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

游客2024-05-14  14

问题     Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, 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 (等级,阶层) among languages.
    People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, misting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grants and groans, it is a fact established by the study if "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 fifty adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflects 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 requiting 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 culture are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy. [br] The languages of uncivilized groups as compared to Western Languages are limited in______.

选项 A、grammatical structures
B、sound patterns
C、vocabularies
D、hierarchy

答案 C

解析 细节题。根据文章第二段中的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(未开花民族的语言只是在词汇方面落后于西方语言,在他们的发音方式、语法结构方面都发展得足够适应所有语言的需要。)作出选择。所以选项C正确。
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