English and English Community
1 There is no doubt that English is a useful language. The people who speak English today make up the largest speech community in the world with the exception of speakers of Chinese.
2 A speech community is similar to other kinds of communities. The people who make up the community share a common language. Often they live side by side, as they-do in a neighborhood (街坊), a village, or a city. More often they form a whole country. National boundaries, however, are not always the same as the boundaries of a speech community. A speech community is any group of people who speak the same language no matter where they happen to live.
3 We may say that anyone who speaks English belongs to the English speech community. For convenience (方便), we may divide the speakers into two groups: one ig which the speakers use English as their native language, the other in which the speakers learn [English as a second language for the purpose of education, commerce, and so on.
4 Learning a second language extends one's vision and expands the mind. The history and literature of a second language record the real and fictional (虚构的) lives of people and their culture; a knowledge of them adds to our ability to understand and to feel as they feel. Learning English as a second language provides another means of communication through which the window of the entire English speech community becomes a part of our heritage.
23 Paragraph 1_________.
24 Paragraph 2_________.
25 Paragraph 3_________.
26 Paragraph 4_________.
A Threat Posed by English
B Definition of a Speech Community
C Benefits of Learning a Second Language
D Advantages of Learning Chinese
E Two Groups of the English Speech Community
F A Widely Used Language
27 Overall there are more speakers of Chinese than of_________.
28 The boundaries of a speech community may be different from_________.
29 People who live in different places may belong to_________.
30 Many people learn English as_________.
A a second language
B the same language
C the same speech community
D any other language
E national boundaries
F a part of one's heritage
答案:
23. F 24. B 25. E 26. C
27. D 28. E 29. C 30. A
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