研究生英语阅读教程(基础级第二版)1-10课文及课后习题答案翻译Word文档下载推荐.docx

1、For English is a killer. It is English that has killed off Cumbric, Cornish, Norn and Manx. There are still parts of these islands where sizeable communities speak languages that were there before English. Yet English is everywhere in everyday use and understood by all or virtually all, constituting

2、 such a threat to the three remaining Celtic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh. that their long-term future must be considered. very greatly at risk. （p 141）Some years earlier, in 1992, Robert Phillipson, English academic who currently works in Denmark, published with Oxford a book entitl

3、ed Linguistic Imperialism. In it, he argued that the major English-speaking countries, the worldwide English-language teaching industry, and notably the British Council pursue policies of linguistic aggrandisement. He also associated such policies with a prejudice which he calls linguicism （a condit

4、ion parallel to（equal to/ similar to） racism and sexism）. As Phillipson sees it, leading institutions and individuals within the predominantly white English-speaking world, have by design（=deliberate） or default（=mistake） encouraged or at least toleratedand certainly have not opposedthe hegemonic sp

5、read of English, a spread which began some three centuries ago as economic and colonial expansion.2 Phillipson himself worked for some years for the British Council, and he is not alone among Anglophone academics who have sought to point up the dangers of English as a world language. The internation

6、alization of English has in the last few decades been widely discussed in terms of three groups: first, the ENL countries, where English is a native language （this group also being known as the inner circle）; second, the ESL countries, where English is a second language （the outer circle and third,

7、the EFL countries, where English is a foreign language （the expanding circle）. Since the 1980s, when such terms became common, this third circle has in fact expanded to take in the entire planet.3 For good or for ill, there has never been a language quite like English. There have been many world lan

8、guages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. By and large, we now view them as more or less benign, and often talk with admiration and appreciation about the cultures associated with them and what they have given to the world. And it is fairly safe to do this, because none of them no

9、w poses much of a threat.4 English however is probably too close for us to be able to analyze and judge it as dispassionately, as we may now discuss the influence of Classical Chinese on East Asia or of Classical Latin on Western Europe. The jury is still out in the trial of the English language, an

10、d may take several centuries to produce its verdict, but even so we can ask, in this European Year of Languages, whether Price and Phillipson are right to warn us all about the language that I am using at this very moment.5 It certainly isnt hard to look for situations where people might call Englis

11、h a curse. An example is Australia, which is routinely regarded as a straightforward English-speaking country. The first Europeans who went there often used Latin to describe and discuss the place. The word Australia itself is Latin; evidently no one at the time thought of simply calling it Southlan

12、d （which is what Australia means）. In addition, in South Australia there is a wide stretch of land called the Nullarbor Plains, the first word of which sounds Aboriginal, but nullarbor is Latin and means no trees. And most significantly of all, the early settlers called the continent a terra nullius

13、. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary （1999） the Latin phrase terra nullius means:. the idea and legal concept that when the first Europeans arrived in Australia the land was owned by no one and therefore open to settlement. It has been judged not to be legally valid.But that judgment

14、was made only recently. When the Europeans arrived, Australia was thinly populatedbut populated nonethelessfrom coast to coast in every direction. There were hundreds of communities and languages. Many of these languages have died out, many more are in the process of dying out, and these dead and dy

15、ing languages have been largely replaced by either kinds of pidgin English or general Australian English. Depending on your point of view, this is either a tragic loss or the price of progress.6 At the same time, however, can the blame for the extinction of Aboriginal languages be laid specifically

16、at the door of English? The first Europeans to discover Australia were Dutch, and their language might have become the language of colonization and settlement. Any settler language could have had the same effect. If for example the Mongols had sustained their vast Eurasian empire, Mongolian might ha

17、ve become a world language and gone to Australia. Again, if history had been somewhat different, todays world language might have been Arabic, a powerful language in West Asia and North Africa that currently affects many smaller languages, including Coptic and Berber. Spanish has adversely affected

18、indigenous languages in so-called Latin America, and Russian has spread from Europe to the Siberian Pacific. If English is a curse and a killer, it may only be so in the sense that any large language is likely to influence and endanger smaller languages.7 Yet many people see English as a blessing. L

19、et me leave aside here the obvious advantages possessed by any world language, such as a large communicative network, a strong literary and media complex, and a powerful cultural and educational apparatus. Let us instead look at something rather different: the issue of politics, justice, and equalit

20、y. My object lesson this time is South Africa. Ten years ago, South Africa ceased to be governed on principles of racial separateness, a system known in Afrikaans （a language derived from Dutch） as apartheid. The system arose because the Afrikaner communityEuropean settlers of mainly Dutch descentsa

21、w themselves as superior to the indigenous people of the land they had colonized.8 English-speaking South Africans of British descent were not particularly strong in opposing the apartheid regime, and the black opposition, whose members had many languages, was at first weak and disorganized. However

22、, the language through which this opposition gained strength and organization was English, which became for them the key language of freedom and unity, not of oppression. There are today eleven official languages in South AfricaEnglish, Afrikaans, and nine vernacular languages that include Zulu, Nde

23、bele, and Setswana. But which of these nine do black South Africans use （or plan to use） as their national lingua franca? Which do they wish their children to speak and write successfully （in addition to their mother tongues）? The answer is none of the above. They want English, and in particular the

24、y want a suitably Africanized English.9 So, a curse for the indigenous peoples of Australia and something of a blessing for those in South Africa.10 How then should we think of English in our globalizing world with its endangered diversities? The answer, it seems to me, is crystal clear. Like many t

25、hings, English is at times a blessing and at times a cursefor individuals, for communities, for nations, and even for unions of nations. The East Asian symbolism of yin and yang might serve well here: There is something of yang in every yin, of yin in every yang. Although they are opposites, they be

26、long together: in this instance within the circle of communication. Such symbolism suggests that the users of the worlds lingua franca should seek to benefit as fully as possible from the blessing and as far as possible avoid invoking the curse. （1, 292 words）ABOUT THE AUTHORDr. Tom McArthur is foun

27、der editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language （1992） and the quarterly English Today: The International Review of the English Language （Cambridge, 1985 ）. His more than20 published works include the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English （1981）, Worlds of Reference: Language, Lexicogra

28、phy and Learning from the Clay Tablet to the Computer （1986）, and The English Languages （1998）. He is currently Deputy Director of the Dictionary Research Center at the University of Exeter.EXERCISESI. Reading ComprehensionAnswer the following questions or complete the, following statements.1. It ca

29、n be inferred from Glanville Prices statement that he is .A. happy that English is everywhere in Britain and IrelandB. worried about the future of the remaining Celtic languagesC. shocked by the diversity of languages in Britain and IrelandD. amazed that many people in the UK still speak their Abori

30、ginal languages2. Cumbric is used as an example of .A. a local dialectB. a victim of the English languageC. a language that is on the verge of extinctionD. a language that is used by only a limited number of people3. Which of the following is the major concern of the book Linguistic Imperialism?A. E

31、nglish teaching overseas.B. British governments language policies.C. Dominance of English over other languages.D. The role of English in technology advancement.4. Both Price and Phillipson are .A. government officialsB. advocates of linguistic imperialismC. in support of language policies carried out by the British CouncilD. concerned about the negative effect of English on smaller languages5. According to the text, the EFL countries .A. are large in numberB. is known as the C. will be endangered by EnglishD. have made English their