IV.
Reading Comprehension: Choose the best answer to each question.
Questions 41-45
The human lexicon is a repository of relatively time-stable culturally-shared well-coded
knowledge about our external-physical, social-cultural and internal-mental universe. By
“relatively time-stable” one means knowledge that is not in rapid flux, i.e., not unique episodic
information. By “culturally shared” one means that when launching into communication,
speakers take it for granted that words have roughly the same meaning for all members of the
same cultural/linguistic community. By “well-coded” one means that each chunk of
lexically-stored knowledge is more-or-less uniquely—or at least strongly—associated with its
own perceptual code-label. 第 7 頁/共 8 頁
The conceptual lexicon is most likely organized as a network of nodes and connections.
Within this network, nodes stand for individual concepts (“senses”), each with its own distinct
code-label. By “concepts” one means types of conventionalized experience, rather than tokens of
individual experience subsumed under those types. Lexical concepts thus stand for generic
information, a repository of conventionalized, generalized experience.
Lexical concepts may reflect relatively time-stable entities, such as physical objects,
landmarks, locations, flora, fauna, persons, cultural institutions or abstract entities. All these are
typically classified as nouns. They may also reflect actions, events, processes or relations,
typically classified as verbs. They may reflect inherent qualities and properties or temporary
state, often classified as adjectives. Cognitive psychologists have long recognized the conceptual
lexicon under the label semantic memory.
【題組】42. Which of the sentences below best expresses the information of the underlined sentence in
paragraph 1?
(A) A well-coded word allows different interpretations.
(B) Each chunk of words is more-or-less uniquely peculiar.
(C) Lexical knowledge has little to do with perceptual code-label.
(D) The meaning of a word doesn’t leave much room for ambiguity.
在這 “well-coded” one means that each chunk of lexically-stored knowledge is more-or-less uniquely—or at least strongly—associated with its own perceptual code-label.