripherals, in one
way or another, is linked with another important theory of cognitive linguistics, namely the
prominence view or figure/ground segregation that figure has the perceptual prominence and more
easily to be conceptualized than the ground. Similar to prototype and peripheral, it allows what we
call figure/ground reversal. 2) In contrast with the classical view, arguing for a clear-cut border
between adjacent categories, the prototypes/peripherals division directly contributes to the view of
fuzzy boundary between categories, which, in another word, indicates a gradual shift rather than
definite division between different categorizations. A typical case in point is the linkage between
thigh and body and one cannot judge accurately which part is the division between the two parts. 3)
The prototypical category theory reflects the prototype view of cognitive linguistics, which by
nature could be considered as a significant way of conceptualization. To put it differently, the
process of identifying certain category, namely, categorization, is one of the fundamental ways to
know about the world. Prototype might be accounted as reference point, used to pin down the
position of others by judging its relations to prototype. In that case, the prototypes that acquired
earlier seem vitally important in understanding specific categories or even in knowing about the
world, for instance, if a badly designed table is taken as prototype in one’s mind, then it would be
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difficult for him or her to construct a well- accepted category of ‘table’ in accordance with the
norms of his own community. 4) Prototype is, more often than not, contextually dependant and
sometimes culturally sensitive. For example, people from North Pole definitely have divergent
perception and understanding of the prototypes of snow compared with those from desert.
Categories only exist in connection with other categories and the same could also be said to
prototypes and peripherals. “Love”, for example, a rather abstract notion, is constructed by
numerous more concrete or more vivid sub-categories, such as parental love, friendship and
patriotism etc, which add to more meanings and details to this concept. 5) The members of certain
category are linked by a network of overlapping similarities, called family resemblance. Such
similarities may encompass all categories members or they may establish relations only between
some of them, which open up an alternative to classical view that attributes must be common to all
category members or they must be category-wide. This might be closely related to the
differentiation between prototypes and peripherals as well as different ratings of typicality of
category members.
2. What is cognitive semantics?
Cognitive semantics, one of the most fundamental research aspects of cognitive linguistics,
cannot be covered by a single theory; rather, it is an umbrella term for a series of theories of
cognitive linguistics. One of its theoretical foundations is “bodily embodiment”, highlighting that
the nature of meaning as reflections of mental representations based on world experience, which
could be summarized as embodied view of linguistics.
Contemporarily, theoretical hotspots in this field include conceptual metaphor, prototype
category theory, frame or script, etc. Metaphor, traditionally considered as “a characteristics of
language alone” has been widely-acknowledged as a matter of “thought and action”. Hence, it
should not only manifest itself as a linguistic phenomenon, and nowadays it has been extended to
multimodality: pictures, music, non-verbal sounds, verbal and written languages and gestures, etc
and their different permutations are all possible sign systems in which the metaphorical
abstractions occur. It has also been applied to the discursive level, exploring various aspects of
discourses. Prototypical category, contrary to classic category, considers prototypes as cognitive
reference point to conceptualize other members. It highlights the fuzziness of boundaries, family
resemblance among members and cultural or context variance of prototypes. Traditionally it has
been widely applied to the cognitive research of polysemy or the cognitive process of certain
linguistic structures as well as generative mechanism of certain construction from the perspective
of de-categorization. Some researchers, however, innovatively used it to explore the verbal
communication which was traditionally studied from the perspective of grammar, discursive
studies, pragmatics, etc. Frame, script or image schema, whatever you call it, refers to mental
structure abstracted from world knowledge and experience. It has been widely applied to analyze
the similarity or difference between the same group of words in different languages, or the
cognitive causes of polysemy or certain linguistic structures. Contemporarily, it has been extended
to explore discursive cohesion and coherence and also in translation and language teaching
studies.
It has to be noted that the theories and researches of cognitive semantics are inclined to
merge with other disciplines, such as discourse analysis, pragmatics, translation, literary criticism,
semiotics, as well as language teaching. Take conceptual metaphor for example, it has been
utilized into issues of discursive level, for instance, coherence and cohesion, and into language
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teaching or second language acquisition, for example, metaphorical competence of foreign
language. Interdisciplinary studies not only contribute to innovative viewpoints but also testify the
validity and credibility of certain theories in practice.
The second part requires candidates to select and answer two of the four theoretical questions.
Two of them belong to applied linguistics, and the left two stem from cognitive linguistics. The
questions and my tentative answers are summarized as follows:
1. Formalism and functionalism are two major linguistic schools. Where cognitive linguistics
should be put, formalism or functionalism?
To decide which school cognitive linguistics belongs to, it seems necessary to delineate major
arguments or features of formalism, functionalism as well as cognitive linguistics.
