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
______ in British and American English have diverged very much according to the speakers.
______ in British and American English have diverged very much according to the speakers.
admin
2013-06-12
32
问题
______ in British and American English have diverged very much according to the speakers.
British man: What is there about this English language of ours that makes it possible for the two of us --having grown up, perhaps, 4, 000 miles apart--to be able to communicate so easily?
American man: Welt, we might begin by recognizing that a language consists of sounds, words, inflections, and the arrangement of words into phrases and sentences.
B: Let’s begin with one of these: the inflectional forms--for example, the noun plurals and verb tenses. Surely, in this aspect, British and American English have not diverged very much, have they?
A: No, not at all. Thousands of nouns form their plurals in the regular fashion in the manner of "cat"--"cats"; "dog"--" dogs" "church"--"churches". Arid this is the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Would you say the same thing for the verbs?
B: Yes, I think I would. Here again the regular forms are so overwhelming in number, aren’t they? For most of the verbs, our two forms of language are pretty well identical.
A: Well, that depends on what you mean by identity. I can think, for example, of instances where our spellings are alike but the pronunciation is different. For example, the past of the verb "eat. "
B: Yes, the past tense is spelled in both forms of English "a--t--e". But I pronounce this as [εt ] to rhyme with "get" as do most of us in Britain, and I think that we would tend to regard the American pronunciation as a relatively uneducated one. Isn’t it true that most educated people in the U.S. would rhyme "ate" with "late" regard the British pronunciation as a bit odd?
A: More than a bit odd. I would say. Actually to us, [εt] seems countrified, even uneducated. We could supply other examples here, but I think we should go on to the order of words in phrases and sentences. After all, it is through word order, rather than inflectional forms, that so much of our grammatical meaning is conveyed.
B: Yes, and I suppose this is one of the reasons why we have so little difficulty in understanding each other. It’s hard to think of any place that you and I would have arranged the principal sentence elements in a different way.
A: You are right, of course. For example, the entire English - speaking world puts the subject before the verb and the object after it in making a sentence.
B: None of these grammatical differences add up to very much, do they? Let’s talk briefly now about pronunciation. Take the difference that is probably best known: the sounding or not sounding of [r] after vowels in words like "bird" and "hurt". It’s not just a matter of saying that Americans sound the [r]s and the Britishers don’t. After all, as you know, in Scotland, Lancashire, Ireland, and the whole of the western counties of England really, the [r]s are pronounced more or less as they are with you.
A: Yes, and in the States, on the other hand, you will find a rather large area in New England, almost all of the area around New York City, and various parts of the coastal south, where the Americans don’t sound the [r]s. And it’s equally difficult to generalize about the differences in pronunciation of words like "dance", which I pronounce with the vowel in cap [ae] and you pronounce with the vowel in "father" [a:]. In the United States we vary a good deal; for example, eastern New England has the [a] type of pronunciation.
B: As you know, we don’t have [a:] at all widely either. It occurs among educated speakers and in the South and in London, but in the northern counties of England people have a pronunciation similar to yours. So I think we should insist on people not exaggerating the differences between British and American English.
选项
A、in Britain and America people speak utterly different languages
B、there are few things identical in British and American English
C、British and American English are imcomprehensible to each other
D、British and American English are understandable between the two people
答案
D
解析
四个选项的内容并未直接提及,但根据整个谈话的内容、两位谈话者的语气,可以得出结论:不要过于夸大英式英语与美式英语的差异,二者大同小异,持这两种语言的人可以相互理解、沟通。因此,正确答案为D。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Dc4O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Atwhatagewillmostchildrenenteragrammarschoolorasecondaryschool?
Clearlyifwearetoparticipateinthesocietyinwhichwelivewemustcommunicatewiththeotherpeople.Agreatdealof
______isconsideredtobetheverybeginningoftheAmericanWarofIndependence.
ItwassaidbySirGeorgeBernardShawthat"EnglandandAmericaaretwocountriesseparatedbythesamelanguage."Myfirstp
由小学到中学,所修习的无非是一些普通的基本知识。就是大学四年,所授课业也还是相当粗浅的学识。世人常称大学为“最高学府”,这名称易滋误解,好像过此以上即无学问可言。大学的研究所才是初步研究学问的所在,在这里做学问也只能算是初涉藩篱,注重的是研究学问的方法与实
Vibrationsinthegroundareapoorlyunderstoodbutprobablywidespreadmeansofcommunicationbetweenanimals.Itseemsu
______putsforwardthedistinctionbetweendiachronicstudiesandsynchronicstudies.
忽然发觉,在这个世界上,最珍贵的东西是免费的。阳光,是免费的。芸芸众生,没有谁能够离开阳光活下去;然而,从小到大,可曾有谁为自己享受过的阳光支付过一分钱?空气,是免费的。一个人只要活着,就需要源源不断的空气。可从古到今,又有谁为这须臾不
我最大的爱好是沉思默想。我可以一个人长时间地独处而感到愉快。独享欢乐是一种愉快,独自忧伤也是一种愉快。孤独的时候,精神不会是一片纯粹的空白,它仍然是一个丰富多彩的世界。情绪上的大欢乐和大悲痛往往都是在孤独中产生的。孤独中,思维可以不依照逻辑进行。孤独更多地
人类自有文化就有文化交流。人类文化从整体来说,是各国、各国民族文化汇聚,交流的产物。现代国际间的文化交流,更是以空前的规模、内容、形式和手段,在直接间接地进行着。当今的世界,既非丝绸之路时代,亦非马可波罗时代。从上海去东京,只需两个多小时,相当于从北京到杭
随机试题
十二正经中的手三阳经与足三阳经均交于督脉何穴
护生小刘在练习铺无菌治疗盘,下列操作正确的是
外科感染应用抗生素的原则是()
治疗血瘀型经期延长应首选治疗阴虚血热型经期延长应首选
女,50岁。恶心伴乏力、少尿6h,呕吐量大,无口渴。2年前有腹部手术史。此时患者最可能出现的水电解质平衡紊乱是
对于比较复杂的产品,企业需要编制检验流程图,以明确()。
在我国,“公民”一词的含义是指()。
下列函数①f(x)=②f(x)=③f(x)=④f(x)=中在点x=0处可导的是
软件设计中模块划分应遵循的准则是
Readthearticlebelowaboutnegotiations.ChoosethecorrectwordorphrasetofilleachgapfromA,B,C.orD.Foreachquest
最新回复
(
0
)