英语四级阅读理解训练附答案和精讲
Sign has become a scientific hot button. Only in the past 20 years have specialists in languagestudy realized that signed languages are unique—a speech of the hand. They offer a new wayto probe how the brain generates and understands language, and throw new light on an oldscientific controversy: whether language,complete with grammar, is something that we areborn With, or whether it is a learned behavior. The current interest in sign language has rootsin the pioneering work of one rebel teacher at Galla udet University in Washington, D. C., theworld’s only liberal arts university for deaf people.
dufWhen Bill Stokoe went to Gallaudet to teach English, the school enrolled him in a cour insigning. But Stokoe noticed something odd: among themlves, students signed differentlyfrom his classroom teacher.
gotta have you歌词Stokoe had been taught a sort of gestural code, each movement of the hands reprenting aword in English.At the time, American Sign Language (ASL) was thought to be no more than aform of pidgin English (混杂英语). But Stokoe believed the “hand talk”his students ud lookedricher. He wondered: Might
deaf people actually: have a genuine language? And could thatlanguage be unlike any other on Earth? It was 1955, wheneven deaf people dismisd theirsigning as“substandard”. Stokoe’s idea was academic heresy (异端邪说).
It is 37 years later. Stokoe—now devoting his time to writing and editing books and journalsand to producing video materials on ASL and the deaf culture—is having lunch at a cafe near theGallaudet campus and explaining how he started a revolution. For decades educators foughthis idea that signed languages are natural languages like English, French and Japane. Theyassumed language must be bad on speech, the modulation (调节) of sound. But signlanguage is bad on the movement of hands, the modulation of space. “What I said,” Stokoeexplains, “is that language is not mouth stuff—it’s brain stuff.”
练习题：
Choo correct answers to the question:
1. The study of sign language is thought to be ________.
befourA. a new way to look at the learning of language
双11是什么节. a challenge to traditional, views on the nature of language
C. an approach: to simplifying the grammatical structure of
a language
D. an attempt to clarify misunderstanding about the origin of language
2. The prent growing interest in sign language was stimulated by ______
_.
A. a famous scholar in the study of the human brain
B. a leading specialist in the study of liberal arts
C. an English teacher in a university for the deaf
D. some nior experts in American Sign Language
3. According to Stokoe, sign language is ________.
A. a Substandard language
B. a genuine language
大家好的英文C. an artificial language
D. an international language
4. Most ed ucators objected to Stokoe’s idea becau they thought ________.
A. sign language was not extensively ud even by deaf people
B. sign language was too artificial to be widely accepted
C. a language should be easy to u and understand
maxonD. a language could only exist in the form of speech sounds
5. Stokoe’s argument is bad on his belief that ________.
A. sign language is as efficient as any other language
B. sign language is derived from natural language
C. language is a system of meaningful codes
摩登家庭大结局
D. language is a product of the brain
1.[B] 从文章第3句“手语提供了一种新方法，用以探索大脑如何产生和理解语言，并为一个长期以来的科学争端——语言(连同语法)究竟是我们与生俱来的，还是一种我们后天学会的行为——提出了新的解释”可以看出，这是对语言的性质的传统观点的挑战，即B 。A错在learning，文章并不是在讨论语言的学习，而是语言的产生和理解;C为简单原词干扰D；中的an attempt to clarify misunderstanding是对throw new light onan old scientific controversy的曲解，因为controversy不等于misunderstanding。另外，第1段最后一句中的rebel“反叛”一词也与B中的“挑战”一致。
2.[C] 根据第1段最后一句可知，选C。题干中的was stimulated相当于原文中的has roots in。
acre
3.[B] 根据第3段第2—4句以及最后一段第3句，可知B为答案。前者提出猜想(Might deaf people actuallyhave a genuine language?)，后者含有一个同位语his idea that signed languagescontract
are naturallanguages。
4.[D] 根据最后一段第4句，可知D正确。D中的only exist in the form of speech sounds是对原文中bebad on speech的同义表达。panelist
5.[D] 根据文章最后一句，可知D正确。D中的a product of the brain是对原文中brain stuff的同义表达。B中的derived from 错误，因为Stokoe认为sign language就是一种natural language。
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