高级英语文学文化模块.DOC

1、ENBACE1009 第 1 页 （共 11 页） 高级英语文学文化模块 “变化中的英语”课程终结考试笔试 试卷 （模拟试题） 课程编号： ENBACE1009 学籍号： _ 学习中心： _ 姓 名： _ Information for the Examinees: This examination consists of FOUR sections. They are: Section I: Listening Test (20 points, 30 minutes) Section II: Awareness of Course Content (40 points, 30 minutes

2、) Section III: Reading Test (30 points, 40 minutes) Section IV: Essay Question (10 points, 20 minutes) The total marks for this examination are 100 points. Time allowed for completing this examination is 2 hours (120 minutes). YOU MUST WRITE ALL YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET. Section I Listening

3、Test 20 points Click here to download the sound file. Instructions: The listening test will take approximately 30 minutes. There are TWO parts to the test. There will be a pause of 30 seconds before each part to allow you to look at your questions. There will be a pause of 30 seconds after each part

4、 to allow you to think about your answers. Part 1. Questions 1- 5 are based on this part. (10 points) You are going to listen to a conversation between two people. As you listen, decide whether statements 1-5 are true or false. Write T for “true” and F for “false” on the Answer Sheet. ENBACE1009 第 2

5、 页 （共 11 页） _ 1. This conversation takes place on the telephone. _ 2. Julie wants to talk to Simon to give him some information about language. _ 3. There are approximately 500 languages spoken in India today. _ 4. Each of the official languages is spoken by over a million people. _ 5. English was p

6、hased out in India by 1965. Part 2. Questions 6 - 10 are based on this part. (10 points) Questions 6-10: You are going to listen to a conversation about Welsh. As you listen, choose the best answer from A, B, C and D to complete each statement below. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet. 6. The pe

7、ople Liu Gang heard talking in a strange language were _. A. foreigners B. Chinese C. English D. Welsh 7. The majority of the people in Wales speak _. A. Welsh B. English C. Celtic D. Gaelic 8. Irish and Scottish Gaelic are _. A. now separate languages B. the same dialect C. spoken in England D. dea

8、d languages 9. Cornish is a language that _. A. is very similar to Gaelic B. is taught in schools in Wales C. died out a couple of hundred years ago D. is still spoken as a mother-tongue ENBACE1009 第 3 页 （共 11 页） 10. Welsh and Gaelic speakers are _. A. not officially encouraged B. growing in numbers

9、 C. ashamed of their language D. fewer than they were before This is the end of the Listening Test. Section II Awareness of Course Content 40 points Part 1. Questions 11- 20 (20 points) Decide whether the following statements are true or false according to what you have learned from the course. Writ

10、e T for “true” a nd F for “false” on the Answer Sheet. _11. The term interlanguage is used for the language of learners who have only partial control of a language. _12. There are differences in spelling in American and British English, and the differences are quite large in number out of the total

11、English vocabulary. _13. Latin and Sanskrit are dead languages. _14. Local varieties of English are not so difficult to learn as Standard English because students can feel that the language they are learning belongs to their own country and culture. _15. When they say all languages are equal, they m

12、ean all languages are well developed. _16. Spanish, French and Portuguese are descendents of Latin. _17. R.P. is the abbreviation in common use to stand for Right Pronunciation. _18. Contemporary English has evolved from earlier varieties. _19. When a teacher is doing prescriptive teaching, he usual

13、ly teaches the four skills. _20. When a teacher is doing Descriptive teaching, he usually teaches about the structure and history of the language. Part 2. Questions 21 - 30. (20 points) ENBACE1009 第 4 页 （共 11 页） Choose the best answer from A, B, C and D according to what you have learned from the co

14、urse. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet. 21. Languages and dialects are used differently and valued _. A. similarly B. equally C. differently D. slowly 22. The United States of America was set up in _. A. 1753 B. 1775 C. 1789 D. 1783 23. Britain was an imperial power for about_. A. 3 centuries

15、B. 1 century C. 2 centuries D. 80 years 24. The languages of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were _. A. exactly the same in structure and vocabulary B. different in structure and vocabulary, and unrelated C. different in some structures and vocabulary , but related D. similar in structure but quite di

