South Africa is the fifth largest native English-speaking country in the world, with a diverse range of English speakers. South African English (SAE) is different from other kinds of English. But how did SAE become what it is today? Let’s take a look at the brief history of South African English.
| 1795 | The British first introduced English to Southern Africa when they set up a military base in what was, at the time, called the Cape Colony (开普殖民地). At that point, they were not intending to create an ever-lasting settlement. |
| 1820 | The first major influx (涌入) of English speakers settled in the Eastern Cape. There were around 5,000 people, mostly, but not entirely, of working class background from Britain. |
| 1822 | The governor of Cape Colony, Lord Charles Somerset, declared English to be the official language of the colony. |
| 1840-1850 | The next wave of English speakers arrived in the colony. They were mostly retired military personnel and aristocrats (贵族) from Britain. |
| 1875-1904 | Another wave of native English speakers arrived at the colony, with more varied accents than those who had come before. They quickly lost their accents, as they assimilated (同化) to the Standard British English that was currently developing in Britain. Missing the home country Britain became part of the colony’s national consciousness (意识). This basically meant that colonial English speakers looked up to British English. As a result, their standard accent became more similar to Standard British English. |
| 1910 | The Union of South Africa was formed. Both English and Dutch(荷兰语) were regarded as its official language. |
| A．25 years. | B．27 years. | C．55 years. | D．115 years. |
| A．Their nationality. | B．Their destination. |
| C．Their social background. | D．Their native language. |
| A．More accents of SAE had appeared. |
| B．Many children had lost their national consciousness. |
| C．British English had heavily influenced SAE. |
| D．Dutch had become the official language of South Africa. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Baron Pierre de Coubertin was a Frenchman. At his time sports were not taught in French schools. De Coubertin believed that sports should go hand in hand with studies. He had an idea. His idea was to begin the Olympics all over again.
Sports teachers of other countries liked de Coubertion’s ideas. So in 1896, the modern Olympic Games were held in Athens（雅典）, Greece. Since then the Olympics have been held once every four years, except three times, when there were wars.
Before the start of the Olympic Games, runners carry lighted torch（火炬）through many nations towards the stadium（运动场）where the games will be held. These sportsmen are from different countries. Yet they work together to carry the Olympic torch. It is passed from runner to runner. When the last runner enters the stadium, he or she places the torch in a special（专门的）basin filled with oil. It catches fire. It is then, only then, that the Olympic Games can begin.
The Olympic flame（火焰）burns throughout the games. It is the flame of peace.
1. Before 1896 French schools didn’t teach_____ .| A．maths | B．history |
| C．sports | D．physics |
| A．was the first man to start the Olympic Games |
| B．helped start the modern Olympic Games |
| C．believed that sports were less important than studies |
| D．failed to begin the modern Olympic Games |
| A．1915 | B．1924 |
| C．1896 | D．1904 |
| A．a foot race | B．a jumping contest（比赛） |
| C．field sports | D．a boxing（拳击）match |
【推荐2】Walk Through History
It’s no surprise to anyone who’s been to Charleston that it is among the best US cities to visit. “It can feel like you’re in a dream sometimes, like you’ve stepped back 200 years,” says Brian Sim ms, the owner of Charleston Sole Walking Tours. These are Sim ms’s must-sees.
African-American Heritage(遗产)Tour
“People don’t realize how much African culture is here.” says Sim ms. He recommends learning about the African-A merican heritage that shaped the city, region and country to fully understand Charleston.
Gullah Tours offers a two-hour bus tour for $ 18.www.gullahtours.com
Battery and White Point Gardens
A large public park and garden with walking paths and artifacts (人工制品)—all shaded by beautiful trees.
Free admission. Simms provides two- hour guided tours for $10 to $20. www.charlestonsole.com
Middleton Place
Middleton Placeis a historic plantation(种植园) with vivid exhibits and a working table. It provides an all-around view of what was going on with the history of the families that ran the plantation.
$ 28 / adult; $ 15 / student 14 and older; $ 10 / child 6-13; free / under age 6.www.middleton place.org
Fort Summer National Monument
Marking the site where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, this historic place includes several sites around Charleston Harbor and an education center at Gadsden’s Wharf. The best time of yearto visitis spring—when the azaleas(杜鹃花) are flowering—or fall.
