2. 职称英语
  3. Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, customs, beliefs, and ways to

Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, customs, beliefs, and ways to

游客2023-08-02  37
问题     Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, customs, beliefs, and ways to life of a given group of human being. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us. To the professional anthropologists, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy(等级制度) among languages.
    People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, consisted largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers the description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind our western language not in their sound patterns or grammatical structure, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to be noted: 1. All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion, either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A western language distinguished merely between two degrees of remoteness("this" and "that"); some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.
    This study of language, in turn casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.
选项 A、vocabularies
B、grammatical structures
C、sound patterns
D、rank and hierarchy
答案 A
解析 事实细节题。文章第三段说They fall behind our western language not...but only in their vocabularies..，因此不文明人群的语言和西方语言的区别在于词汇方面，答案选A。文章第二段说到语言和文化一样是没有等级的，故D.错。
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