第63讲阅读理解：Some Things We Know about Language 职称英语综合B精讲课件教程教案.ppt

Some Things We Know about Language;Second, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are undeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized. but the languages they speak are not primitive．In all known 1anguages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing． primitive 原始的；早期的 uncivilized 未开化的；不文明的;This has not always been well understood；indeed, the direct contrary has often been stated． Popular ideas of the 1anguage of the American Indians will illustrate．Many people have supposed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises．Study has proved this to be nonsense．There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and 11 of them run out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek． indeed 的确；实在；真正地 suppose 料想；猜想 nonsense胡说；废话 no more than 和……同样不;A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate．That is, each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language． Finally, we know that language changes．It is natural and normal for language to change； the only languages which do not change are the dead ones．This is easy to understand if we look backward in time．Change goes on in all aspects of language．Grammatical features change as do speech sounds, and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly．Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language. adequate 充分的 胜任的 backward 向后地 grammatical 语法的 extensive 广阔的;1. In the second paragraph the author thinks that ________ A) some backward race doesnt have a language of its own． B) some race in history didnt possess a language of its own． C) any human race, whether backward or not, has a language． D) some races on earth call communicate without language． 2. According