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  3. Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways

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

游客2023-11-18  23
问题      Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.
     To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages.
     People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, consisting 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 that 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 languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, 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 distinguishes 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. [br] According to the passage, which of the following sentences doesn’t correctly describe most of" backward languages" ?
选项 A、They consist largely of grunts and groans.
B、They are extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas.
C、They fall behind our Western languages in their vocabularies.
D、They don’t possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion.
答案 D
解析 细节理解题。文章强调指出“All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion”，在这一点上无论是文明人的语言还是所谓“落后人”的语言都是相同的。
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