首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
考研
The status of English as an international language appears unassailable. It is simultaneously preeminent in science, politics, b
The status of English as an international language appears unassailable. It is simultaneously preeminent in science, politics, b
admin
2016-08-02
37
问题
The status of English as an international language appears unassailable. It is simultaneously preeminent in science, politics, business and entertainment. And unlike any of its lingua franca predecessors, it has all this on a truly worldwide scale. There is no challenger comparable to it: Chinese has more native speakers, but every schoolchild in China now studies English. And India, set to overtake China in population by 2050. is avidly trading on its English expertise.
But English is not thereby immune to the principles of language survival. Above all, it is notable that beyond the 330 million or so native speakers, perhaps twice as many more use it as a second language. And this community of over 600 million second-language speakers, who make English preeminent as a world language, also make it vulnerable in the long term.
In 5,000 years of recorded language history, a few dozen languages have achieved the status of lingua franca, a language of wider communication among people whose mother tongues may be quite different. But this status does not come about by some utilitarian reckoning, or democratic selection. There is always a reason, be it conquest, trade, religious mission or social aspiration, which has selected a language to have this wider role, and that reason is hard to forget—and ultimately often hard to forgive.
This is seldom clear—at first to native speakers. They naturally see their mother tongue as a simple blessing for the wider world. But neither Latin nor French would have spread across Western Europe if their use had not once upon a time been imposed—by forces other than lucidity and charm.
There was status or wealth to be gained from knowing these languages, and in their heyday, no one believed they might one day go out of use. After all, they seemed not only useful, but also such exceptional languages.
But far from being disinterested aids to thought and communication, every lingua franca continues to bear the badge of its original spread; and this is often the cause of its ultimate undoing. This moral is as clear and well-established as the recorded history of the lingua franca phenomenon.
English will not decline as a first language: Indeed for the foreseeable future it will be among the five major mother tongues of the world. Spread out worldwide, it may even change and ultimately split into a family of languages. But it would go against the pattern of world history if alien peoples patronized English for very much longer than necessary.
In sum, the world in the next few generations is likely to see greater multilingualism and less English-backed bilingualism. We can learn the long view from language history, but it may be a hard lesson.
According to the text, every lingua franca
选项
A、remains pre eminent as a first language
B、will decline in spite of its pre-eminence
C、has a recorded history as clear as English
D、is going to split into a family of languages
答案
B
解析
根据第六段第一句“But far from…communication,every lingua franca…spread;and this isoften the cause of its ultimate undoing”,B应为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/69oZ777K
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
Organizationsandsocietiesrelyonfinesandrewardstoharnesspeople’sself-interestintheserviceofthecommongood.Thet
PublichealthofficialsgrapplingwiththeobesityepidemichavedebatedawiderangeofapproachestohelpingslimtheAmerican
FromthefoundingofHarvardCollegein1636untiltheCivilWar,Americanuniversityeducationwasmostlyaboutsendingpiousa
FromthefoundingofHarvardCollegein1636untiltheCivilWar,Americanuniversityeducationwasmostlyaboutsendingpiousa
Intheiridlemoments,historiansoccasionallyspeculateonhowtheworldwouldbedifferentifAdolfHitlerhadpassedtheentr
Organizationsandsocietiesrelyonfinesandrewardstoharnesspeople’sself-interestintheserviceofthecommongood.Thet
Thistimelastyearthreeoutoffour16to24-year-oldswerewearingthewhitebandofMakePovertyHistory.Whateverthecampa
LatinoyouthsneedbettereducationforArizonatotakefulladvantageofthepossibilitiestheirexplodingpopulationoffers.A
Thetranslatormusthaveanexcellent,up-to-dateknowledgeofhissourcelanguages,full【C1】______inthehandlingofhistarget
Thetranslatormusthaveanexcellent,up-to-dateknowledgeofhissourcelanguages,full【C1】______inthehandlingofhistarget
随机试题
为防止高频电磁场,或高频无线电风波的干扰,也为防止电磁场耦合和电磁场辐射,通常采用()
简述金融市场的风险分散功能。
心交感神经对心脏的兴奋作用,可被下列哪一种受体的颉颃剂所阻断
为了保证检验结果的准确可靠、提供公证数据,产品质量检验机构必须建立
正常情况下,肺通气阻力主要来自
体液是指内环境是指
下列关于自认的说法错误的是:()。
定义:一般地,对于定义在区间D的函数y=f(x),①若存在x0∈D,使得f(x0)=x0,则称x0是函数y=f(x)的一阶不动点,简称不动点;②若存在x0∈D,使f(f(x0))=x0,则称x0是函数y=f(x)的二阶不动点,简称稳定点。若M={x|f
[*]
程序中若有如下说明和定义语句 char fun (char*); main() { char*s="one",a[5]={0},(*f1)()=fun,ch; … } 以下选项中对fun()函数的正确调用语句是——。
最新回复
(
0
)