2. 外语
  3. (1)Some of the advantages of bilingualism include better performance at tasks involving " executive function"(which involves the

(1)Some of the advantages of bilingualism include better performance at tasks involving " executive function"(which involves the

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问题     (1)Some of the advantages of bilingualism include better performance at tasks involving " executive function"(which involves the brain’s ability to plan and prioritize), better defense against dementia in old age and—the obvious—the ability to speak a second language. One purported advantage was not mentioned, though. Many multilinguals report different personalities, or even different worldviews, when they speak their different languages.
    (2)It’s an exciting notion, the idea that one’s very self could be broadened by the mastery of two or more languages. In obvious ways(exposure to new friends, literature and so forth)the self really is broadened. Yet it is different to claim—as many people do—to have a different personality when using a different language. A former Economist colleague, for example, reported being ruder in Hebrew than in English. So what is going on here?
    (3)Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist who died in 1941, held that each language encodes a worldview that significantly influences its speakers. Often called " Whorfianism" , this idea has its sceptics, but there are still good reasons to believe language shapes thought.
    (4)This influence is not necessarily linked to the vocabulary or grammar of a second language. Significantly, most people are not symmetrically bilingual. Many have learned one language at home from parents, and another later in life, usually at school. So bilinguals usually have different strengths and weaknesses in their different languages—and they are not always best in their first language. For example, when tested in a foreign language, people are less likely to fall into a cognitive trap(answering a test question with an obvious-seeming but wrong answer)than when tested in their native language. In part this is because working in a second language slows down the thinking. No wonder people feel different when speaking them. And no wonder they feel looser, more spontaneous, perhaps more assertive or funnier or blunter, in the language they were reared in from childhood.
    (5)What of "crib" bilinguals, raised in two languages? Even they do not usually have perfectly symmetrical competence in their two languages. But even for a speaker whose two languages are very nearly the same in ability, there is another big reason that person will feel different in the two languages. This is because there is an important distinction between bilingualism and biculturalism.
    (6)Many bilinguals are not bicultural. But some are. And of those bicultural bilinguals, we should be little surprised that they feel different in their two languages. Experiments in psychology have shown the power of "priming"—small unnoticed factors that can affect behavior in big ways. Asking people to tell a happy story, for example, will put them in a better mood. The choice between two languages is a huge prime. Speaking Spanish rather than English, for a bilingual and bicultural Puerto Rican in New York, might conjure feelings of family and home. Switching to English might prime the same person to think of school and work.
    (7)So there are two very good reasons(asymmetrical ability, and priming)that make people feel different speaking their different languages. We are still left with a third kind of argument, though. An economist recently interviewed here at Prospero, Athanasia Chalari, said for example that:
   Greeks are very loud and they interrupt each other very often. The reason for that is the Greek grammar and syntax. When Greeks talk they begin their sentences with verbs and the form of the verb includes a lot of information so you already know what they are talking about after the first word and can interrupt more easily.
    (8)Is there something intrinsic to the Greek language that encourages Greeks to interrupt? People seem to enjoy telling tales about their languages’ inherent properties, and how they influence their speakers. A group of French intellectual worthies once proposed, rather self-flatteringly, that French be the sole legal language of the EU, because of its supposedly unmatchable rigor and precision. Some Germans believe that frequently putting the verb at the end of a sentence makes the language especially logical. But language myths are not always self-flattering: many speakers think their languages are unusually illogical or difficult—witness the plethora of books along the lines of " Only in English do you park on a driveway and drive on a parkway: English must be the craziest language in the world!" We also see some unsurprising overlap with national stereotypes and self-stereotypes: French, rigorous: German, logical: English, playful. Of course.
    (9)In this case, Ms Chalari, a scholar, at least proposed a specific and plausible line of causation from grammar to personality: in Greek, the verb comes first, and it carries a lot of information, hence easy interrupting. The problem is that many unrelated languages all around the world put the verb at the beginning of sentences. Many languages all around the world are heavily inflected, encoding lots of information in verbs. It would be a striking finding if all of these unrelated languages had speakers more prone to interrupting each other. Welsh, for example, is also both verb-first and about as heavily inflected as Greek, but the Welsh are not known as pushy conversationalists.
Which of the following statements concerning Para. 9 is correct?
选项 A、Ms Chalari’s theory about the Greek language is well grounded.
B、Speakers of many other languages are also prone to interrupting.
C、Grammar is unnecessarily a condition for change in personality.
D、Many unrelated languages don’t have the same features as Greek.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。根据题干提示定位至第九段。作者在第九段中试图回答第八段的问题：希腊语以信息量丰富的动词开头的特点，会不会是希腊人喜欢抢话的原因?换言之，不同的语法特点是否是导致人们在行为上和性格上的一些不同表现呢?从作者所举的威尔士语语法特点和威尔士人交谈表现的事例可知，作者对此是持否定态度的，也就是说语法未必是性格变化的原因和条件，故[C]为正确答案。查拉瑞用希腊语为例子说明语言与性格的关系，而第九段第二句以后作者所谈到的内容说明，查拉瑞的理论是站不住脚的，故排除[A]；[B]“很多其他语言的使用者也容易打断人说话”在原文中并没有提及，故排除；定位段第三句说，全球有很多语言都是动词有屈折变化，且信息量丰富的，也就是说与希腊语有相似的特点，可见[D]的表述与原文意义相反，故排除。
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