(英语类考生必做) Mrs. P sneezes violently. Mrs. Q says "Bless you!" Mrs. P says "Thank you. " Again, this hardly seems to be a case

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问题 (英语类考生必做)
    Mrs. P sneezes violently. Mrs. Q says "Bless you!" Mrs. P says "Thank you. " Again, this hardly seems to be a case of language being used to communicate ideas, but rather to maintain a comfortable relationship between people. Its function is to provide a means of avoiding a situation which both parties might otherwise find embarrassing. No factual content is involved. Similarly, the use of such phrases as "Good morning" or "Pleased to meet you" , and ritual exchanges about health or the weather, do not communicate ideas in the usual sense.
    Sentences of this kind are usually automatically produced, and stereotyped in structure. They often state the obvious(e. g. "Lovely day" ) or have no content at all(e. g. "Hello") .
    They certainly require a special kind of explanation, and this is found in the idea that language is here being used for the purpose of maintaining good relationship between people. The anthropologist(人类学家) Bronislaw Malinowski created the phrase "phatic communication" to refer to this social function of language, which arises out of the basic human need to signal friendship—or, at least, lack of hatred. For someone to withhold these sentences when they are expected, by staying silent, is a sure-sign of distance, alienation(疏远) , or even danger.
    These illustrations apply to English and to many European languages. But cultures vary greatly in the topics which they permit as phatic communication. The weather is not as universal a conversation-filler as the English might like to think. For example, Rundi women (In Burundi, Central Africa) , upon taking leave, are quite often heard to say, routinely and politely, "I must go home now, or my husband will beat me. " Moreover, phatic communication itself is far from universal. Some cultures say little; and prefer silence, as in the case of the Paliyans of southern India, or the American of Colombia.
In the last paragraph, the author concludes that______.

选项 A、the weather is a universal topic for human communication
B、phatic communication differs from culture to culture
C、the English and people in many other European countries have common language for phatic communication
D、every culture has its own way to communicate ideas

答案B

解析 最后一段作者举了几个例子,说明英国人喜欢谈论天气,而非洲的一些国家的妇女如果回去晚的话,会挨丈夫的揍。这说明phatic communication是因文化而异的。因此选择B选项。另外本文主要谈论了phatic communication,这仅仅是交际的一种,而D选项虽然也提到了文化的差异,但是概念太广。
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