1 . Charles Darwin found inspiration for his theory of evolution in birds’ beaks, giant tortoise shells — and language. “The survival of certain favored words in the struggle for existence is natural selection,” he wrote in The Descent of Man in 1871．
Language gradually shifts over time. Much research examines how social and environmental factors influence language change, but ignores the forces of human cognitive selection that fix certain words into the lexicon (词汇表). For an extensive new study published recently, scientists investigated just that.
In an experiment like a game of telephone, thousands of participants read English-language stories and rewrote them to be read by other participants, who then rewrote them for others. Only certain words from the first stories survived in the final versions. Researchers analyzed the word types speakers consistently favored, theorizing that such preferences drive language change over time. The scientists also separately analyzed two large collections of English historical texts from the past two centuries, containing more than 40 billion words — again seeing only certain types survive.
The end result shows three properties that give words an “evolutionary advantage” by helping them stick in the brain: First, words typically acquired at an early age (such as “hand,” “uncle”or “today”) are stabler. Next, concrete words linger (逗留) better than abstract ones: “dog” persists longer than “animal,” which persists longer than “organism.” Lastly, emotionally exciting words — whether negative or positive — tend to endure.
Early language-evolution models assumed that language becomes increasingly complex over time. But Fritz Breithaupt, a cognitive scientist, says the new study supports a more recent theory that language ultimately gets more efficient and easier to understand. Still, as the study notes, “the English language is not baby talk.” Breithaupt explains: “Yes, we shift toward simple language, but then we also grab complex language that we need.” New words that address the complexities of modern life may somewhat balance out this shift.
Columbia University linguist McWhorter more or less agrees with the study’s results about evolutionary advantages within language. He questions, however, implications regarding the overall efficiency of English — a language which contains things like “needlessly complex” grammatical traces.
1. What does the new study concentrate on?| A．The impact of cognitive selection. |
| B．The perspective of Charles Darwin. |
| C．The effectiveness of preserved words. |
| D．The importance of natural environment. |
| A．Its stability in word-building. | B．Its more abstract meaning. |
| C．Its strong emotional information. | D．Its simple grammatical structure. |
| A．Communication gets more complex. |
| B．Humans prefer to use simpler language. |
| C．Language is getting less understandable. |
| D．New words can interpret modern life easily. |
| A．It has an evolutionary advantage. |
| B．It keeps the grammatical traces. |
| C．It should be simplified sometimes. |
| D．People should embrace its changes. |
1.活动介绍;2.你的感想
注意：
1.写作词数应为80左右;2.请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
When English Meets The Arts
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________| A．French. | B．German. | C．English. |
4 . It wasn’t until after I graduated from college, and realized that there’s no such thing as all-encompassing (包罗万象) knowledge, that I was able to read for pleasure. A sense of curiosity directed me and I started to see dictionaries as field guides to the life of language. Looking up words felt less like a failing than an admission that there are lots of things I don’t know and an opportunity to discover just how many.
I prize my 1954 copy of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition. I often consult it, during evening games of Scrabble or midday magazine reading. When I come across unfamiliar words while reading novels, I look them up. When I start encountering these words elsewhere, the linguistic (语言的) universe seems to shrink to the size of a small town.
Dictionaries heighten my senses: They direct my attention into a conversation with language. They make me wonder what other things I’m blind to because I haven’t taught myself to notice them yet. Recently spotted examples include orrery, “a mechanical model, usually clockwork, devised to represent the motions of the moon and Earth (and sometimes also other planets) around the sun.” The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) also tells me that the word comes from the fourth Earl of Orrery, for whom a copy of the first machine was made, around 1700. Useful? Obviously not. Satisfying? Deeply.
Wikipedia and Google answer questions with more questions, opening up pages you never asked for. But a dictionary builds on common knowledge, using simple words to explain complex ones. Using one feels as if I’m prying open an oyster (蚝) rather than falling down a rabbit hole. Why leave solvable mysteries up to guesswork?
For me, dictionaries are a door into that kind of uncalculated knowledge-seeking. They remind me that following your curiosity instead of brushing it aside is one of the best ways I know to feel connected to more than what’s right in front of you.
