Unit 1 Focus 最新英美报刊选读 _Unit 1 Focus Preserving Languages Is About More Than Words 最新英美报刊选读 _Unit 1 Focus Background Information Language Features Detailed

Unit 1

Focus

最新英美报刊选读 _Unit 1 Focus

Preserving Languages Is About More Than Words


Background Information

Language Features

Detailed Reading

Post-Reading

Passage 1

Organization Analysis

Warming-up Questions


Language Features新闻英语中动词的生动性

在报刊新闻中，恰到好处地使用动词，能增强报道的新鲜感、现实感和直接感。语言表述也更为生动形象。

emblazoned (on green T-shirts )

十分醒目地绘制（在绿色 T 恤衫） echoing (through pubs) （在酒吧中）回响 launched (an online atlas of endangered languages）首次推出（濒危语言在线地图册） labeling (more than 2,400 at risk of extinction)

标注（ 2 ， 400 多种濒临消失的语言） partnering （ with National Geographic）（与国家地理杂志）联手 (when hunter-gatherers) transitioned (to agriculture)

（当采猎）转向（农业时）用（ using digital equipment to ） document ( their elders'

voices)

（使用数码设备 ) 记录（长辈的声音）

本文中使用生动的动词举例：本文中使用生动的动词举例：

• dive from the car

• 纵身跳下… （强调动作之利落）• rocket down a side street

• 飞驰… （形容速度之快，犹如火箭一般）• A 4-foot Santa Claus doll towers over the cash register. …

远远高过…（强调高大程度）• Vans of well-meaning doctors regularly barrel down from

San Antonio and Houston

• … 飞奔… （形容行驶速度极高且无法控制）• The central bus station lay in ruins, still choked with the

wrecks of several buses.

• … 塞满…（强调废墟中残骸之众多和凌乱）

较为常见的且使用较好的动词：较为常见的且使用较好的动词：


　　

How many languages are endangered? Most linguists agree that there are well over 5,000 languages in the world. A century from now, many of these languages may be extinct. Some linguists believe the number may decrease by half. Some say the total could fall to mere hundreds as the majority of the world's languages— most spoken by a few thousand people or less—give way to languages like English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Arabic, Swahili, and Hindi. By some estimates, 90% of the world's languages may vanish within the next century.

Background Information


How do languages become extinct?

1. Outright genocide -- When European invaders exterminated the Tasmanians

in the early 19th century, an unknown number of languages died.

2. Languages become extinct when a community finds itself under pressure to

integrate with a larger or more powerful group.

3. The people learn the outsiders’ language in addition to their own -- in

Greenland, a territory of Denmark, Kalaallisut is learned alongside Danish.

4. The community is pressured to give up its language and even its ethnic and

cultural identity -- ethnic Kurds in Turkey, are forbidden by law to print or

formally teach their language. Younger speakers of Native American

languages, as recently as the 1960s, were punished for speaking their native

languages at boarding schools.

Background

Information


Background InformationWhat Can be done to Preserve Endangered Language

Modern Hebrew was revived as a mother tongue after centuries of being

learned and studied only in its ancient written form.

Irish has had considerable institutional and political support as the national

language of Ireland, despite major inroads by English.

In New Zealand, Maori communities established nursery schools staffed

by elders and conducted entirely in Maori, called kohangareo, 'language nests'.

In Alaska, Hawaii, and elsewhere, this model is being extended to primary

and in some cases secondary school.

In California, younger adults have become language apprentices to older

adult speakers in communities where only a few older speakers are still living.

Modern Hebrew was revived as a mother tongue after centuries of being

learned and studied only in its ancient written form.

Irish has had considerable institutional and political support as the national

language of Ireland, despite major inroads by English.

In New Zealand, Maori communities established nursery schools staffed

by elders and conducted entirely in Maori, called kohangareo, 'language nests'.

In Alaska, Hawaii, and elsewhere, this model is being extended to primary

and in some cases secondary school.

In California, younger adults have become language apprentices to older

adult speakers in communities where only a few older speakers are still living.


Look at the following pictures and the captions.

Find out the facts and the reasons

concerning the language extinction.

Why Do Languages Die Out?Why Do Languages Die Out?


Moonrise in San Antonio

a small village

in the Amazon Basin of Peru

and the last thriving Iquito community.

Trinidad Pacaya Inuma, an especialista

and one of the remaining fluent speakers

of the Iquito language.

How to conserve cultural identity

through the recording of

disappearing languages?

http://blogs.poly.edu/bsww/files/2009/03/amazing-race.png


Why Do Languages Die Out? Throughout human history, the languages of powerful groups ha

ve spread while the languages of smaller cultures have become extinct. This occurs through official language policies or through the allure that the high prestige of speaking an imperial language can bring. These trends explain, for instance, why more language diversity exists in Bolivia than on the entire European continent, which has a long history of large states and imperial powers. As big languages spread, children whose parents speak a small language often grow up learning the dominant language. Depending on attitudes toward the ancestral language, those children or their children may never learn the smaller language, or they may forget it as it falls out of use. This has occurred throughout human history, but the rate of language disappearance has accelerated dramatically in recent years.


Look at the following picture and the caption.

Discuss with your partner the possible

measures to be taken in order to preserve

languages.

