hce_nthu
113年
英文
第 41 題
📖 題組：
Reading 5 There is a pervasive idea, in popular discourse about language endangerment, that languages just slip away, becoming obsolete or falling out of use. In this view, languages are like fashions, that pass with time, or technology, that is replaced by the more advanced. Those clinging to the old languages are seen as quaint at best, and conservative, or even luddite, at worst. But this conception is wrong. It benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless, reassuring the colonizer that they are not to blame. Languages are not lost, they are taken. They are uprooted by malice or neglect, their speakers assimilated into a new tongue, or left to struggle in the space between the fading old and the out of reach new. Language endangerment has continually accelerated, as the rise of nation-states and centralized, powerful governments, along with inventions such as the printing press and mass media, have created a handful of super tongues, which bulldoze all others in their path. While there are around seven thousand extant languages today, half the planet speaks one of just twenty-three tongues, with that proportion growing every year. At the time of writing, according to UNESCO, some twenty-four-hundred languages are vulnerable or endangered, while almost six hundred are on the verge of going extinct. As a Welsh saying goes, “cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb gallon,” a nation without a language is a nation without a heart. Languages are deeply enmeshed with culture; they link people to their ancestors and help maintain traditions, oral histories and ways of thinking about the world. The loss of linguistic diversity is not merely an intellectual tragedy, but a continued consequence of colonialism and imperialism, as groups are forcibly assimilated and their diverse histories, cultures and tongues wiped out. This can literally be a matter of life and death: researchers in Australia and Canada have shown that indigenous communities that retain access to their languages are healthier and more cohesive, with less unemployment, alcoholism and suicide, and higher levels of education, than those unmoored from traditional culture and forced to use English alone. Language diversity can also foster new ideas and thinking that can help us address many of the injustices and disasters wrought by colonialism and industrialization. Environmentally, economically, and culturally, language diversity holds the potential for new solutions for the problems often wrought by the world’s linguistic monoliths. The United Nations, in declaring 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages, recognized that such tongues provide “resources for good governance, peacebuilding, reconciliation, and sustainable development”.
Reading 5 There is a pervasive idea, in popular discourse about language endangerment, that languages just slip away, becoming obsolete or falling out of use. In this view, languages are like fashions, that pass with time, or technology, that is replaced by the more advanced. Those clinging to the old languages are seen as quaint at best, and conservative, or even luddite, at worst. But this conception is wrong. It benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless, reassuring the colonizer that they are not to blame. Languages are not lost, they are taken. They are uprooted by malice or neglect, their speakers assimilated into a new tongue, or left to struggle in the space between the fading old and the out of reach new. Language endangerment has continually accelerated, as the rise of nation-states and centralized, powerful governments, along with inventions such as the printing press and mass media, have created a handful of super tongues, which bulldoze all others in their path. While there are around seven thousand extant languages today, half the planet speaks one of just twenty-three tongues, with that proportion growing every year. At the time of writing, according to UNESCO, some twenty-four-hundred languages are vulnerable or endangered, while almost six hundred are on the verge of going extinct. As a Welsh saying goes, “cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb gallon,” a nation without a language is a nation without a heart. Languages are deeply enmeshed with culture; they link people to their ancestors and help maintain traditions, oral histories and ways of thinking about the world. The loss of linguistic diversity is not merely an intellectual tragedy, but a continued consequence of colonialism and imperialism, as groups are forcibly assimilated and their diverse histories, cultures and tongues wiped out. This can literally be a matter of life and death: researchers in Australia and Canada have shown that indigenous communities that retain access to their languages are healthier and more cohesive, with less unemployment, alcoholism and suicide, and higher levels of education, than those unmoored from traditional culture and forced to use English alone. Language diversity can also foster new ideas and thinking that can help us address many of the injustices and disasters wrought by colonialism and industrialization. Environmentally, economically, and culturally, language diversity holds the potential for new solutions for the problems often wrought by the world’s linguistic monoliths. The United Nations, in declaring 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages, recognized that such tongues provide “resources for good governance, peacebuilding, reconciliation, and sustainable development”.
Which of the following can best explain the author’s purpose of writing this passage?
- A To explain the rise and fall of super tongues.
- B To analyze how Darwinism has been used to explain language endangerment.
- C To demonstrate that colonialism and imperialism serve as both threats to and promoters of national languages.
- D To argue that multilingual speakers in Australian and Canadian indigenous communities are healthier than those in non-indigenous communities.
- E To highlight misconceptions about language loss and the profound cultural and social implications associated with it.
思路引導 VIP
當作者在第一段強調「語言並非自然遺失，而是被奪走」時，他主要是想糾正讀者對語言消亡過程的哪種偏見？而他在最後一段列舉原住民社區的健康狀況與文化聯繫，又是為了說明語言除了溝通工具外，還具備哪些對社會發展至關重要的深層價值？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
語言消亡的政治性與文化價值
太棒了！你能從眾多選項中選出 (E)，說明你精確捕捉到了作者的「筆鋒所向」。這篇文章不單是在陳述語言消亡的現狀，更是在進行一場觀念的翻轉。作者在第一段便犀利地指出：大眾認為語言消亡是像流行服飾般自然「過時」的想法是完全錯誤的，這種迷思掩蓋了背後的殖民壓迫與權力傾斜。
跨段落的意圖整合
▼ 還有更多解析內容