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
We are profoundly ignorant about the origins of language and have to content ourselves with more or less plausible speculations.
We are profoundly ignorant about the origins of language and have to content ourselves with more or less plausible speculations.
admin
2010-04-24
55
问题
We are profoundly ignorant about the origins of language and have to content ourselves with more or less plausible speculations. We do not even know for certain when language arose, but it seems likely that it goes back to the earliest history of man, perhaps haft a million years ago. We have no direct evidence, but it seems probable that it took the earliest forms of human cooperation. In the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene(更新世) period, our earliest human ancestors established the Old Stone Age culture; they made stone tools and, later, tools of bone, ivory, and antler; they made fire and cooked their food; they hunted big game, often by methods that called for considerable cooperation and coordination. As their material culture gradually developed, they became artists and drew pebbles as well as wonderful paintings of animals on the walls of caves. It is difficult to believe that the makers of these Paleolithic(旧石器时代的) cultures lacked the power of speech. It is a long step, admittedly, from other earliest flint weapons to the splendid spear of the late Stone Age: the first crude flints date back perhaps to 500,000 B.C., while the finest achievements of Old Stone Age man are later than 100,000 B. C.; and in this period we can envisage a corresponding development of language, from the most primitive and limited language of the earliest human groups to a fully developed language in the flowering time of Old .Stone Age culture.
How did language arise in the first place? There are many theories about this, based on various types of indirect evidence, such as the language of children, the language of primitive societies, the kinds of changes
that have taken place in language in the course of recorded history, the behavior of higher animals like chimpanzees, and the behavior of people suffering from speech defects. These types of evidence may provide us with pointers, but they all suffer from limitations.
When we consider the language of children, we haw to remember that their situations are quite different from those of our earliest human ancestors because the child, growing up in an environment where there is al- ready a fully developed language, is surrounded by adults who use that language and are teaching it to him. For example, it has been shown that the earliest words used by children are mainly the names of things and people ("doll," "spoon," "Mummy"), but this fact does not prove that the earliest words of primitive man were also the names of things and people. When the child learns the name of an object, he may then use it to express his wishes or demands.
"Doll!" often means,. "Give me my doll!" or "I’ve dropped my doll. Pick it up for me!" The child is us- ing language to get things done, and it is almost an accident of adult teaching that the words used to formulate the child’s demands are mainly nouns instead of words like "Bring!" "Pick Up!" and so on.
A fully developed language came into existence most probably in ______.
选项
A、500,000 B.C
B、1000,000 B.C
C、50000 B.C
D、100000 B.C
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/wK9K777K
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
Modemadvertisingmentrytojustifywhattheydobytellingusoftheadvantagesofadvertising.Thus,itissaidthatadvertis
Ascitizensofadvancedbutvulnerableeconomies,wemusteitherrelentlesslyincreasethequalityofourskillsorseeourstan
Weget24hoursaday,nomore,noless. Howtoproperlymanageone’stimecanbeachallenge. Herearesomepracticaltip
What’sthechangeinAmericanfamilyinthe21century?
You’dbetterletmeknowassoonasthereisa(n)________positioninthebranchoffice.
Couldyoupleasegivemeahand?Let’s_________thebookcaseintoplace.
OxfordUniversityscientistswillexperimentonhundredsofpeopleinahidtounderstandhowthebrainworksduringstatesofc
Tim,thefootballer,alwaysscores_______atfootballmatches,buthefeelsfrustratedateachexamination.
WhatdoAmericanparentsusuallydowhentheirchildinjurieshimself?
Whatisthenationalityoftheresearchers?
随机试题
Communicationtechnologiesarefarfromequalwhenitcomestoconveyingthetruth.Thefirststudytocomparehonestyacrossa
A.下颌第三磨牙B.下颌第二前磨牙C.上颌中切牙D.上颌侧切牙E.上颌尖牙最常见畸形中央尖的一组牙是
某企业资本总额3000万元,其中负债总额1200万元,企业利润率为5%,借入款项利息率8%,说明()。
“进行合同变更,签订附加协议,采取索赔手段”属于承包商根据合同实施偏差分析的结果应该采取的( )。
施工企业与保险代理人张某签署了盖有保险公司印章的工程保险合同,并足额缴付了保费,但张某表示需将保费交回公司后才能签发保单,后施工企业发生保险事故要求赔偿时,保险公司称张某已离职,且其未将保险合同和保费交回公司。关于该案中责任承担的说法,正确的是(
戊公司本月生产E产品2000件,实际耗用材料16000千克,材料实际单价为30元/千克,该材料的标准价格为28元/千克,标准用量为7千克/件。本月实际用工5000小时,实际支付直接人工工资80000元,每件产品的标准工时为2.4小时,标准工资率15元/小时
12点的时候时针和分针重合,此后两针第6次呈90°夹角的时刻是:
曲线y=(x-1)2(x-3)2的拐点个数为
每年S公司的每一个雇员都必须参加由S公司提供的两个健康保险计划中的一个。其中一个计划要求雇员自己出数目相当多的钱;另外一个计划则完全由S公司支付。许多S公司的雇员参加了要求他们自己出钱的计划。然而这个事实并不能表明他们觉得这个计划的好处比另一个不需要付款的
DemographyisthestatisticalstudyofhumanpopulationItcanbea-generalsciencethatcanbeappliedtoanykindofdynamicp
最新回复
(
0
)