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
外语
Which of the following is NOT the characteristic of a "language hotspot"?
Which of the following is NOT the characteristic of a "language hotspot"?
admin
2013-04-23
47
问题
Which of the following is NOT the characteristic of a "language hotspot"?
M: By some estimates, half of the world’s 7,000 languages will disappear in the next century. K. Linda Harrison, a linguist at Swarthmore College, has made a career documenting some of them and advocating for keeping them alive. Welcome to our talk, Ms. Harrison. So, what is a "language hotspot", and what are the characteristics of the typical hotspot?
W: "Language hotspot" is a term I coined in 2006, inspired by the biodiversity hotspots model. Languages are unevenly distributed around the globe, both geographically and demographically, and they face uneven threats. The hotspots model helps us to visualize and track this global trend, and to prioritize resources. (1) A language hotspot is a contiguous region which has, first of all, a very high level of language diversity. Secondly, it has high levels of language endangerment. Thirdly, it has relatively low levels of scientific documentation, like recordings, dictionaries, grammars, etc. We’ve identified two dozen hotspots to date, in places such as Oklahoma, Paraguay, India, Papua New Guinea and Siberia. With a scientific team from National Geographic, we are visiting the hotspots to take the pulse of some of the world’s most endangered languages. The hotspots model allows us to visualize the complex global distribution of language diversity, to focus research on areas of greatest urgency, and also to predict where we might encounter languages not yet known to science. This was recently borne out by our documentation of Koro, a small language in India that is new to science.
M: (2) What do we lose when we lose a language?
W: The human knowledge base is eroding as we lose languages, worsened by the fact that most of them have never been written down or recorded. In "When Languages Die", I wrote "When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday" Only some cultures erect grandly built monuments by which we can remember their achievements. But all cultures encode their genius in their languages, stories, and lexicons. Each language is a unique expression of human creativity. We find millennia of careful observation of the natural world and human behavior, knowledge of flora and fauna, often not yet known or identified by scientists, and some of the secrets of how to live sustainably in challenging environments like the Arctic. (3) We would be outraged if Notre Dame Cathedral or the Great Pyramid of Giza were demolished to make way for modern buildings. We should be similarly appalled when languages — monuments to human genius far more ancient and complex than anything we have built with our hands — erode.
M: Talking about language and local ecology, you say losing one entails losing the other. If most things are translatable, is it possible to keep the knowledge but not the language?
W: It’s possible, but not likely, and it’s not the usual case we see everywhere from the Arctic to Amazonia. (4) In native cultures we observe the decline of languages and life ways occurring in parallel. There’s an astonishing book called Watching Ice and Weather Our Way. In it, the Yupik elders describe, define and draw sketches of 99 distinct types of sea ice formations which their language gives specific names to. Their climate science amazes us with its precision, predictive power, and depth of observation. Modern climate scientists have much to learn from it. As the Arctic ice melts, and new technologies like snowmobiles advance, Yupik ice-watching becomes the passion of the elderly few. Their knowledge of ice, their words for it, and the hunting skills and life ways are all receding together with the Yupik language itself.
M: Many of the peoples you describe are, from our point of view, desperately poor. "Development" tends to fold them into the bigger, and richer society, but kills their languages. How can the tradeoff be resolved?
W: No one, no matter how poor, becomes richer by abandoning one language to learn another, and in fact I suggest they become poorer from it. People of all ages, especially children, can easily be bilingual. New research shows that bilingualism strengthens the brain, by building up what psychologists call the cognitive reserve. In addition, heritage-language retention provides access to the cultural knowledge base and support a stronger ethnic identity and cultural pride. It is a pernicious and false message of globalization that language choice is subtractive, that is, you must abandon your heritage language to speak only a dominant tongue. Around the globe, we see minority speech communities, from Aymara to Zapotec, Aka to Mowhawk, pushing back against this ideology. (5) They are making a strategic decision to keep their languages, while becoming bilingual in a global tongue. We can all contribute to making the world safe for linguistic diversity. It requires a shift in attitudes. If we can learn to value the intellectual diversity that is fostered by linguistic variety, we can all help to ensure its survival. No one knows where the next brilliant idea will emerge; no culture has a monopoly on human genius.
