课程咨询

雅思备考规划

扫码添加助教免费咨询雅思备考规划

扫码关注回复雅思获取最新雅思口语题库和备考资料

雅思阅读每日习题系列:Lost for words

2017-10-06 15:54:00来源:网络 柯林斯词典

  雅思阅读考试关键在于多做多练,题目做的多了自然熟能生巧,今天新东方在线小编给大家分享一下雅思阅读每日习题系列:Lost for words,每天一套题,提升你的雅思阅读能力,大家一起来学习吧。更多雅思阅读备考内容欢迎大家随时关注新东方在线雅思网

  Lost for words

  Many minority languages are on the danger list

  In the Native American Navajo nation, which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-aged or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street signs, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.

  Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations — that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. ‘At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world,’ says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. ‘It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss is difficult to know.’

  Isolation breeds linguistic diversity: as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 languages have more than a million speakers, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not just the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Center, in Fairbanks.

  Why do people reject the language of their parents? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler, of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture,’ he says. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old traditions.’

  The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in schools, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation schools in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures,’ he says. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English.’ But are languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.

  Language is also intimately bound up with culture, so it may be difficult to preserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something,’ Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world,’ says Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in the brain. ‘Your brain and mine are different from the brain of someone who speaks French, for instance,’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

  So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language,’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism,’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interest in the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produced about 8,000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California, ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer ‘apprentices’ pair up with one of the last living speakers of a Native American tongue to learn a traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to the next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using it every day. ‘Preserving a language is more like preserving fruits in a jar,’ he says.

  However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by later generations. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.

  Questions 1-4

  Complete the summary below.

  Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

  Write your answers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

  There are currently approximately 6,800 languages in the world. This great variety of languages came about largely as a result of geographical 1…… . But in today’s world, factors such as government initiatives and 2…… are contributing to a huge decrease in the number of languages. One factor which may help to ensure that some endangered languages do not die out completely is people’s increasing appreciation of their 3…… . This has been encouraged through programmes of language classes for children and through ‘apprentice’ schemes, in which the endangered language is used as the medium of instruction to teach people a 4…… . Some speakers of endangered languages have even produced writing systems in order to help secure the survival of their mother tongue.’

  Questions 5-9

  Look at the following statements (Questions 5-9) and the list of people in the box below. Match each statement with the correct person A-E.

  Write the appropriate letter A-E in boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet.

  NB You may use any letter more than once.

  5 Endangered languages cannot be saved unless people learn to speak more than one language.

  6 Saving languages from extinction is not in itself a satisfactory goal.

  7 The way we think may be determined by our language.

  8 Young people often reject the established way of life in their community.

  9 A change of language may mean a loss of traditional culture.

  A Michael Krauss

  B Salikoko Mufwene

  C Nicholas Ostler

  D Mark Pagel

  E Doug Whalen

  Questions 10-13

  Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 1?

  In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet write

  YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

  NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

  NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

  10 The Navajo Language will die out because it currently has too few speakers.

  11 A large number of native speakers fail to guarantee the survival of a language.

  12 National governments could do more to protect endangered languages.

  13 The loss of linguistic diversity is inevitable.

  下一页是本篇雅思阅读文章的答案解析,一起来了解一下:

雅思考前能力水平测试(0元领课)

考前测评 了解真实的雅思水平

本文关键字: 雅思阅读 雅思阅读习题

为你特别匹配的雅思超值课程,祝你和雅思分手!
  • 新东方4月雅思公开讲座

    新东方雅思4月公开讲座

    新东方教师直播教你全科技巧!

    每天1小时

    查看详情
  • 雅思机考实战

    雅思机考实战

    剑桥雅思正版题目机考实战!

    每天1小时

    查看详情
  • 【知心雅思】6分录播课 (A类)

    【知心雅思】6分录播课 (A类)

    适合人群:想要冲6分的考生

    课时:477

    查看详情
  • 【知心雅思】6.5分录播课 (A类)

    【知心雅思】6.5分录播课 (A类)

    适合人群:想要冲6.5分的考生

    课时:429

    查看详情
  • 【知心雅思】7分录播课 (A类)

    【知心雅思】7分录播课 (A类)

    适合人群:想要冲7分的考生

    课时:459

    查看详情
雅思备考资料包

扫码添加助教

免费获取雅思备考资料包

更多资料
更多>>
  • 雅思阅读临场经验和应试技巧

      在雅思阅读备考中,考生可以提前准备一些在考试场中可能会用到的应试技巧。接下来小编为大家分享雅思阅读临场经验和应试技巧,希望能为

    来源 : 网络 2021-01-06 14:53:27 关键字 : 雅思阅读

  • 雅思阅读准备技巧

      在雅思阅读备考中,考生想要快速的取得进步,那么就需要结合一定的方法和技巧,往正确的方向努力。接下来小编为大家带来的是雅思阅读准

    来源 : 网络 2021-01-06 14:52:33 关键字 : 雅思阅读

  • 雅思阅读填空题解题策略

      在雅思阅读备考中,填空题属于经典题型,但是这类题型也有一定难度,很多考生在这类题型上容易丢失分数。接下来小编给大家带来的是雅思

    来源 : 网络 2021-01-05 14:32:45 关键字 : 雅思阅读

  • 雅思阅读考试高分技巧

      在雅思阅读考试中,考生可以通过一些实战技巧,帮助我们在考试中有一个更好的发挥。接下来小编为大家分享雅思阅读考试高分实战技巧,希

    来源 : 网络 2021-01-05 14:31:40 关键字 : 雅思阅读

  • 雅思阅读时间不够用怎么办?

      雅思阅读考试对考生来说有一定难度,很多考生在时间上出现问题,导致答不完题,时间不够用,其实这些情况我们都是可以改善的,那么如何

    来源 : 网络 2021-01-04 15:09:13 关键字 : 雅思阅读

更多内容

移动学习

二维码

雅思新题口语题库

扫码添加助教号 回复【新题】 即可领取
更多>>
更多公开讲座>>

2024年1-4月雅思口语题库

微信添加助教 回复【新题】

助教微信
更多>>
更多资料