The two schools are found to be tremendously divergent in their viewpoints. Formalism
concentrates on language per se in research, and more specifically, it highlights the significance of
form and universal meaning in phonology, semantics, grammar or syntax, etc, irrespective of the
variances of meanings in different contexts, or specific function in use or contextual and cultural
factors. Functionalism, on the other hand, focuses on language in use and highlights functional
aspect and takes socio-cultural aspect into account. The two, albeit quite divergent in terms of
research focus and major arguments, are not entirely unrelated to each other. For one, formalism is
foundational to functionalism to some extent in terms of linguistic research. The correct
interpretation of literal meaning and structure serves as pre-condition for any further analysis.
Second, functionalism furthers develops some unarticulated or neglected points of formalism.
Take “competence” and “performance” for example, formalism merely focuses on the former
while neglect the latter, which is theoretically developed by functionalist school.
As to cognitive linguistics, as an interdisciplinary study of cognitive science and linguistics,
strives to exploit the universalities and variances across all cultures in cognition, mind and
embodiment. Just similar to functional school, it is also usage- based, taking the language in
practice as research subjects. Additionally, it also includes the contextual and cultural factors, etc
into account in terms of its researches. Nonetheless, its closeness to functionalism does not signify
its disconnected relation with formalism. For one, what formalism highlights, namely, the formal
relation among grammatical constituents is sort of foundational to any further research. Without
correct understanding of literal meaning and grammatical relation, it might be quite unreasonable
to further any research. For another, certain theories of formal linguistics might exert some effects
on cognitive linguistics in one way or another. A good example is construction grammar, which
defines “construction” as form-meaning correspondence, more specifically, the correspondence
among syntax, morphology and meaning. Among the various versions of construction grammar,
Fillmore’s view seems quite linked to formal school of linguistics, particularly head-driven phrase
structure grammar, which gives very meticulously analysis of the inner structure of construction
and concordant description of the forms and functions of grammar.
Though formalism and functionalism are the two major school of linguistics, it does not
mean that every sub- discipline of linguistics could be exactly classified to either of them, since
there might be grey area or fuzziness between the two categories. For example, “cognitive syntax”
strives to explore syntax, a classical topic of formal linguistics from the perspective of cognitive
linguistics, a usage-based linguistic school. To put it in another way, it is a merged research field
with both formal and functional factors in it.
What has been discussed indicates the close relationship between cognitive linguistics and
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functional school. It is safe to say that it could be approximately classified into functional school,
but we cannot overlook its introvert link with formalism.

2. What is the function of blended space in conceptual blending theory?

Conceptual blending theory, proposed by Fauconnier, stemmed from “mental space”, a type
of conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk. It claims to be able to uncover the online
language processing. The theoretical model consists of four spaces, two input spaces, hiring and
injecting information which was brought together in the generic space in the form of a new
emergent conceptual structure. Eventually, information from both input spaces is blended and
processed in the blended space.
The projection from input space to blended space could be summarized as three processes:
composition, completion and elaboration. Composition refers to the fusing or blending of content
from two different mental spaces. Completion refers to the supplement of indispensable elements
required to understand or activate specific scenario or frame. Elaboration, however, points to the
detailed explanation to the integrated event. All the cognitive processes or handling is called
compression, which actually reflects a process of simplification and narrowing, giving rise to a
new and complete conceptual structure.
The second round of the entrance examination encompasses two sections, proposal writing
and interview. The research proposal was expected to be completed in English within an hour.
There’s no specific stipulation on the length, but all the candidates were allocated to three pieces
of A4 papers in the first beginning, and one could have more if papers were used up. By the way,
this procedure was not known by candidates until we sat down in the exam venue, and hence no
one had been able to prepare it beforehand, which signified its high requirements on one’s
theoretical foundation and English proficiency. Afterwards is the interview. Here in the following
are the questions asked by the panel and my tentative answers.
1. “What do you want to study?”
Thank you for this question. My research interest lies in the interface between cognitive
linguistics and multimodality or multimodal discourse analysis. If I was admitted fortunately, I
would like to further my previous researches from another perspective. The research topic that
appeals to me most at present is gestural metaphor, a special type of multimodal metaphor, in
Kunqu Opera. It principally targets at the roles of gesture and other modalities in constructing
multimodal metaphors, or maybe the ways of gestural metaphor or multimodal metaphor in
meaning or themes construction. This topic was tentatively selected for the reasons as follows:
First, gestures and facial expressions actually are very abundant in Chinese traditional opera
and more importantly, they play vitally important roles in the performance, which were
represented by their artistic and metaphoric use. Therefore, the theory’s feasibility to the corpus is
guaranteed, not to mention its practical significance. Second, gestural metaphors, compared with
classical multimodal metaphors, is still a quite potential area for linguistic research, particularly in
the context of China, where most relevant researches concentrates on commercials, films, TV
programs, posters and cartoons, etc, while quite few targets at Chinese traditional operas. Third,
I have had some previous experience of relevant studies on multimodal metaphors. Up to now, 5
relevant academic essays were published in recent two years. Additionally, I’ve presided a
provincial project on multimodal metaphors, “On Cognitive Construction Mechanism of
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