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
"Speech and Writing" One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics is that speech is primary and writing is secondary. T
"Speech and Writing" One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics is that speech is primary and writing is secondary. T
admin
2018-07-24
76
问题
"Speech and Writing"
One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics is that speech is primary and writing is secondary. The most immediate manifestation of language is speech and not writing. Writing is simply the representation of speech in another physical medium. Spoken language encodes thought into a physically transmittable form, while writing, in turn, encodes spoken language into a physically preservable form. Writing is a three-stage process: thinking of an idea, expressing it in mental grammar, and then transferring it to written form. All units of writing, whether letters or characters, are based on units of speech, i.e., words, sounds, or syllables. When linguists study language, therefore, they take the spoken language as their best source of data and their object of description except in instances of languages like Latin for which there are no longer any speakers.
You may think that with the advent of so many "instant messaging" programs, writing can now be as immediate as speech. But it is important to remember that even though the written form can be nearly immediate these days, there is still an extra step between conceptualizing the message you want to communicate and the reception of that idea, if you have to write it—regardless of whether you do so longhand or type it into a computer.
There are several reasons for maintaining that speech is primary and writing is secondary. A Writing is a later historical development than spoken language. B Archeological evidence indicates that writing was first utilized in Sumer, that is, modern-day Iraq, about 6,000 years ago. C As far as physical and cultural anthropologists can tell, spoken language has probably been used by humans for hundreds of thousands of years. D
Writing does not exist everywhere that spoken language does. This seems hard to imagine in our highly literate society, but the fact is that there are still many communities in the world where a written form of language is not used. Even in those cultures using a writing system, there are individuals who fail to learn the written form of their language. In fact, the majority of the Earth’s inhabitants are illiterate, though quite capable of spoken communication. However, no society uses only a written language with no spoken form.
Writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired automatically. All children, except children with serious learning disabilities, naturally learn to speak the language of the community in which they are brought up. They acquire the basics of their native language before they enter school, and even if they never attend school, they become fully competent speakers. Writing systems vary in complexity, but regardless of their level of sophistication, they must all be taught.
Neurolinguistic evidence (studies of the brain in action during language use) demonstrates that the processing and production of written language is overlaid on the spoken language centers in the brain. Spoken language involves several distinct areas of the brain; writing uses these areas and others as well.
Despite all this evidence, it is a widely held misconception that writing is more perfect than speech. To many people, writing somehow seems more correct and more stable, whereas speech can be careless, corrupted, and susceptible to change. Some people even go so far as to identify "language" with writing and to regard speech as a secondary form of language used imperfectly to approximate the ideals of the written language.
What gives rise to the misconception that writing is more perfect than speech? There are several reasons. Writing can be edited, and so the product of writing is usually more aptly worded and better organized, containing fewer errors, hesitations, and incomplete sentences than are found in speech. This "perfection of writing" can be explained by the fact that writing is the result of deliberation, correction, and revision, while speech is the spontaneous and simultaneous formulation of ideas; writing is therefore less subject to the constraint of time than speech is. Writing must be taught and is therefore ultimately associated with education and educated speech. Since the speech of the educated is more often than not set up as the "standard language," writing is associated indirectly with the varieties of language that people tend to view as "correct." However, the association of writing with the standard variety is not a necessary one, as evidenced by the attempts of writers to transcribe faithfully the speech of their characters. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men contain examples of this. Writing is more physically stable than spoken language, which consists of nothing more than sound waves traveling through the air, and is therefore ephemeral and transient. Writing tends to last, because of its physical medium (characters on some surface), and can be preserved for a very long time. Spelling does not seem to vary from individual to individual or from place to place as easily as pronunciation does. Thus, writing has the appearance of being more stable especially in the modern era. Of course, spelling does vary, as exemplified by the differences between the American ways of spelling gray and words with the suffixes -ize and -ization as compared with the British spelling of grey and -ise and -isation. Writing could also change if it were made to follow the changes of speech. The fact that people at various times try to carry out spelling reforms amply illustrates this possibility.
The word transient in the passage is closest in meaning to
选项
A、unimportant
B、temporary
C、interesting
D、clear
答案
B
解析
In this passage, temporary is a synonym for "transient." Context comes from the contrast with writing, which tends to "last."
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Y3fO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.AdviceonwritingadissertationWhatdoesHowardsaywashismainworryayearpreviousl
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.Newsreportscoveringthenewpoolexpressedconcernsover
ChooseTWOletters,A-E.WhichTWOrecentdevelopmentsinroof-gardenbuildingarementioned?AwaterproofbarriermaterialsBd
Whichattitudeisassociatedwiththefollowingpeopleduringtheconversation?ChooseSIXanswersfromtheboxandwritetheco
Completethenotesbelow.WriteONEWORDONLYforeachanswer.DevelopmentStudiesDevelopmentStudiesattemptstounderstand-
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.Alisathinksthatfamoussuccessfulpeople
Anactivistforwomen’s(rights),LeonoraO’Reillypromotedwomen’svocationaltraining(besides)foughtfor(increased)(wages)
PatentsandInventionsWhenaninventionismade,theinventorhasthreepossiblecoursesofactionopentohim:first,hec
PatentsandInventionsWhenaninventionismade,theinventorhasthreepossiblecoursesofactionopentohim:first,hec
"ConquestbyPatents"→Patentsareaformofintellectualpropertyrightsoftentoutedasameanstogive’incentiveandrew
随机试题
某患者,体重为75kg,用利多卡因治疗心律失常,利多卡因的表观分布容积V=1.7L/kg,k=0.46h-1,希望治疗一开始便达到2gμ/ml的治疗浓度。静滴速率应为
下列选项中,关于适用于不同竞争态势战略的绩效管理的说法,错误的是()。
垂直地震剖面(VSP)井下三分量检波器,主要用于平行地震剖面法测量。
AsyouarestudentsofEnglish,it’sverypossiblethatyou’llbeinterestedinEngland.That’swherethelanguagewasfirst
关于结核病引起的干酪样坏死,下列哪一项是错的
产后"三病"是指
下列有关普通合伙氽业合伙事务执行的表述中,符合《合伙企业法》规定的是()。
在资源开采过程中,要认真贯彻落实(a)的精神,遵循市场规律,采取法律、经济和必要的行政措施,分配和规范各类市场主体合理开发资源,承担资源补偿、生态环境保护与修复等方面的责任和义务。要按照“谁开发、谁保护,谁受益、谁补偿,谁污染、谁治理,谁破坏、谁修复”的原
已知两个线性方程组同解,求m,n,t.
A、Yes,isn’tit?B、Neitheritis.C、Soisit.D、No,ofcourse.A
最新回复
(
0
)