16、fferent in vocabulary 25. The languages of the present-day world _. A. are entirely different from each other B. can be grouped into larger or smaller families C. belong to one or two larger families D. belong to a single family 26. Within the Indo-European family, English belongs to the Germanic gr

17、oup, which also includes _. A. Russian and Polish ENBACE1009 第 5 页 （共 11 页） B. Spanish and French C. Flemish and Dutch D. Italian and Portuguese 27. England was conquered and ruled by the Romans _. A. from 1st century BC to 5th century AD B. from 9th to 12th century AD C. from 10th to 13th century A

18、D D. from 15th to 19th century AD 28. During the later part of the 11th century AD, England was ruled by _. A. Latin-speaking Romans B. French-speaking Normans C. Spanish-speaking Castilians D. Dutch-speakers from Holland 29. Standard English began as a variety belonging to the _ of England. A. Nort

19、h West B. North East C. South West D. South East 30. The most commonly used language of international deals between Asian and other countries is _. A. Chinese B. English C. Creole D. Japanese Section III Reading Test 30 points Part 1. Questions 31 - 35 are based on Passage 1. (10 points) ENBACE1009

20、第 6 页 （共 11 页） Passage 1. The Two Kinds of Dictionaries When I was young, we used to have a little joke that went, “There aint no such word as aint because aint aint in the dictionary.“ Most of us had been corrected by teachers, if not parents, not to use the word aint. Imagine my surprise when, jus

21、t for fun, I looked up the word, and there it was, right in my schools Thorndike-Barnhart Junior School Dictionary. My teachers had told me there was no such word - after all, what did ai not mean? - but there is such a word. It was in the dictionary. This was my introduction to the reality that the

22、re are two different editorial policies used by the editors of dictionaries. The terms we use to describe them are descriptive and prescriptive. You can probably figure out what they mean. Descriptive dictionaries describe the language. They include words that are commonly used even if they are nons

23、tandard. They will often include nonstandard spellings. Prescriptive dictionaries tend to be more concerned about correct or standard English. They prescribe the proper usage and spelling of words. That school dictionary in which I found aint was a descriptive dictionary. The truth of the matter is

24、that today virtually all English language dictionaries are descriptive. The editors will usually say that they are simply recording the language and how its words are used and spelled. True, there may be some guidance. For example, most Merriam-Webster dictionaries will note if certain words are dee

25、med nonstandard or offensive by most users; however, the words are still included. Of modern dictionaries, only the Funk and Wagnalls contains a certain amount of prescriptive advice. All the major dictionary publishers - Merriam-Webster, Times-Mirror, World Book, and Funk and Wagnalls - will tell y

26、ou that they are primarily descriptive. This was not the case with the first dictionaries in England and America. They were prescriptive. Samuel Johnsons Dictionary of the English Language (1755) had social commentary and jokes. He was writing to entertain as well as inform. Johnson also came to the

27、 conclusion that the English language could not be proscribed - it could not be limited to only a certain number of words. This, though, had nothing to do with ENBACE1009 第 7 页 （共 11 页） correctness or propriety. American Noah Websters An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) was also pr

28、escriptive. Webster had been publishing a spelling book for schools since the 1780s. He was motivated by a utilitarian view of spelling as well as a concern for precise communication. His definitions tend to be far more precise than those in many dictionaries today. His book also prescribes certain

29、spellings and uses for many words. About twenty years ago, a publisher saw a need and reprinted the 1828 Webster dictionary. It has been a steady seller since then in spite of its lack of modern terms because many people are still looking for dictionaries to provide guidance. Questions 31-35: Decide

30、 whether the following statements are true, false or not mentioned. Write T for “true”, F for “false” and NM for “not mentioned” on the Answer Sheet. _ 31. “Aint” aint in the dictionary. _ 32. The Thorndike-Barnhart Junior School Dictionary is descriptive. _ 33. Samuel Johnson did not agree with des

31、criptive dictionaries. _ 34. Noah Webster was not concerned with correctness or propriety. _ 35. Websters 1828 dictionary still sells well. Part 2. Questions 36 - 40 are based on Passage 2. (10 points) Passage 2 What Causes Language Extinction? Because it is not useful in the society, perhaps even a

