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  3. "Many of the world’s lesser-known languages are being lost as fewer and fewe

"Many of the world’s lesser-known languages are being lost as fewer and fewe

游客2023-12-14  60
问题     "Many of the world’s lesser-known languages are being lost as fewer and fewer people speak them. The governments of countries in which these languages are spoken should act to prevent such languages from becoming extinct." Do you agree to the speaker’s statement above? Write an essay of about 400 words. You should supply an appropriate title for your essay.
    In the first part of your essay you should state clearly your main argument, and in the second part you should support your argument with appropriate details. In the last part you should bring what you have written to a natural conclusion or make a summary.
    Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriateness. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.
选项
答案             Preventing a Language from Extinction - Not That Necessary
    The speaker asserts that the governments of countries where lesser-known languages are spoken should intervene to prevent these languages from becoming extinct. I agree insofar as a country’s indigenous and distinct languages should not be abandoned and forgotten altogether. At some point, however, I think cultural identity should yield to the more practical considerations of day-to-day life in a global society.
    On the one hand, the indigenous language of any geographical region is part-and-parcel of the cultural heritage of the region’s natives. In my observation we humans have a basic psychological need for individual identity, which we define by way of our membership in distinct cultural groups. A culture defines itself in various ways - by its unique traditions, rituals, mores, attitudes and beliefs, and languages. However, is it really worthwhile to preserve those languages from extinction, no matter what the cost?
    On the other hand, in today’s high-tech world of satellite communications, global mobility, and especially the Internet, language barriers serve primarily to impede cross-cultural communication, which in turn impedes international commerce and trade. Moreover, language barriers naturally breed misunderstanding, a certain distrust and, as a result, discord, and even war among nations. Moreover, in my view the extinction of all but a few major languages is inexorable - as supported by the fact that the Internet has adopted English as its official language. Thus by intervening to preserve a dying language a government might be deploying its resources to fight a losing battle, rather than to combat more pressing social problems - such as hunger, homelessness. disease and ignorance - that plague nearly every society today. Since resources a country can deploy are, more often than not, limited, especially for those whose languages are close to extinction, investing more on this would inevitably make resources available for that shrink. Just imagine, if a country’s people are suffering from malnutrition or even starvation, conflicts or even wars, diseases or even plague, how can it help by preserving a so-called distinct language?
    In sum, preserving indigenous languages is, admittedly, a worthy goal; maintaining its own distinct language affords people a sense of pride, dignity and self-worth. Nevertheless, the economic and political drawbacks of language barriers outweigh the benefits of preserving a dying language. In the final analysis, government should devote its time and resources elsewhere, and leave it to the people themselves to take whatever steps are needed to preserve their own distinct languages.
解析     本文作者的大胆之处在于对题目中的陈述分而治之，即部分同意题目陈述，但主旋律还是反对的。作者开篇就用insofar as阐明了自己的想法，与陈述的一致意见也就到此为止了。下文中主要阐述之所以不大张旗鼓地保护本民族语言的原因所在，作者主要采用了反证法，详尽说明了穷一国之力保护语言可能造成的不利影响。有些考生担心自己说理不充分，在文章中谈对立观点则色变，实际上这种简单回避的鸵鸟政策非但不会增强论证的气势，还埋下了论述有失公允的隐患。
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