M: All right. It’s so nice talking with you. Thanks a lot for sharing with us your insights into the human language.
W: My pleasure indeed.
选项
A、The demolishment of Notre Dame Cathedral or the Great Pyramid of Giza.
B、The erection of Notre Dame Cathedral or the Great Pyramid of Giza.
C、The demolishment of flora and fauna.
D、The erection of flora and fauna.
答案
A
解析
理解题。按照语言学家的说法,语言的消失就像巴黎圣母院或是金字塔被毁一样,所以A为正确答案,B项中的erection为“建立”,而非“消失”。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/CF4O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Whenonelooksbackthefifteenhundredyearsthatarethelifespanof1,______theEnglishlanguage,heshouldbeabletonoti
Agreatnumberofattentionisbeingpaidtodaytotheso-calleddigitaldivide—1.______thedivisionoftheworldintothein
Eachyear,afewso-calledtopdesignersinParisandLondonlaydownonthelawandwomenaroundtheworldruntoobey.
Plasticsarematerialswhicharesoftenedbyheatandsetintolastform1.______whenareshapedinamold.Somearenatural;s
Plasticsarematerialswhicharesoftenedbyheatandsetintolastform1.______whenareshapedinamold.Somearenatural;s
Intoday’sworld,insuranceplaysavaluableroleintheeconomicand1.______socialwelfareoftheentirepopulation.Thewish
Itisnotoftenthatbiologistshaveachancetowatchnaturalselectioninaction.Thebest-knowncases—theevolutionofresist
FiveyearsafterCaliforniastartedcrackingdownonjunkfoodinschoolcafeterias,anewreportshowsthathighschoolstudent
______iscommunicationbetweenpeoplefromdifferentcultures(theirculturalperceptionsandsymbolsystemsaredistinctenough
ThefiredisasterinthenightclubinthecityofPerm,Russiahappenedon
随机试题
男性,45岁,逐渐乏力、心慌2个月来诊,病后偶有上腹部不适,进食正常,体重略有下降,大小便正常,既往体健。查体:贫血貌,皮肤未见出血点,浅表淋巴结不大,巩膜无黄染,心肺腹检查未见明显异常。化验Hb78g/L,MCV75fl,MCHC29%,WBC7.2×1
下列关于火灾探测器的选择正确的是()。
以下哪些不是属于原材料供应商在生产能力方面出现的问题()。
从数据处理的全过程来看,其出现的差错主要来自数据录入阶段的误操作。( )
用人单位无故不缴纳社会保险费的,责令其限期缴纳,逾期不缴的,按规定加收滞纳金,滞纳金收入并入()。
关于冻结单位存款的利息计算,说法正确的是()。
请阅读下列材料:“家庭相册初了解”是科学出版社中学信息技术第三单元活动1的内容,本课介绍了相册的结构以及相册封面的制作。教材很好地融合了七年级学生的学习特点,对制作家庭相册流程进行细化,方便老师有针对性的教学,有利于提高学生的动手操作能力和审美能
现代计算机中采用二进制数字系统是因为它_______。
A、theydon’thavetoinhalefoulair.B、theydon’thavetoservesmokers.C、theywillgetmoretipfromnonsmokers.D、therewil
在某种特定文化中长大的人们有着某种共同的价值观和观念。这并不意味着他们都以完全同样的程度共有完金同样的价值观;但它确实意味着他们中的大多数人在大多数时候基本上同意彼此对是非善恶等的观点。他们对于人性、社会关系等的观点也基本相同。对美国人要了解的重要的事情有
最新回复
(
0
)