Admission is free； boat ride is $ 19.5 / adult, $ 12 / child. www.nps.gov/fosu
1. Where can you book a tour to learn about African A merica culture?| A．On www.nps.gov / fosu. | B．On www.gullahtours.com. |
| C．On www.charlestonsole.com. | D．On www. middletonplace.org. |
| A．Visit an education center. |
| B．Appreciate the beauty of azaleas. |
| C．Learn about the history of American families. |
| D．Learn about the operation of a historic plantations |
| A．$20. | B．$36. |
| C．$39. | D．$56. |
【推荐3】The United States of America is mainly an English-speaking country. The majority of the population speak English as their native language. Besides，education，social activities，etc. are conducted in English. Across but for the most part，Americans speak one common language. This language is sometimes called American English.
However，not everyone in the USA is a native speaker of English. Most immigrants (移民)are speakers of other languages. There are hundreds of communities around the USA where English is not the most commonly used languages. Chinese，Italian，German，Greek，Spanish and French are all spoken in various communities in the USA. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language after English.It is widely spoken in New York and across the southern part of the country. For speakers of other languages，learning English is important，but teaching people to speak English as a second language was given little attention. Non-English speakers were expected to “pick up ” the language by meeting with others in public. Recently，this has changed.
Today，most large public schools and community colleges have ESL(English as a Second Language )programs; American English teachers feel that English students should learn the language the way they will use it. Therefore，ESL programs offer different English lessons to different students. Some programs teach students to communicate in English in public. Other programs teach the kind of English people who will need for their jobs. American ESL instructional methods do not lay emphasis on grammar or translation，but on the importance of communication. The goal is to get the English learners to learn by using the language.
1. In the past the non-English immigrants___________.| A．didn’t know how to learn English | B．found that English was not important |
| C．learned English through books | D．paid special attention to teaching English |
| A．ESL | B．French |
| C．Spanish | D．Chinese |
| A．try to master | B．repeat again and again |
| C．go to school sometimes | D．learn without studying or taking lessons |
【推荐1】Pumpkins are not only the most important symbol of Halloween; they are the star vegetable when it comes to the fall season in terms of decoration (装饰) and cooking uses. Often, we overlook how many different ways it can be used.
The pumpkin has a long list of nutrients, including vitamins A, C, E, fiber, potassium, manganese, copper and so on. It is also low in salt, cholesterol and saturated (饱和的) fats. In its raw state, the pumpkin is a great source of nutrition.
When buying your pumpkins, always get them from your local farmers to support their business and the environment, plus you will be guaranteed (保证) that they are freshly grown. If you are feeling interested, you can grow your own pumpkins!
When carving your jack-o'-lanterns, don't throw away the seeds! They make a tasty baked treat that is healthy for you.
When your jack-o'-lanterns has lived its last day out in the doorway, refuse the usual practice of throwing it away at once. Instead, create a compost heap (堆肥堆) and let nature do all the work. Be sure to remove the candle and all of the wax inside, and cut the pumpkin into pieces. Those leftover nutrients will help your soil.
Make a pie—a great way to bring family and friends together. If you are feeling even more adventurous, try cooking something new with the pumpkins and see what wonderful delicious dishes you can produce in your very own kitchen. And don't think of the pumpkin just around holidays—it's great all year round. Don't let any part of the pumpkin go to waste this year. Turn them from orange to green this Halloween!
1. What's the best title for the passage?| A．Can pumpkins be part of a healthy diet? |
| B．Taste pumpkins to enjoy your holidays! |
| C．Don't waste your pumpkins! |
| D．Traditional Halloween foods and customs. |
| A．it benefits (使受益) both the farmers and the environment |
| B．you will be offered services free of charge |
| C．the local farmers are very friendly |
| D．they are usually sold at prices that are much lower |
| A．someone else will help you do the work |
| B．the jack-o'-lanterns will rot away by itself |
| C．it needs special skills to make a jack-o'-lanterns |
| D．the pumpkin gets all its nutrients directly from nature |
| A．Tasty foods are a must for holding a family party. |
| B．Pumpkins are a good tool for practicing your cooking skills. |
| C．Pumpkins can be used for decoration at any time of the year. |
| D．Foods made from pumpkins are popular at all times. |
—When catching a fish, play it quickly and keep the fish in the water as much as possible.
Don’t use a net in landing the fish and release it quickly to prevent it from dying.
—Hold the fish gently. Do not put your fingers in its eyes. Don’t wipe the scales (鱼鳞) off the fish because it might cause it to develop a disease and reduce its chance of survival.
—Remove your hook (鱼钩) quickly. If the hook is too deep or hooked in the stomach, cut the line and leave the hook in. The hook left inside will cause no serious problem to the fish.
—Take good care of the fish by moving it gently in water. Release the fish when it begins to struggle and is able to swim.
—Do not hold fish in a bucket or some other containers and later decide to release it. If you are going to release a fish, do so right away.
With a little care and by following the suggestions given above, you can give the released fish a better chance of survival.
