大学党员名额-大学党员名额
UNIT 7
Learning about
English
Part I Pre-Reading
Task
Listen to the recording two or
three times and then think over the following
questions:
1. What is the passage
about?
2. What's your impression of the
English language?
3. Can you give one or
two examples to illustrate（说明）the messiness of the
English language?
4. Can you guess what the
texts in this unit are going to be
about?
The following words in the
recording may be new to
you:
eggplant
n.
茄子
pineapple
n.
菠萝
hamburger
n.
汉堡牛肉饼，汉堡包
Part II
Text
A
Some languages resist the
introduction of new words. Others, like English,
seem to welcome them. Robert MacNeil looks at the
history of English and comes to the conclusion
that its tolerance for change represents deeply
rooted ideas of freedom.
THE
GLORIOUS MESSINESS OF
ENGLISH
Robert
MacNeil
The story of our English
language is typically one of massive stealing from
other languages. That is why English today has an
estimated vocabulary of over one million words,
while other major languages have far
fewer.
French, for example, has only about
75,000 words, and that includes English
expressions like snack bar and hit parade. The
French, however, do not like borrowing foreign
words because they think it corrupts their
language. The government tries to ban words from
English and declares that walkman is not
desirable; so they invent a word, balladeur, which
French kids are supposed to say instead — but they
don't.
Walkman is fascinating because
it isn't even English. Strictly speaking, it
was invented by the Japanese manufacturers who put
two simple English words together to name their
product. That doesn't bother us, but it does
bother the French. Such is the glorious messiness
of English. That happy tolerance, that willingness
to accept words from anywhere, explains the
richness of English and why it has become, to a
very real extent, the first truly
globallanguage.
How did the language of a
small island off the coast of Europe become the
language of the planet — more widely spoken and
written than any other has ever been? The history
of English is present in the first words a child
learns about identity (I, me, you); possession
(mine, yours); the body (eye, nose, mouth); size
(tall, short); and necessities (food, water).
These words all come from Old English or Anglo-
Saxon English, the core of our language. Usually
short and direct, these are words we still use
today for the things that really matter to
us.
Great speakers often use Old English to
arouse our emotions. For example, during World War
II, Winston Churchill made this speech, stirring
the courage of his people against Hitler's
armies positioned to cross the English Channel:
"W
e shall fight on the beaches, we
shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight
in the fields
and in the streets, we
shall fight in the hills. We shall never
surrender."
Virtually every one of
those words came from Old English, except the last
— surrender, which came from Norman French.
Churchill could have said, "We shall never
give in," but it is one of the lovely — and
powerful — opportunities of English that a writer
can mix, for effect, different words from
different backgrounds. Yet there is something
direct to the heart that speaks to us from the
earliest words in our language.
When Julius
Caesar invaded Britain in 55 B.C., English did not
exist. The Celts, who inhabited the land, spoke
languages that survive today mainly as Welsh.
Where those languages came from is still a
mystery, but there is a theory.
Two
centuries ago an English judge in India noticed
that several words in Sanskrit closely resembled
some words in Greek and Latin. A systematic study
revealed that many modern languages descended from
a commonparent language, lost to us because
nothing was written down.
Identifying
similar words, linguists have come up with what
they call an Indo-European parent language, spoken
until 3500 to 2000 B.C. These people had common
words for snow, bee and wolf but no word for sea.
So some scholars assume they lived somewhere in
north-central Europe, where it was cold. Traveling
east, some established the languages of India and
Pakistan, and others drifted west toward the
gentler climates of Europe, Some who made the
earliest move westward became known as the Celts,
whom Caesar's armies found in
Britain.
New words came with the Germanic
tribes — the Angles, the Saxons, etc. — that
slipped across the North Sea to settle in Britain
in the 5th century. Together they formed what we
call Anglo-Saxon society.
The Anglo-Saxons
passed on to us their farming vocabulary,
including sheep, ox, earth, wood, field and work.
They must have also enjoyed themselves because
they gave us the word laughter.
The next
big influence on English was Christianity. It
enriched the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary with some 400
to 500 words from Greek and Latin, including
angel, disciple and martyr.
Then into this
relatively peaceful land came the Vikings from
Scandinavia. They also brought to English many
words that begin with sk, like sky and skirt. But
Old Norse and English both survived, and so you
can rear a child (English) or raise a child
(Norse). Other such pairs survive: wish and want,
craft and skill, hide and skin. Each such addition
gave English more richness, more
variety.
