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  3. One can dredge up ancient instances of "so" as a sentence starter. In his 14th-century poem "Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer laun

One can dredge up ancient instances of "so" as a sentence starter. In his 14th-century poem "Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer laun

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问题     One can dredge up ancient instances of "so" as a sentence starter. In his 14th-century poem "Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer launched a verse with, "So on a day he ... " But for most of its life, "so" has principally been a conjunction, an intensifier and an adverb, hiding in the middle of sentences. What is new is its status as the favored introduction to thoughts, its encroachment on the territory of "well," "oh," "urn" and so on.
    So it is widely believed that the recent ascendancy of "so" began in Silicon Valley. In immigrant-filled technology firms, it democratized talk by replacing a world of possible transitions with a catchall. And "so" suggested a kind of thinking that appealed to problem-solving software types: conversation as a logical, unidirectional process —if this, then that.
    This logical hint to "so" has followed it out of software. Compared to "well" and "urn," starting a sentence with "so" uses the whiff of logic to relay authority. Whereas "well" vacillates, "so" declaims. To answer a question with "so" better suits the age, perhaps: an age in which Facebook and Twitter encourage ordinary people to stay on message; in which we are moving toward declamatory blogs and away from down-the-middle reporting.
    "So" also echoes the creeping influence of science- and data-driven culture. It would have been unimaginable a few decades ago that ordinary people would quantify daily activities like eating and sleeping. But in the algorithmic times that have come, "so" conveys an algorithmic certitude. It suggests that there is a right answer, which the evidence dictates and which must not be contradicted. Among its synonyms, after all, are "consequently," "thus" and "therefore. "
    And yet Galina Bolden, a linguistics scholar believes that "so" is also about the culture of empathy that is gaining steam as the world embraces the increasing complexity of human backgrounds and geographies. To begin a sentence with "oh," is to focus on what you have just remembered and your own concerns. To begin with "so," she said, is to signal that one’s coming words are chosen for their relevance to the listener. The ascendancy of "so," Dr. Bolden said, "suggests that we are concerned with displaying interest for others and downplaying our interest in our own affairs. "
    "So" seems also to reflect our tight relationship with time. Today we live in fragments. In such a world, "so" defragments, with its promise that what is coming next follows what just came, said Michael Erard, the author of "Urn... : Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. " The rise of "so," he said, is "another symptom that our communication and conversational lives are chopped up and discontinuous in actual fact, but that we try in several ways to sew them together or ’so’ them together, as it were — in order to create a continuous experience. "
    Perhaps we all live now in fear that a conversation could snap at any moment, could be interrupted by so many rival offerings. With "so," we beg to be heard.
According to the author, the change in the usage of "so" .
选项 A、is a regrettable decline of language
B、is a natural language phenomenon
C、has caused a technological revolution
D、has changed our relationship with time
答案B
解析 本文采用了“指出现象——分析原因”的论证结构。第一段指出新现象：so作为观点引出词大受青睐。后文则从多个角度分析了现象背后的原因：一，so的含义比较宽泛，而且暗含逻辑关系，更符合信息时代；二，科学的发展使得人们能基于各种算法得出更加确凿、权威的答案；三，“移情文化”的兴起使得人们能更多地站在对方的角度发表看法；四，我们进入了一个快节奏的时代，所以我们在试图用so来串起被分隔的七零八落的“时间碎片”。可见，作者是站在一个客观的角度剖析“so的使用变化”背后的深层原因，其暗含的结论是：so的使用变化是时代发展的要求，是自然的语言现象，[B]选项正确。同时排除[A]选项。
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