阅读试题

As more and more people speak the global languages of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today willlikely die out by the next century, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations—UNESCO and National Geographic among them—have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.

Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Centre Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oraltraditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.

Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India , Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.

At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials—including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes—which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection.

Now, through the two organizations that he has founded –the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project—Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to scholars but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.

阅读试题

32. Many scholars are making efforts to 　　　　　　.

A. promote global languages 　

B. rescue disappearing languages

C. search for language communities

D. set up language research organizations.

33. What does "that tradition' in Paragraph 3 refer to ?

A. Having full records of the languages

B. Writing books on language teaching.

C. Telling stories about language users

D. Living with the native speaker.

34. What is Turin's book based on?

A. The cultural studies 　　

B. The documents available at Yale.

C. His language research in Bhutan.

D. His personal experience in Nepal.

35. Which of the following best describe Turin's work?

A. Write, sell and donate. 　　

B. Record, repair and reward.

C. Collect, protect and reconnect.

D. Design, experiment and report.

参考译文

随着越来越多的人说英语、汉语、西班牙语以及阿拉伯语这些全球性语言，其他的一些语言正迅速消失。事实上，根据联合国教科文组织的研究，当下的六七千种语言中有一半有可能会在下个世纪消失。

为了阻止语言的消失，来自联合国教科文组织和国家地理组织的许多学者多年来一直在纪录那些濒临消失的语言及其所反映出来的文化。

专研喜马拉雅语言及其口语传统的耶鲁大学麦克米伦中心的科学家马克•都灵一直遵循这一传统。在他最近出版的书《泰语语法：包含其使用者和文化的民族学派语言学介绍》，源于他在尼泊尔的一个小村庄的生活经历，工作经历以及养家的经历。

对于都灵而言，记录Thangmi语言和文化仅仅只是一个起点，他还探求横跨喜马拉雅的其他地区的语言文化及口语传统，包括印度、尼泊尔、不丹和中国。但他并不满足于在这些没有记录的声音消失之前记录下它们。

在剑桥大学，都灵发现了大量的重要资料，包括照片、电影、磁带录音和专业笔记，它们都未曾被研究过，也亟需关心和保护。

现在，通过这两个组织，都灵建立了数字喜马拉雅项目和世界口头文学项目，并发起了一场运动，使这些文件出现在世界各地的图书馆和商店，它们不仅仅对学者开放，还对材料收集源头的社会年轻一代开放。都灵指出，得益于数字技术和覆盖广泛的互联网，濒危语言得以留存，语言社区得以重构。

答案解析

32. B 细节理解题。根据文中第二段可知，来自许多组织的学者多年以来致力于拯救正在消失的语言。

33. A 代词指代题。根据文中第三段可知，此处是指Turin所作的关于语言的所有记录。

34. D 细节理解题。根据文中第三段最后一句可知，Turin所出版的书籍主要是以自己在尼泊尔的亲身经历为基础的。

35. C 推理判断题。根据文中第五、六段可知，Turin的工涉及搜集、保护语言文件资料及将正在消失的语言与其他形式的语言相融合。