Another flood of new vocabulary
occurred in 1066, when the Normans conquered
England. The country now had three languages:
French for the nobles, Latin for the churches and
English for the common people. With three
languages competing, there were sometimes
different terms for the same thing. For example,
Anglo-Saxons had the word kingly, but
after the Normans, royal and sovereign
entered the language
as
alternatives. The extraordinary thing was that
French did not replace English. Over three
centuries English gradually swallowed French, and
by the end of the 15th century what had developed
was a modified, greatly enriched language — Middle
English — with about 10,000 "borrowed"
French words.
Around 1476 William Caxton
set up a printing press in England and started a
communications revolution. Printing brought into
English the wealth of new thinking that sprang
from the European Renaissance. Translations of
Greek and Roman classics were poured onto the
printed page, and with them thousands of Latin
words like capsule and habitual, and Greek words
like catastrophe and thermometer. Today we still
borrow from Latin and Greek to name new
inventions, like video, television and
cyberspace.
As settlers landed in North
America and established the United States, English
found itself with two sources — American and
British. Scholars in Britain worried that the
language was out of control, and some wanted to
set up an academy to decide which words were
proper and which were not. Fortunately their idea
has never been put into practice.
That
tolerance for change also represents deeply rooted
ideas of freedom. Danish scholar Otto Jespersen
wrote in 1905, "The English language would
not have been what it is if the English had not
been for centuries great respecters of the
liberties of each individual and if everybody had
not been free to strike out new paths for
himself."
I like that idea. Consider
that the same cultural soil producing the English
language also nourished the great principles of
freedom and rights of man in the modern world. The
first shoots sprang up in England, and they grew
stronger in America. The English-speaking peoples
have defeated all efforts to build fences around
their language.
Indeed, the English
language is not the special preserve of
grammarians, language police, teachers, writers or
the intellectual elite. English is, and always has
been, the tongue of the common
man.
(1155
words)
New Words and
Expressions
messiness
n.
杂乱状况
messy
a.
massive
a. large in
scale, amount, or degree
大量的，大规模的
vocabulary
n.
词汇（量）
snack▲
n. a small
meal 快餐，点心
snack
bar
快餐柜，小吃店
parade
n.
游行；阅兵队列
hit parade
a weekly
listing of the current best-selling pop records
流行唱片目录
corrupt▲
vt. cause
errors to appear in; cause to act dishonestly in
return for personal gains
讹用，使（语言）变得不标准；腐蚀，贿赂
ban
vt.
forbid (sth.) officially
禁止，取缔
walkman
n. a small
cassette player 随身听
strictly speaki
ng
严格地讲
invent
vt.
发明
invention
n.
fascinating
a. of
great interest or attraction
迷人的，有极大吸引力的
manufacturer
n.
制造商
product
n. 产品
<
/p>
tolerance
n.
容忍，宽容；忍耐
to a (very real, certain,
etc.) extent
to the degree specified
在（极大，某种）程度上
necessity
n.
必需品；必要（性）
Anglo-Saxon
n.
盎格鲁—萨克逊人
arouse
vt. provoke
(a particular feeling or attitude)
唤起，激起
channel
n.
海峡；渠道；频道
surrender
v. give
in 投降
virtually
ad. for the
most part, almost
差不多，几乎
invade
vt. enter
with armed forces
侵入，侵略
Celt
n.
凯尔特人
inhabit▲
vt. live in
(a place) 居住于
Welsh
a., n.
威尔士语（的），威尔士人的
mystery
n.
神秘的事物
Sanskrit
n.
梵语
resemble
vt. be like or
similar to 与…相似
Greek
n.
希腊语
Latin
n.
拉丁语
systematic
a. done
according to a system
有系统的
descend
vi. come down
(from a source); go down
起源于；下来
linguist
n. a
person who studies languages
语言学家
Indo-European
a.
印欧语系的
wolf
n.
狼
scholar
n.
学者
establish
vt. cause to
be, set up 建立，确立
drift
vi.
move or go somewhere in a slow casual way
漂泊
climate
n. (an area or
a region with) a regular pattern of weather
conditions 气候（区）
Germanic
a.
