| 释义 |
informant, a. and n.|ɪnˈfɔːmənt|
[f. L. informānt-em, pres. pple. of informāre to inform; in mod.F. informant.]
A. adj. Metaph. ‘Informing’; giving form; actuating: see inform v. 3.
1890in Cent. Dict.
B. n.
†1. That which ‘informs’, animates, or actuates.
1661Glanvill Van. Dogm. xvi. 153 The matter can be actuated at once but by a single Informant.
2. a. One who informs or tells a person of some fact or occurrence; one who gives information.
1693Col. Rec. Pennsylv. I. 396 The informant, Polycarpus Rose, saith, That about 5 weeks since [etc.]. 1699Bentley Phal. Pref. 13 A Third Informant, who over heard some Discourse of mine. 1742Richardson Pamela IV. 204 But, dear Sir, your Knowledge of the Informants makes nothing at all as to the Truth of the Information. 1826J. W. Croker in C. Papers 20 Mar. (1884), You have heard the whole story from day to day by better informants.
b. Law. One who lays an information against a person; an ‘informer’.
1783Burke Aff. India (R.), It was the last evidence of the kind. The informant was hanged. 1848Act 11 & 12 Vict. c. 43 §10 The matter of such information shall be substantiated by the oath or affirmation of the informant. 1865Act 28 & 29 Vict. c. 104 §6 An English information, exhibited..in the name of Her Majesty's Attorney General..as the informant.
c. A person from whom a linguist, anthropologist, etc., elicits information about language, dialect, culture, etc. Used esp. in Dialect Geography. Also attrib.
1889A. J. Ellis On Early Eng. Pronunc. V. 2 Where I was unable to obtain vivâ voce or palaeotypic information, I had the same difficulty as before in interpreting the informants' orthography. 1902Amer. Anthropologist IV. 732 To quote the words of my Indian informant, ‘the ceremonies of the other shrines were like branches of this shrine’. 1917Internat. Jrnl. Amer. Ling. I. i. 1 They were obtained by dictation from a few informants. 1933L. Bloomfield Lang. xix. 324 The forms were collected in each case from a single informant by means of a questionnaire of some two-thousand words and phrases. 1936West Virginia Univ. Stud. I. 51 The first requirement is that both potential informants be natives. 1943Language XIX. i. 42 The language must be learned from the lips of a native informant, whose sole function is to talk in his own language. 1944Amer. Speech Apr. 135 The danger inherent in partial reporting, especially when based on..inadequate informant work. 1953J. B. Carroll Study of Lang. vi. 173 A linguistic scientist..directed the class⁓room teaching process and used native informants as models for drill purposes. 1963J. Lyons Structural Semantics iv. 76 The linguist can satisfy himself..by going around and exasperating several tobacconists with his ‘informant-technique’. 1964R. H. Robins Gen. Ling. ix. 355 The informant is not a teacher, nor a linguist; he is simply a native speaker of the language willing to help the linguist in his work. 1971D. Crystal Ling. Interlude 137 These characteristics of the informant sample would have to be made..explicit. |