If you ask people to name the one person who had the greatest effect on the English language, you will get answers like "Shakespeare," "Samuel Johnson," and "Webster," but none of these men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn’t even speak English-William the Conqueror.
Before 1066, in the land we now call Great Britain lived peoples belonging to two major language groups. In the west-central region lived the Welsh, who spoke a Celtic language, and in the north lived the Scots, whose language, though not the same as Welsh, was also Celtic. In the rest of the country lived the Saxons, actually a mixture of Anglos, Saxons, and other Germanic and Nordic peoples, who spoke what we now call Anglo-Saxon(or Old English), a Germanic language. If this state of affairs had lasted, English today would be close to German.
But this state of affairs did not last. In 1066 the Normans led by William defeated the Saxons and began their rule over England. For about a century, French became the official language of England while Old English became the language of peasants. As a result, English words of politics and the law come from French rather than German. In some cases, modern English even shows a distinction (区别) between upper-class French and lower-class Anglo-Saxon in its words. We even have different words for some foods, meat in particular, depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked, which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming, while the upper-class Normans were doing most of the eating.
When Americans visit Europe for the first time, they usually find Germany more "foreign" than France because the German they see on signs and advertisements seems much more different from English than French does. Few realize that the English language is actually Germanic in its beginning and that the French influences are all the result of one man’s ambition.
1. Before 1066, people in Britain mainly spoke .| A．Welsh and Scottish | B．Nordic and Germanic |
| C．Anglo-Saxon and Germanic | D．Celtic and Old English |
| A．By defeating the Saxons. |
| B．By speaking good English. |
| C．By teaching people in Britain to speak English. |
| D．By bringing French to Britain to greatly influence English. |
| A．They know French better than German. |
| B．They know little history of the English history. |
| C．In France most of the advertisements appear in English. |
| D．There are more similarities between English and French. |
| A．The history of Great Britain. |
| B．The French effects on English language. |
| C．The difference between English and French. |
| D．The great people who had effect on English. |
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【推荐1】Making Music Visible
On a recent afternoon in a brightly lit studio in Brooklyn, Tom and David were filming a music video. They were recording a different version of their favorite song, but the voices that filled the room were those of the two original singers, who made the song a hit. And yet the two men were also singing—with their hands.
Tom is a deaf actor and dancer; David is a hearing dancer and choreographer who is, thanks to seven deaf family members, a native speaker of sign language. Their version is part of a 10-song series of sign language covers of works.
Around the world, music connects together communities and promotes a sense of belonging. But as sign language music videos become an online phenomenon, the richness of sign language has gotten a broader stage.
“Music is many different things to different people.” Alice, a deaf actress told in an interview, using an interpreter. “I realize,” she added, “that when you do hear, not hearing may seem to separate us. But what is your relationship to music, to dance, to beauty? What do you see that we may learn from? These are conversations people need to get accustomed to having.”
A good sign language performance thinks highly of the combination of the elements of sign language—hand shape, movement and facial expression—with those of spoken language, allowing a skilled sign language speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text. “The hands have their own emotions,” Tom said. “They have their own mind.”
Deaf singers prepare for their performances by experiencing a song through any means available to them. Many people speak about their highly sensitivity to the vibrations of sound, which they experience through their body. As a dancer trained in ballet, Tom said he was particularly conscious of the vibrations of a piano as transmitted through a wooden floor.
1. What makes the video of Tom and David famous?| A．They recorded a famous song. | B．The video talks about deaf actors. |
| C．Sign language is used to perform songs. | D．The record has the most series of pop music. |
| A．Our life is lack of music, dance and beauty. |
| B．Music bridges the gap between different people. |
| C．People with hearing loss are separated from music. |
| D．Dancers and singers need to strengthen communication. |
| A．A well-performed sign language speaker usually works with another dancer. |
| B．Sign language dancers are more emotional and thoughtful than other dancers. |
| C．The elements of sign language are more important than those of spoken language. |
| D．Skilled sign language performers tend to combine spoken and unspoken elements. |
| A．Caring. | B．Cautious. | C．Sensitive. | D．Intelligent. |
【推荐2】While they were still growing up, kids are basically vacuums for vocabulary. It is estimated that a normal kid at the age of 6 possesses a remarkable vocabulary of about thirteen thousand words!
