2. 外语
  3. Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital dis

Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital dis

admin2014-03-22  92
问题     Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital distinction between good developments, which add to the language, enabling us to say things we could not say before, and bad developments, which subtract from the language by rendering it less precise. A vivacious(有生气的), colourful use of words is not to be confused with mere slovenliness(不修边幅). The kind of slovenliness in which some professionals deliberately indulge is perhaps akin(性质相同)to the cult of the unfinished work, which has eroded most of the arts in our time. And the true answer to it is the same — that art is enhanced, not hindered, by discipline. You cannot carve satisfactorily in butter.
    The corruption of written English has been accompanied by an even sharper decline in the standard of spoken English. We speak very much less well than was common among educated Englishmen a generation or two ago. The modern theatre has played a baneful(不良的)part in dimming our appreciation of language. Instead of the immensely articulate dialogue of, for example, Shaw(who was also very insistent on good pronunciation), audiences are now subjected to streams of barely literate trivia, often designed, only too well to exhibit "lack of communication", and larded with the obscenities and grammatical errors of the intellectually impoverished. Emily Post once advised her reader: "The theatre is the best possible place to hear correctly-enunciated speech." Alas, no more. One young actress was recently reported to be taking lessons in how to speak badly, so that she should fit in better.
    But the BBC is the worst traitor. After years of very successfully helping to raise the general standard of spoken English, it suddenly went into reverse. As the head of the Pronunciation Unit Covly put it, "In the 1960s the BBC opened the field to a much wider range of speakers". To hear a BBC disc jockey talking to the latest apelike pop idol is a truly shocking experience of verbal squalor. And the prospect seems to be of even worse to come. School teachers are actively encouraged to ignore little Johnny’s incoherent grammar, atrocious spelling and haphazard punctuation, because worrying about such things might inhibit his creative genius.
What is it claimed has happened to spoken English according to the passage?
选项 A、On the whole, people tend to worry if they make pronunciation mistakes.
B、Writing problems are not reflected in poor oral expression.
C、Educated Englishmen now are less communicative than they were in the past.
D、Like written English, it has undergone a noticeable change for the worse.
答案D
解析 由第2段首句可知，口语标准下降的程度大于书面英语，故D)为答案。A)和B)在文中都没有提及；现代人使用的语言更随意了，而不是不愿意交流了，C)对原文理解有误。
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