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  3. The Internet is creating a language evolution at a very fast pace. People on

The Internet is creating a language evolution at a very fast pace. People on

游客2023-11-26  23
问题     The Internet is creating a language evolution at a very fast pace. People on the Internet are paying less attention to grammar and spelling, and speakers don’t have to worry about their accent as well. Some linguists are saying that English will one day become obsolete as Latin, while others take the changes of language as a natural tendency. The following is an article about how the Internet is changing English. Read the excerpt carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you should:
    1. summarize briefly the opinions in the article;
    2. give your comment.
    Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.
    Learn English Online: How the Internet Is Changing the Language
    Online, English has become a common language for users from around the world. In the process, the language itself is changing. An American Dictionary of the English Language took 18 years to complete and Webster learned 26 other languages in order to research the etymology of its 70,000 entries. The Internet is creating a similar language evolution, but at a much faster pace.
    Some linguists predict that within 10 years English will dominate the Internet—but in forms very different to what we accept and recognise as English today.
    That’s because people who speak English as a second language already outnumber native speakers. And increasingly they use it to communicate with other non-native speakers, particularly on the Internet where less attention is paid to grammar and spelling and users don’t have to worry about their accent.
    "The Internet enfranchises people who are not native speakers to use English in significant and meaningful ways," says Naomi Baron, professor of linguistics at American University in Washington DC.
    "On the Internet, all that matters is that people can communicate—nobody has a right to tell them what the language should be," says Baron. "If you can talk Facebook into putting up pages, you have a language that has political and social standing even if it doesn’t have much in the way of linguistic uniqueness. "
    Technology companies are tapping into the new English variations with products aimed at enabling users to add words that are not already in the English dictionary. And most large companies have English websites, while smaller businesses are learning that they need a common language—English—to reach global customers.
    "While most people don’t speak English as their first language, there is a special commercial and social role for English driven by modern forms of entertainment," says Robert Munro, a computational linguist and head of Idibon, a language technology company in California.
    "The prevalence of English movies in regions where there is not much technology other than cell phones and DVDs makes English an aspirational language. People think it’s the language of the digital age. "
    In previous centuries, the convergence of cultures and trade led to the emergence of pidgin—a streamlined system of communication that has simple grammatical structure, says Michael Ullman, director of research at Georgetown University’s Brain and Language Lab.
    When the next generation of pidgin speakers begin to add vocabulary and grammar, it becomes a distinct Creole language. "You get different endings, it’s more complex and systematized. Something like that could be happening to English on the web," he says. Take the Hinglish for example. Hinglish is a blend of Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and English and is so widespread that it’s even being taught to British diplomats.
    The increasing prevalence of the Internet in everyday life means that language online is not a zero sum game. Instead, it allows multiple languages to flourish.
    "Most people actually speak multiple languages—it’s less common to only speak one," says Mr. Munro. "English has taken its place as the world’s lingua franca, but it’s not pushing out other languages." Instead, other languages are pushing their way into English, and in the process creating something new.
    Write your response on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.
选项
答案                 Will the Internet One Day Destroy the Language?
    English is used and spoken as a universal language by an increasing number of non-native speakers, but in a very flexible way. It has changed, is changing, and will change for ever, as is the routine of language evolution.
    According to the passage, the tendency of change in English is unstoppable and irreversible. This change should first be attributed to the prevalence of the Internet. With non-native speakers outnumbering native ones, it is harder to keep the linguistic uniqueness of the language. In addition, modern digital technology, especially in entertainment industries on movies, cell phones and DVDs, also drives lots of variations in English. However, this tendency is not without precedents in history, for example, the emergence of pidgin, which is finally systematized to a new officially-accepted language, English. This evolution may as well allow the flourishment of multiple languages.
    Based on my reading experiences and linguistic knowledge, no language remains static throughout the history. At first, language never stops evolving. Latin has been a good example of a single language changing into many others. Both modern Chinese and English evolve from the ancient languages which are constructed with completely different grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Besides, languages are blending in with each other. English has been a melting pot of Middle English, French, German, etc. And it is still absorbing words from other languages. An English native may know very well what you mean by "Chinese Dama" and "tuhao". What’s more, new words are tapped into the existing languages continuously, with a faster speed within these decades. The emergence of new words relate closely to technology development, science discovery, and new inventions, such as "3D Max" "Genes" "smart phone", etc.
    Therefore, I suggest that we hold a take-it-for-granted attitude to the language evolution. The language we know as English today is as certain to disappear as the languages we now call Old and Middle English. So are the other languages.
解析 本题讨论网络如何改变了英语语言，命题与社会生活息息相关。题目要求简要概括所给材料中的观点，并发表自己的看法。在具体的写作过程中，考生可以开篇点明当前语言的发展趋势，并提出论点：语言的正常发展趋势就是改变；第二段简要阐述材料的观点；第三段重点阐述自己对这一问题的看法，并说明理由；最后一段总结全文，重申观点。
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