1. What can we know about the author?| A．He merely read for fun before graduation. |
| B．He longed to learn about all knowledge. |
| C．He considered dictionaries chances of enrichment. |
| D．He admitted being a failure when learning languages. |
| A．To introduce a word. | B．To indicate a finding. |
| C．To clarify a concept. | D．To support a statement. |
| A．Encountering new problems. | B．Entering a different world. |
| C．Acquiring essential common sense. | D．Simplifying tough questions. |
| A．Jaw-dropping. | B．Eye-opening. | C．Mind-numbing. | D．Labour-saving. |
The Confucian Analects or The Analects (论语) is a collection of the sayings and teachings of Confucius and his disciples (门徒). It
The present-day Analects is based on the Lu version compiled during the Han Dynasty and embodies,
The core of the concept is “The benevolent love of others” or universal love,
Apart from ren, Confucius put forward another concept, which is yi or righteousness. Yi is the codes of conduct under the
6 . Every 40 days a language dies. This “catastrophic” loss is being intensified by the climate crisis, according to linguists. If nothing is done, conservative estimates suggest half of all the 7000 languages currently spoken will be extinct by the end of the century.
Speakers of minority languages have experienced a long history of persecution (迫 害), with the result that by the 1920s half of all indigenous (土著的) languages in Australia, the US, South Africa and Argentina were extinct. The climate crisis is now considered the “final nail in the coffin” for many indigenous languages and the knowledge they represent.
“Languages are already endangered,” says Anastasia Richl, director of the Strathy language unit at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Huge factors are globalization and migration, as communities move to regions where their language is not spoken or valued, according to Richl. “It seems particularly cruel, ” she says, “ that most of the world’s languages are in parts of the world that are growing unpleasant to people. ” Vanuatu, a South Pacific island nation measuring 12, 189 km2, has 110 languages, the highest density (密度) of languages on the planet. It is also one of the countries most at risk of sea level rise. “Many small language communities are on islands and coastlines easily subject to hurricanes and sea level rise,” she says. Others live on lands where rising temperature threatens traditional farming and fishing practices, leading to migration.
In response to the crisis, the UN launched the International Decade of Indigenous Languages in 2022. Promoting and conserving languages of indigenous communities is “ not only important for them, but for all humanity, ” said Csaba Korosi, the UN general assembly president, urging countries to allow access to education in indigenous languages.
1. What does the underlined phrase “final nail in the coffin” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．The last straw. |
| B．The last challenge. |
| C．The last possibility. |
| D．The last opportunity. |
| A．To explain the main reason for language density. |
| B．To show the common features of endangered languages. |
| C．To stress the impact of geographical position on migration. |
| D．To illustrate the situation of minority language communities. |
| A．Support migrants to access local education. |
| B．Discourage people from massive migration. |
| C．Improve the living conditions of minority groups. |
| D．Preserve the languages of indigenous communities. |
| A．Faced with Disasters: Communities Have to Leave |
| B．Lost for Words: Climate Crisis Brings Threat of Catastrophe |
| C．Upset at Extinction: UN Urges International Cooperation |
| D．Involved in Action: Experts Seek Solutions to Climate Crisis |
7 . Can you imagine there being a community where boys and girls growing up together can finally speak different languages? In Ubang Nigeria, it really happens. It’s not exactly clear what percentage of the words in the men’s and women’s languages are different, but there are enough examples to make sentences sound different when spoken by the opposite sex. For “clothing”, men use the word “nki”, while women say “ariga”; “kitchi” means tree for men, while women say “okweng”. These are not just some slight pronunciation differences, but totally different words. “It’s almost like two different lexicons (词汇集),” a language expert, Chi Chi Undle said. “There are a lot of words that men and women share in common, but there are others which are totally different depending on your sex. They don’t sound alike, and don’t have the same letters. They are completely different words.”
Interestingly, both men and women are able to understand each other perfectly in Ubang, as both boys and girls grow up around their parents and get to learn both languages, but by the age of 10, boys are expected to speak in the male tongue. It seems that there is a stage the male will reach and he discovers he is not using the rightful language. When he starts speaking the men’s language, you know the maturity is coming into him.
No one really knows how or why the double-language tradition of Ubang began. Chi Chi Undie believes the two languages are the result of a “double-sex culture” where men and women operate in two separate spheres (范围) and live in separate worlds that rarely come together. However, she admits this is a weak theory, as the double-sex culture is present in many parts of Africa, where there are no different languages for men and women.
Today, with English words constantly entering the lexicon of young Nigerians, Ubang’s two languages are in danger of being lost forever. Worse still, neither the male nor female language is written down, so they both rely on young people passing them down to the next generation.
