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  3. The intimate relationship between speakers and their speech has led some scholars to suggest that language determines the view w

The intimate relationship between speakers and their speech has led some scholars to suggest that language determines the view w

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问题     The intimate relationship between speakers and their speech has led some scholars to suggest that language determines the view we have of the world around us. Different languages segment natural phenomena differently. We name seven colors in the rainbow: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red in this order or the reverse. Speakers of other languages may see only four, as did Turkish before our system was introduced, or even as few as two, roughly the lighter shades versus the darker. There is nothing in nature to demonstrate how we should chop up the spectrum (光谱) of the rainbow, which is made up of a scale of various wavelengths. But when we have learned a given language, we distinguish the shades it designates, both in the rainbow and elsewhere. Many students of language assume from such a situation and other similar situations that language determines much of the shapes and patterns we see in the world around us, that it directs our concepts and actions.
    Changes in the choice of language, then, might modify behavior. Today gasoline trucks are generally labeled "flammable (易燃的) ". The in- prefix was often taken as equivalent, to that of words like "inanimate" and "inaccurate", where in- means "not". It is actually the in- of words like "intense" and, "inflect", where it strengthens the meaning. The word "inflammable", then, means "highly flammable". The faulty interpretation of language, however, determined the attitudes of many speakers, who thereupon adjusted their behavior in relation to the language. Prudent truck owners have taken notice and changed the warning to "flammable".
    Such observations led Whorf to a concern with deeper patterns of language, such as the use of tenses in the languages of Europe. Tense is the linguistic expression of time. English and other European languages generally require their speakers to identify the time of an event, whether present: It’s raining; past: It rained; or future: It will rain. By contrast, many languages, such as the Hopi language of New Mexico, lack expression for tense. Nor do such languages objectify (使具体化) time. In Hopi one cannot count day, minutes, years as though they were objects like stones or bottles. Everyday expressions like "I’ll wait two days" or "Three years went by" are impossible in Hopi.
    Comparing such languages Whorf proposed that our use of tense, "our objectified view of time is favorable to historicity (史实性) and to everything connected with the keeping of records." That is to say, because of the patterns for referring to time in English and other languages, their speakers maintain records and emphasize bookkeeping, accounting, and the like. Further, we are interested in calendars, clocks, and time graphs as well as in history and archaeology (考古学). In accordance with it one’s conceptions of the world is relative to the language one learns.
    While the relativity hypothesis has attracted considerable attention, it has never been experimentally demonstrated to the valid. A large scale attempt to test the outlook of Hopi-speaking children versus English-speaking children turned out to be inconclusive (不确定的). It remains a task of future scholars to determine whether the hypothesis is valid and also whether one should assume a weak or strong position with regard to it. Clearly we are deeply tied to our native language. But whether it regulates our perceptions or our view of the world is still an open question.
It can be inferred that the use of tense________.
选项 A、is completely unnecessary in some local languages
B、converts abstract ideas into objective things
C、helps avoid certain ambiguity in concepts or ideas
D、makes it possible to modernize Hopi language
答案C
解析 推断题。根据题干中的tense定位到第三段最后两句。本段将有时态的语言与没有时态表现形式的语言对比，最后两句指出在没有时态表现形式的语言(如霍皮语)中“人无法把天数、分钟数或年份当成石头或瓶子这类的物体计算。像‘我会等两天’或‘三年过去了’这样的日常表达在霍皮语里是不可能出现的”。由此可推测，像霍皮语这样没有时间概念的语言自然会造成概念等方面的模糊性，而借助于时态则能避免这种模糊性，C项符合文意，故选C。
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