2. 外语
  3. Culture is the total sum of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sen

Culture is the total sum of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sen

admin2010-08-04  150
问题     Culture is the total sum of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.
    To the professional anthropologist(人类学者), there is no intrinsic (本质的) superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic rank among languages.
    People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of" backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflects the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to be noted: 1.  All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion, either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2.  The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often  surprisingly numerous and complicated. A Western language distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness (" this" and "that" ); some languages or the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or remote from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.
    This study of language, in turn, casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists: all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.
The languages of uncivilized groups as compared with Western languages are limited in ______.
选项 A、sound patterns
B、grammatical structures
C、vocabularies
D、ability to transfer ideas
答案C
解析 细节理解题。根据文章第三段的第四句话我们可以得知和西方的语言相比，“落后”的语言有语音体系和语法体系，能传播信息，只是在词汇量上有所区别。所以该题答案为C。
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