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
A、all Americans pronounce it as [e] B、all British people pronounce it as [ o: ] C、educated speakers in Britain pronounce it as[
A、all Americans pronounce it as [e] B、all British people pronounce it as [ o: ] C、educated speakers in Britain pronounce it as[
admin
2014-01-09
64
问题
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: Well, we might begin by recognizing that 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". And 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 [∧] 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、all Americans pronounce it as [e]
B、all British people pronounce it as [ o: ]
C、educated speakers in Britain pronounce it as[ a: ]
D、people in American West pronounce it as [ a: ]
答案
C
解析
根据谈话内容可知:并非在美国所有的地区都把“dance”读作[d∧ns],如新英格兰东部读作 [da:ns];也并非所有的英国人都将其读作[da:ns],只有在南部和伦敦地区受过教育的人才这样发音。因此正确答案为C。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/jlZO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Mostpeoplecomplainingaboutsleepingproblemsare
PresidentFranklinD.Rooseveltproposedawell-knownpolicycalled______tosavetheeconomicsituationinthe1930’s.
Withmoreandmoreuniversitiesintroducingonlineresourcesorevenself-madeonlinecoursesintocollegeeducation,especially
______isapoethighlyregardedforhisrealisticdepictionsofrurallifeandhiscommandofAmericancolloquialspeech.
WheredoestheEnglishPrimeMinisterlive?
TheCanadianpopulationischieflycharacterizedby
CardinalMezzofantiofBolognawasasecularsaint.Thoughheneverperformedthekindofmiracleneededtobeofficiallycanoni
TheOzarksarcAmerica’sleastappreciatedmountainrange.LackingthemajestyoftheRockies,thebreadthoftheAppalachianso
Itisthedutyofsonsanddaughterstotakecareoftheirparents.However,duetothepressurefromworkortheirownfamily,
Ricci’s"OperationColumbus"Ricci,45,isnowstrikingoutonperhapshisboldestventureyet.HeplanstomarketanEnglish
随机试题
Inthepast,theBritishpeopleseemedtoeat______buttasteless,plainmeatandpotatoeswitheverything.
以下哪项是治疗颅内压增高的关键因素
患儿,男,3岁。反复化脓性细菌感染,血清IgG<2g/L,淋巴结无生发中心,T细胞数量和功能正常,初步诊断
对于王川案一审说法正确的是()。有关本案重审,说法正确的是()。
某330kV变电所,在其330kV敞开式高压配电装置中,进出线采用架空线,当有双回进线和四回进线的情况下,电气设备采用标准绝缘水平时,分别计算金属氧化物避雷器至主变压器的最大距离。当有双回进线的情况时,避雷器至主变压器的最大距离应为何值?
膨胀土具有的特性包括()。
企业建立会计电算化系统,首先要做的工作是()。
A.垂体ACTH微腺瘤B.小细胞肺癌C.肾上腺皮质腺瘤D.肾上腺皮质腺癌E.肾上腺皮质结节状增生引起异位ACTH综合征的原因是
孔智、孟睿、荀慧、庄聪、墨灵、韩敏等6人组成一个代表队参加某次棋类大赛,其中两人参加围棋比赛,两人参加中国象棋比赛,还有两人参加国际象棋比赛。有关他们具体参加比赛项目的情况还需满足以下条件:(1)每位选手只能参加一个比赛项目:(2)孔智
设在区间[0,2]上,|f(x)|≤1,|f”(x)|≤1.证明:对于任意的x∈[0,2],有|f’(x)|≤2.
最新回复
(
0
)