1. People sometimes set a fish free after catching it because they _________
| A．don’t want it to die | B．hope it will grow quickly |
| C．don’t want to have it as food | D．want to practice their fishing skills |
| A．Taking the hook off it. | B．Removing its scales. |
| C．Touching its eves. | D．Holding it in your hand. |
| A．move it in water till it can swim | B．take the hook out of its stomach |
| C．keep it in a bucket for some time | D．let it struggle a little in your hand |
| A．To show how to enjoy fishing. | B．To persuade people to fish less often. |
| C．To encourage people to set fish free. | D．To give advice on how to release fish. |
【推荐3】Baleen whales play a vital role in ecosystems. To communicate across vast distances and find each other, baleen whales depend critically on the production of sounds that travels far in dark oceans. However, since whale songs were first discovered more than 50 years ago, it remained unknown how baleen whales produce their complex vocalizations (发音).
A new study in the journal Nature reports that baleen whales developed unique structures in their larynx (喉) that enable their low-frequency vocalizations, but also limit their communication range. The study was led by voice scientists Professor Coen Elemans and Professor Tecumseh Fitch. “The toothed whales and baleen whales were initially land animals that had a larynx serving two functions: protecting the airways and sound production. However, their switching to living in the water placed new and strict demands on the larynx to prevent choking underwater,” says Tecumseh Fitch.
The study shows that baleen whales nevertheless can still produce sound with their larynx, but they have developed new structures to do so, which only exists in baleen whales. “This is probably to keep a rigid open airway when they have to move huge amounts of air in and out during explosive surface breathing,” states Fitch. “We found that this U-shaped structure pushes against a big fatty cushion (垫) on the inside of the larynx. When the whales push air from their lungs past this cushion, it starts to shake and this generates very low frequency underwater sounds,” says Elemans.
To understand how muscle activity could change the calls, the researchers built a computational model of the entire whale larynx. The model predicted the natural vocalizations of the whales very well. However, these newly discovered features that allowed whales to successfully communicate in the vast oceans also poses huge physiological (生理的) limits for many baleen whales. Combining experiments and models, the researchers provide the first evidence that baleen whales are physiologically incapable of escaping noise caused by humans, because it covers up their voices, and thus limits their communication range. “Unfortunately, the main frequency and depth of man-made noise caused by shipping traffic cover the frequency range and maximum communication depth of 100 meters that we predicted,” Elemans says.
The first voice recordings of a certain whale song by Roger and Katy Payne in 1970 attracted global interest in sea conservation efforts. The Payne’s made people aware how quiet the seas were before humans started the widespread use of machine ships. Elemans adds: “Compared to the seventies, our oceans are now even more filled with human-made noise, which affects the whales, because they are dependent on sound for communication. Now we show that despite their amazing physiology, they literally cannot escape the noise humans make in the oceans.”
1. What can we know about baleen whales’ vocalization system?| A．Their airways are closed during explosive surface breath. |
| B．Their larynx has difficulty preventing choking underwater. |
| C．Their vocalization system changed when they were land animals. |
| D．Their fatty cushion shakes to make low frequency underwater sounds. |
| A．baleen whales are incapable of recognizing humans’ noise |
| B．the muscle activity is related to the vocalizations of the whales |
| C．human-made noises disturb baleen whales’ communication range |
| D．the bodily features in baleen whales limit their communication depth |
| A．Sea conservation efforts used to be better than now. |
| B．The special structure protects Baleen whales from noises. |
| C．Actions should be taken to regulate human activities at sea. |
| D．The application of technology contributes to sea conservation. |
【推荐1】English is changing faster than ever due to technology and the growing popularity of social media. Do you long to keep up with the times? If so, here are some old-fashioned words you should remove from your vocabulary list.
1. Whippersnapper
As an alteration of the term “snippersnapper”, the word first appeared in the 17th century, expressing our ancestors’ annoyance at ill-mannered children. In its more contemporary version, the word relates to a young person who is too confident and does not show enough respect to older people.
2. Tape
Are you born in the 1980s? If so, you may still be using the term “tape” when speaking of recording music or TV shows. Today, though digital media has made data storage on magnetic tape a thing of the past, this old linguistic habit still exists.
3. Dungarees
What we know as “jeans” today were once called “dungarees” to refer to trousers made of denim. The term comes from a kind of cheap and rough cloth imported from Dongari Killa, India. When manufacturers began importing the cloth from Genoa in Italy, this kind of trousers got a new name, “jeans”. So don’t be surprised if you catch your grandpa saying “dungarees”.