日耳曼（人）的，日耳曼语的，德国（人）的
tribe▲
n. 部落
pass (sth.) on to
(sb.)
hand or give (sth.) to (sb.)
将…传给…
influence
n.
影响
Christianity
n.
基督教
Christian
a.
基督教的
n.
基督教徒
disciple
n.
信徒，门徒
martyr
n.
殉难者，烈士
Norse
n.
（古）斯堪的纳维亚语
addition
n. a
person or thing added
增加的人（或物）
Norman
n., a. 诺曼人（的
），诺曼语（的），诺曼文化的
conquer
v.
take possession and control by force; defeat
征服
kingly
a.
国王（般）的
royal
a.
国王或女王的；皇家的
sovereign▲
a.
(of power) without limit, highest; (of a nation)
fully independent 拥有最高统治权的，至高无上的；拥有主权的
alternative
n. one of two or more
possibilities
供选择的东西
modify
vt. change
slightly 修改，更改
enrich▲
vt.
make rich or richer; improve
使富裕，使丰富
Renaissance▲
n. （欧洲
14-16世纪的）文艺复兴
translation
n.
译本，译文；翻译
Roman
a.
古罗马的，拉丁语的
classic
n. a
work of art recognized as having lasting value
经典作品
capsule▲
n. 密封小容器；胶囊<
br>
；航天舱
habitual
a.
done as a habit, regular, usual
惯常的
catastrophe▲
n. a
sudden great disaster
大灾难
thermometer
n.
温度计
video
n., a.
录像（的）
cyberspace
n. the
notional environment in which communication over
computer networks occurs
网络空间，虚拟空间
independent
a.
not controlled by other people or
things 独立的，自主的
source
n.
源，来源
out of control
失去控制，不受约
束
academy
n.
学会，学院，研究院
fortunately
ad.
by good luck 幸运地，幸亏
put into practi
ce
将…付诸实施
Danish
a.
丹麦（人）的，丹麦语的
liberty
n.
freedom 自由
strike
out
create, produce
创造，开创
cultural
a. of or
involving culture
文化的
nourish▲
vt.
滋养，培育
preserve
n.
独占的地区或范围；禁猎地
vt. keep from harm, damage,
etc., protect; save
保护，保存
grammarian
n.
语法学家
intellectual
n., a.
知识分子（的）
elite▲
n. the
group regarded as the best
（总称）出类拔萃的人，精英
Proper
Names
Robert
MacNeil
罗伯特·麦克尼尔
Winston
Churchill
温斯顿·丘吉尔（1874 — 1965，英国政治家、首相）
Hitler
希特勒（1889 —
1945，纳粹德国元首）
Julius
Caesar
尤利乌斯·凯撒（100 — 44BC，古罗马将军、政治家）
Britain
英国
India
印度
Pakistan
巴基斯坦
Viking
（8 — 10世纪时劫掠欧洲西北海岸的）北欧海盗
Scandinavia
斯堪的纳维亚
England
英格兰
William Caxt
on
威廉·卡克斯顿（英国印刷商、翻译家）
Otto
Jespersen
奥托·叶斯柏森（1860 —
1943）
Language sense
Enhancement
1. Read aloud
paragraphs 17-19 and learn by heart.
2.
Read aloud the following
poem:
Languages
Carl
Sandbury
There are no handles upon
a language
Whereby men take hold of
it
And mark it with signs for its
remembrance.
It is a river, this
language,
Once in a thousand
years
Breaking a new course
Changing
its way to the ocean.
It is a mountain
effluvia
Moving to valleys
And from
nation to nation
Crossing borders and
mixing.
3. Read the following
quotations. Learn them by heart if you can. You
might need to look up new words in a
dictionary.
The English language is
the sea which receives tributaries from every
region under heaven.
—— Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Language ought to be the
joint creation of poets and manual
workers.
—— Georqe
Orwell
England and America are two
countries separated by the same
language.
—— Georqe Bernard
Shaw
4. Read the following joke and
see if you can tell what caused the
misunderstanding of the technician's words by
the woman. You might need to look up new words in
a dictionary.
An office technician
got a call from a user. The user told the
technician that her computer was not working. She
described the problem and the technician concluded
that the computer needed to be brought in and
serviced.
He told her to
"Unplug the power cord and bring it up here
and I will fix it."
About
fifteen minutes later she showed up at his door
with the power cord in her
hand.