32、 social liability, an endangered language is not passed on by parents to their children. Speaking the majority language better equips children for success in the majority culture than speaking a less prestigious language. Some governments actively discourage minority language use. For decades, it wa

33、s illegal to speak Macedonian or sing Macedonian songs in Greece. That situation is reflected in the history of Native American languages in the United States. No one knows exactly how many languages exist in the world today but best estimates place the figure around 6,800. Roughly 1,000 are spoken

34、in the Americas (15%), 2,400 in Africa (35%), 200 in Europe (3%), 2,000 in Asia (28%) and, perhaps, 1,200 in the ENBACE1009 第 8 页 （共 11 页） Pacific (19%). Keep in mind that only about a quarter of the languages and few dialects have writing systems and not all languages have even been “discovered“ by

35、 Western linguistics. Most linguists, however, agree that half of the worlds languages are endangered; many fear that 90% will disappear by the end of this century. The important points to keep in mind are these: (1) large numbers of languages, probably the majority, are in danger of extinction and

36、(2) many more have not yet been described in grammars and dictionaries. Worlds Top Ten Languages First-language speaker estimates given in millions 1. Chinese (Mandarin) 1,075,000,000 2. English 514,000,000 3. Hindustani 496,000,000 4. Spanish 425,000,000 5. Russian 275,000,000 6. Arabic 256,000,000

37、 7. Bengali 215,000,000 8. Portuguese 194,000,000 9. Malay-Indonesian 176,000,000 10. French 129,000,000 Source: Ethnologue Language is the most efficient means of transmitting a culture, and it is the owners of that culture that lose the most when a language dies. Every culture has adapted to uniqu

38、e circumstances, and the language expresses those circumstances. While a community may not lose its sense of identity when it loses its language, identity is closely associated with language. When Yugoslavia broke up, it was very important that the Serbo-Croatian language spoken in Croatia, Bosnia-H

39、ercegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro be called Croatian by the Croatians, Bosnian by the Bosnians, and so on. All peoples identify their culture as closely with their languages as with their religion. What we talk about, think, and believe is closely bound up with the words we have, so the history of

40、a culture can be mapped in its language. ENBACE1009 第 9 页 （共 11 页） People from other cultures are also impoverished when any language dies. The history tied up in a language will go unrecorded; the poetry and rhythm of a singular tongue will be silenced forever. The scientific search for Universal G

41、rammar, the common starting point for all grammars that human children seem to be born with, depends on our knowing what all human languages have in common. The wholesale loss of languages that we face today will greatly restrict how much we can learn about human cognition, language, and language ac

42、quisition at a time when the achievements in these arenas have been greater than ever before. Questions 36-40: Fill in each blank in the summary below with an appropriate word in the box. There are more words than you need. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet. Arabic billion identity danger Europ

43、e million service Russian foreign majority Endangered languages die out when they are not passed on by parents and are replaced by a _(36) language, sometimes as part of government policy. It is estimated that there are about 6,800 languages in the world, but there are still languages unknown to Wes

44、tern linguists. It is generally agreed that half of those languages are in _(37), and some fear that 90% will disappear by the end of the 21st century. The language with the largest number of speakers in the world is Mandarin Chinese with over a _ (38) speakers. Next is English with over half a bill

45、ion, followed by Hindustani with 496 million and Spanish with 425 million. Fifth is _(39) with 275 million. Language is bound up with culture, so that when a language dies, the cultural record is lost. It is also closely connected with national _(40) and defines how people feel about their homeland.

46、 When a language dies, it is a loss for all people because we lose a part of human history, and we also lose part of the data in the search for a universal grammar. Part 3. Questions 41 - 45 are based on Passage 3. (10 points) ENBACE1009 第 10 页 （共 11 页） Passage 3 Surviving Freshers Week The purpose

47、of the freshers week is, officially, to get all the new students registered on their courses, to allow everyone to get settled into their accommodation, to get timetables sorted out and to receive an (extremely boring) introductory talk from the Chancellor of the university. Of course, the main reas

48、on for most people to attend freshers week is to have a really good time. Unfortunately, you do have to go through with the registration and boring talks business, otherwise you may find yourself not listed in course timetables, without a union card (essential to student life) and quite possibly with no grant cheque. Its painless really. For regis