4. Stewardess
In the earlier age of air travel, female crew members serving airline passengers were called stewardesses. It wasn’t until more men entered the field and the development of women’s rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s that the word fell out of use. “Stewardess” was replaced by a More gender-neutral term, “flight attendant”.
1. Who can be described as a whippersnapper nowadays?| A．A narrow-minded kid. | B．An ill-mannered elder. |
| C．A bad-tempered woman. | D．A self-centered young man. |
| A．Whippersnapper. | B．Tape | C．Dungarees | D．Stewardess. |
| A．Language | B．Technology | C．Finance | D．Fashion. |
【推荐2】When it comes to travel, sometimes wandering is one of the most exciting things you can do. In a time when travellers are both more adventurous and eco-conscious than ever, it’s no surprise that there’s a wealth of new vocabulary to describe how we travel, when we travel and how the experience makes us feel. Here are eight of our favourite travel words that you may not have heard before.
We’ve kicked off a blog with the staycation, “a holiday in one’s own country”. The term first became popular in the mid-2000s, when the global financial crisis meant people had less income to spend on flash holidays and instead searched for cheaper local choices. Since 2020, the staycation is experiencing a revival (复兴). Benefits of staycations include cheaper travel costs, no spending hours in the airport and, of course, no need to worry about whether your passport expired (过期) last year.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to meet new people on your travels, you could stay at a hostel or with a host on Airbnb. Now, you can couch surf. And not just in “the staying at various friends’ houses until you find a new place to rent” sense: couch surfing is quickly becoming a hot new travel trend. Travellers can now choose to couch surf all across the world via a website which treats travel as a cultural exchange, allowing people to connect with willing hosts and crash on their sofas.
Given that single-use and climate strike were selected as the Collins 2018 and 2019 Words of the Year respectively, it’s clear that the climate crisis is very much on everybody’s mind. This desire to make more sustainable choices is also affecting the way we spend our vacation days. Ecotourism is another popular travel trend, defined as tourism that is designed to contribute to the protection of the environment. Examples of ecotourism include ditching short-haul flights, staying at eco-friendly resorts, or booking a staycation.
1. When did the staycation become popular firstly?| A．About in 2018. | B．About in 2019. | C．About in 2005. | D．About in 2010. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Six. |
| A．The eco-friendly travel ways. | B．The cheap ways to get around. |
| C．The changing words of travel. | D．The spread of history and culture. |
| A．The other new travel words. | B．Ways to protect environment. |
| C．Other examples of ecotourism. | D．Experiences of reaching culture. |
【推荐3】There are around 6,000 living languages in the world—and at least half of these are in danger. In every part of the world, languages are disappearing. In fact, one scientist has said that languages are in more danger of extinction than birds or animals. Professor Steve Sutherland of the University of East Anglia says that in the past 500 years 4.5 percent of languages have died out—compared with 1.3 percent of birds, and 1.9 percent of mammals.
Languages come and go, and thousands have done exactly that without leaving any trace(痕迹). Only a very few—Basque, Greek and Latin among them—have lasted more than 2000 years. But it seems that the pace of their disappearance is becoming quicker.
The Ethnologue, a database of all the languages spoken in the world, states that 417 languages are spoken by so few people that they are in the final stages of becoming extinct. If very few people speak a language, it will probably die out.
Languages may be lost through migration, as people move from small towns to city centers, or when environments are destroyed by the search for oil or wood. Natural disasters can also devastate populations, and along with them, their language. Governments also play a role in the extinction of languages. The need to establish “official languages”, for a country to educate its children and carry out its business, had a disastrous effect on many small languages.
What is lost if a language is lost? Some people argue that languages die as the human race develops. Obviously there could be great benefits if everyone in the world spoke the same language—some industries already reflect this, with English essential for pilots and air traffic controllers. But there are more important things than convenience. As languages are lost, whole ways of life and knowledge may be lost along with them.
To put it simply, language expresses something about who we are, about where we live in the world. Ani Rauhihi, a Maori teacher in New Zealand’s North Island, sums it up: “If you grow up speaking our language, you won’t know who you are.”
1. What do the figures mentioned in the first paragraph suggest?| A．Most languages have died out completely. |
| B．Languages are in great danger of extinction. |
| C．Languages are disappearing slower than before. |
| D．Animals are disappearing faster than languages. |
| A．raise |
| B．control |
| C．improve |
| D．destroy |
| A．There will be great trouble. |
| B．There is no need to worry about it. |
| C．Its culture and knowledge will also be lost. |
| D．People will be able to communicate with others conveniently. |
| A．Languages reflect our identity. |
| B．People will speak the same language one day. |
| C．Ani Rauhihi cares less about languages dying out. |
| D．Fewer people will remember their own languages. |
