专业英语八级词汇语法考生拟试题(2)
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.
Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this (36), every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.
To the professional anthropologist (人类学家), there is no intrinsic(37)of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy(等级制度) among languages.
People once thought of the languages of backward groups as (38) and undeveloped forms of speech,consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "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(39)of ideas. They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or(40 )structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which41the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however,two things are to be noted: 1. All languages seem to(42)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 requiring names and distinctions in"backward" languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly(43)and complicated.
This study of language, in turn, (44)a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed(45), and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.
A. savage
B. superiority
C. conceive
D. transfer
E. identification
F.grammatical
G. reflect
H. reveals
I. numerous
J . independently
K. exclusive
L. casts
M. sense
N. confidentially
O. possess
文化是人类某一特定群体所有传统、风俗、信仰及生活方式的总和。从这种[36]意义上说,每个群体都有一种文化,不管在我们看来,它是多么野蛮、不发达或未开化。
对于专业的人类学家而言,没有哪种文化在本质上比另一种[37]优越,这就像对于专业的语言学家而言。语言之间并没有内在的等级一样。
人们曾经认为落后群体的语言就是[38]野蛮的、不发达的言语形式,主要包括咕哝和呻吟。尽管一般来说,语言有可能是以一系列的咕哝和呻吟的形式开始的,但是,通过对“落后”语言的研究证实,今天没有哪种语言符合这种描述。按照我们的最严格标准来讲,作为[39]传递思想的工具,多数未开化人群的语言极其复杂、缜密,并具有独创性。这些语言在语音模式或[40]语法结构上通常能完全满足语言的所有需求,并不落后于我们西方的语言,比我们落后的只是[41]反映这些说话者所知物体及活动的词汇。然而,即使是在这方面,也有两点值得一提:1.所有语言都[42]拥有拓展词汇的机制,要么是通过将现存词汇组合在一起来拓展,要么是通过从其他语言中借入一些词并将其改造以适应自身体系来实现。2.在这些[43]“落后的”语言中,尽管那些需要名字及区分的物体及活动与我们不同,它们却都经常是多得出奇、复杂得出奇。
对于语言的研究反过来让人们对人类学家的断言——所有的文化都该被[45]独立看待,而不该带着等级观念去看待——[44]有了新的认识。