1. What do we know about languages in Ubang?| A．Word differences account for a high percentage. |
| B．Men and women speak totally different languages. |
| C．Word differences partly exist between the opposite sex. |
| D．Men and women pronounce differently on the same word. |
| A．Their lexicons sound alike. |
| B．They learn both languages at school. |
| C．The men can speak two different languages. |
| D．They are exposed to both languages in their childhood. |
| A．The change of double-sex culture. |
| B．The theory of doube-sex culture. |
| C．The origin of double-language tradition. |
| D．The sphere of double-language tradition. |
| A．Frightened. | B．Concerned. |
| C．Confused. | D．Stressed. |
8 . Some events have been added to the 2024 Olympics, with surfing, break dancing and sport climbing among the recent additions. With them come a group of terms that are foreign to the French language. For some French-language purists, it’s too much to bear to rely on English to praise surfers on their “nose riding”—standing on the front of the board. They’ve decided they need a French solution.
The French government has created a team of language experts devoted to promoting the national language. They will meet periodically over the next couple of years to identify and define new sports terms. The French battle against the influence of other languages isn’t new. In 1994, the Toubon law was passed, forcing the use of French in all government publications, contracts and advertisements. Yet it contained several loopholes(漏洞), which allow brands and companies to extensively use English. As a result, anglicisms(从英语中借用的词) are becoming more obvious.
Julie Neveux, linguistics(语言学) professor at Sorbonne University in Paris, said anglicisms are “sometimes estimated at just under 5% of the present vocabulary, but they are disturbing because they show that we follow an economic and cultural model other than our own.” They are particularly present in sports competitions and events, during which athletes from around the world are used to communicating in English. “Sport was one of the first areas to be globalized,” said sports historian Michael Attali. “This phenomenon has strengthened English as the official language.”
Despite their best efforts, no committee has successfully prevented English from infiltrating(渗透) everyday language. By the time French officials agreed on a translation and its definition, the English version has already spread throughout the nation. “Similar committees have been put in place in the past, but nothing has changed so far,” said Attali.
“There are far fewer anglicisms in French than there are French words in English,” said Neveux, adding these exchanges should not be seen as a threat. “All living languages exist by borrowing from each other. Languages only exist thanks to their impurity.”
1. What will a team of language experts do?| A．Make French much purer. |
| B．Bring English and French together. |
| C．Decide upon some new sports terms. |
| D．Promote the spread of French in the world. |
| A．English words. | B．French words. |
| C．Newly created words. | D．Anglicisms |
| A．Successful. | B．Fruitless. |
| C．Unmentioned. | D．Unimportant. |
| A．All languages should be preserved. |
| B．English is more popular than French. |
| C．Neveux is positive about the impurity of language. |
| D．The exchanges between two languages can be avoided. |
1.创立网站的目的；
2.网站内容及功能；
3.号召使用。
注意：1.词数80左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
EasyEnglish Is Waiting for You
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10 . Do you ever have problems describing people? No worries! We’ll give you practical ways to define someone’s personality using popular film characters to help you remember! So, join us at the cinema and learn the useful character adjectives!
1. Narcissistic
Meaning: If someone is narcissistic, they think — they’re very special and more important than others.
Example: In the movie Beauty and the Beast directed by, Bill Condon, the villain Gaston is narcissistic. He admires himself and his appearance too much (he’s always looking in the mirror), and he has a lack of sympathy for others.
2. Culculating
Meaning: If someone is calculating, they make careful plans so they can get what they want in life.
Example: In the movie The Lion King directed by Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers, the baddie Scar is extremely calculating. He plots a plan to kill his brother, King Mufasa. After doing that, he blames this on his nephew, Simba.
3. Demanding
Meaning: If someone is demanding, they have very high standards and want everyone else to have these standards too.
Example: In the movie The Devil Wears Prada directed by David Frankel, the boss Miranda Presley is very demanding. She has always worked very hard, and she expects everyone else to do the same.
4. Naive
Meaning: If someone is naive, they're very innocent and have a Jack of experience in life.
Example: In the movie Elf directed by David Berenbaum, Buddy is a naive character. He’s a human who grew up in the North Pole with elves (小精灵). One day, he goes to New York City for the first time and soon realises that things are very different there.
1. Which character may help you remember the adjective “narcissistic”?| A．Buddy. | B．Gaston. | C．Miranda. | D．Scar. |
| A．Narcissistic. | B．Calculating. | C．Demanding. | D．Naive. |
| A．Teachers. | B．Moviegoers. | C．Film directors. | D．Language learners. |
