Question

 One of the main challenges that many countries face is how to maintain their identity in the face of globalization and the growing multilanguage trend. "One of the main reasons for economic failure in many African countries is the fact that,with a few important excep?tions,mother tongue education is not practised in any of the independent African states."said Neville Alexander,director of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa at the University of Cape Town.

In response to the spread of English and the increased multilanguage trends arising from immigration,many countries have introduced language laws in the last decade. In some,the use of languages other than the national language is banned in public spaces such as advertising posters. One of the first such legal provisions was the "Toubon Law" in France in 1994,and the idea has been copied in many coun?tries since then. Such efforts to govern language use are often considered as futile by language experts,who are well aware of the difficulty in controlling fashions in speech and know from research that language switching among bilinguaLs is a natu?ral process.

It is especially difficult for native speakers of English to understand the desire to maintain the "purity" of a language by law. Since the time of Shakespeare,Eng?lish has continually absorbed foreign words into its own language. English is one of the most mixed and rapidly changing languages in the world,but that has not been a barrier to acquiring superiority and power. Another reason for the failure of many native English speakers to understand the role of the state regulation is that it has never been the Anglo-Saxon way of doing things. English has never had a statecon?trolled authority for the language,similar,for example,to the Academic Francaise in France.

The need to protect national languages is,for most western Europeans,a re?cent phenomenon―especially the need to ensure that English does not necessarily take over too many fields. Public communication,education and new ways of communi?cation promoted by technology may be key fields to defend.

5. Neville Alexander believes that         .

   A. mother tongue education is not practised in all African countries

   B. globalization has resulted in the economic failure of Africa

   C. globalization has led to the rise of multilanguage trend

   D. lack of mother tongue education can lead to economic failure

6. The underlined word "futile" in Paragraph 2 most probably means "         ”.

   A. workable   B. practical   C. useless   D. unnecessary

7. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

   A. English has taken over fields like public communication and education.

   B. Many aspects of national culture are threatened by the spread of English.

   C. Most language experts believe it is important to promote a national language.

   D. Europeans have long realized the need to protect a national language.

8. What would be the best title for the passage?

   A. Fighting against the rule of English

   B. Protecting local languages and identities

   C. Globalization and multilanguage trend

   D. To maintain the purity of language by law

Answer 1

隨著全球化的加快，非洲一些國家的本地語言正在受到很大的沖擊。文章分析了英語泛濫的原因及其帶來的影響。

5. D細節(jié)理解題。由第一段第二句Neville Alexander的話可知，除了幾個國家之外，非洲其他大部分國家并不在國內(nèi)實行母語教育。而這些國家母語教育的缺失正是導(dǎo)致這些非洲國家經(jīng)濟失敗的一個重要原因。

6. C詞義猜測題。由第二段最后一句話可知，語言學(xué)專家們深知企圖控制這種語言的發(fā)展趨勢是很困難的，并且通過研究得知，雙語之間的語言轉(zhuǎn)換是一個很自然的過程。所以企圖控制使用某種語言的努力是"徒勞的"。

7. B推理判斷題。根據(jù)最后一段可知，英語的傳播給民族文化帶來了幾個方面(public communication,education and new ways of communication promoted by technology) 的威脅。

8. B主旨大意題。文章分析了在非洲英語的傳播導(dǎo)致了一些國家當?shù)卣Z言的缺失，這些國家開始采取措施來保護自己的語言。由此可以看出，B項最能概括全文內(nèi)容。