That’s an amazing accomplishment because preliterate children just perceive spoken words and do not have a chance to work on those words. Rather, they learn a fresh vocabulary every 2 hours when awake, regularly. This is particularly extraordinary since the best effective ways for mnemonic devices（记忆术） do not assist with words individually.
A mnemonic has been a training method that changes what we wish to recall to more unforgettable things. For instance, if you desire to get an education on reading music, an easy approach to learning the EGBDF has been recalling the sentence Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. However, that doesn’t apply to individual words. Due to the lack of simple methods to recall words, children’s brains need to have an inherent（固有的）, strong structure for fast learning a language.
But, as we become older, we start to miss those remarkable skills. Every adult finds it difficult at the time of learning a different tongue, as the ability seems to decline with age. A psychologist, Elisa Newport, did research on people who immigrated（移民） to the US. She discovered that the people who immigrated in the age range of 3 — 7 had been as expert in the grammar of English as those who were US-born. But those who arrived in the age range of 8 — 15, did much worse.
A similar thing can be noticed at the time of learning the initial language. In the past, a small number of kids were raised with no human touch, regularly as a result of negligence. They are called the “wolf children”, similar to “Genie”, the girl who was found at the age of 13 around 1970. Since she was raised with no human touch, she could not create even simple grammatical sentences.
1. Which word can best describe preliterate kids’vocabulary learning?| A．Formal. | B．Complex. | C．Consistent. | D．Tough. |
| A．It can be easily forgotten by little kids. | B．It involves only letters and listening ability. |
| C．It is actually meaningless to most people. | D．It can’t be used to recall individual words. |
| A．People’s language abilities decline as they age. |
| B．3 — 7 is a better age range for learning a new language. |
| C．Kids lose their interest in grammar as they grow older. |
| D．Kids aged 8 — 15 can’t learn a foreign language well. |
| A．It’s better to immigrate to learn a foreign tongue. |
| B．It’s urgent to learn a language at the proper age. |
| C．Every animal possesses a language of their own. |
| D．A language can be acquired without human touch. |
【推荐3】American English began in the 17th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, the English language was brought to North America by colonists (殖民者) from England. They used the language spoken in England, that is, Elizabethan English, the language used by Shakespeare.
In order to exploit (开发) new resources in America, British colonists settled down there and from 1607 to 1732 set up thirteen colonies. In these thirteen areas, English was a common language used by all people. They continued to speak as they had done in England.
As time went by, the English language gradually changed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Foreigners longing for wealth set foot on the coastal area to trade. The Americans adopted many words from foreign languages and invented lots of new words to meet their commercial (贸易的) needs.
Following American Independence, famous people like Thomas Jefferson, the president, began to consider that the country should have a language of its own. Noah Webster compiled (编纂) three elementary books on English. Later, he expressed the idea that as an independent nation, America should have a system of its own in language as well as in government. After the second half of the 19th century, many great writers such as Mark Twain helped the development of American English.
English in America has developed a character of its own, showing the life and the physical and social environment of the American people. Since the rise of the United States to a position of world importance, American English has been developing and changing. There is no doubt that American English will enrich the English language greatly. With the rapid development of modern mass media and the common needs of economic, cultural and political exchanges, American English will be more widely used in the world than British English.
1. What can we infer from paragraph 3?| A．People from the seaside were more willing to learn English. |
| B．The English language changed as a result of inner culture shock. |
| C．New words occurred in American English as a result of local invention. |
| D．International business contributed to the development of American English. |
| A．It came into being at the end of the 17th century. |
| B．It hardly makes contributions to the development of English. |
| C．Its development has a close relationship with American people’s life. |
| D．It has been more widely used than British English from the beginning. |
| A．The Difference between American English and British English. |
| B．The development of American English. |
| C．The Birth of American English. |
| D．Language and Business. |