What can we do What can we do

to preserve dying languages?to preserve dying languages?


Revitalization

David Harrison, Greg Anderson, and Ganesh Murmu

consult with Apatani speaker Vijay Punyo.


What can we do to preserve dying languages?• To conduct humanitarian aid work and recruit the young for

the language revitalization project.

• To express our desire to keep the indigenous culture and

language alive.

• To document endangered languages and doing all that can be

done to maintain their use.

• To approach the municipal government for help in not only

preserving the disappearing language, but also in revitalizing it.



What can we do to preserve dying languages?• To create a dictionary with all the possible entries for people to

resort to.

• To work out a concrete lesson plan for the younger generation the to use throughout the years.

• To begin teaching classes to many of the community’s children

and adults.

• To apply for funding from the Endangered Language Fund so as to pay the workers in the community.

• To let the government take action toward the extinction of their precious heritage.


最新英美报刊选读 _ Unit 10 Sports

Para.1-4 Irish has been preserved


Para.14-18 Language preservation – for or against

Para.19-21 Building pride is the key to the revival

of endangered languages

Para.15-13 Language extinction and the various ways in which the language extinguished


Part I (Para.1-4)Main Idea: Irish has been preserved Para.1 Irish, Ireland’s official language, also an endangered language, is revived now. Para.2 Irish is a core subject at school though rarely spoken at home. Para.3 The gap exists between being able to speak Irish and actually speaking every day.Para.4 Irish is to supposed to survive though half of the remaining language may extinguish.



Part II (Para.5-13) Main Idea: Language extinction and the various ways

in which the languages extinguished Para.5-6 An online atlas of endangered languages was launched with the hot spots listed . Para.7-13 Language extinguished in different ways for different reasons in different times and regions.



Main Idea: Language preservation – for or against

Para.14-15 Language preservation can be revived with the help of a committed community Para.16-17 Preservation opponents hold that not all languages should be preserved. Para.18 Preservation proponents hold that there are cultural, pragmatic and linguistic reasons to preserve languages.

Organization AnalysisPart III (Para.14-18)


Part III (Para.19-21) Main Idea: Building pride is the key to the revival of endangered languages. Para.19. Language activists are recruited to take pride in their own languages. Para.20 The pride built is the key to the resurgence of the Irish language Para.21 The fashion and the pride in speaking Irish



Detailed ReadingPassage ReadingUnderstanding

SentencesWord Study


1. As long as people feel embarrassed, restrained or openly criticized for using a particular language, it’s only natural for them to want to avoid continuing to do what’s causing a negative response, whether it’s something overt like having your mouth washed out or more subtle like discrimination.

Translation

Understanding Sentences

只要是因为使用某种特定的语言让人们感觉到尴尬，拘谨或者公然遭到谴责，那他们很自然地就想要避免继续做正在导致负面反应的事情，不管是像让你讲话变得文明这样公开的还是像歧视这样更为具体的事情。

Back to the Text


1. As long as people feel embarrassed, restrained or openly criticized for using a particular language, it’s only natural for them to want to avoid continuing to do what’s causing a negative response, whether it’s something overt like having your mouth washed out or more subtle like discrimination.

Comments


本句开始是 as long as 引导的条件状语从句， it’s only natural for them to want to… 为主句 , 先行词 it 为形式主语，真正主语为不定式结构 to want to… 。之后的主干是特殊疑问词 what 引导的宾语从句 , 后接 whether…or 引导的让步状语从句，加强语气。 Back to the

Text



examples

1) One difficulty is that almost all of what is called behavioral science continues to trace behavior to states of mind, feelings, traits of character, human nature, and so on.

(what is called behavioral science 是 what 引导的宾语从句，相当于 the things that is called behavioral science 。 )

2) More generally, the escape clauses could undermine the

reforms by encouraging the suspicion that the new package will not deliver the changes that its supporters claim, but close analysis of what is inevitable a very complicated package might confirm the skeptics’ fears.

（介词 of 加 what 名词从句构成特殊介词短语，作analysis 的后置定语， what 从句本质上是介词 of 的宾语从句）


2. The Living Tongues Institute recruits youth who are not fluent in their traditional tongue to become “language activists,” using digital equipment to document their elders’ voices and learn the language themselves.

Translation 活语言研究所招聘那些讲其传统语言不够流利的年轻人，将其培训成为英语保护者，并且能够使用电子设备来记录他们长辈的声音，同时自己学习这种语言。

Comment

Back to the Text


本句中包含一个 who 引导的定语从句，修饰前面的名词 youth , 表示对前面句子内容进行补充说明。现在分词短语 using… 作定语，修饰 language activists, 相当于定语从句。



examples

1 ） Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find

reserves of strength that will endure as long as life exists.

2 ） Foreigners who understand the degree to which

Americans are imbued with the notion that the free, self-

reliant individual is the ideal kind of human being will be

able to understand many aspects of American behavior and

thinking that otherwise might not make sense.


3. In the United States and Australia in past decades, the government forced native peoples to abandon their languages through vehicles such as boarding schools that punished youth for speaking a traditional tongue.

Translation

Comments


Back to the Text

在过去几十年中，在美国和澳大利亚，政府通过诸如惩罚年轻人讲传统语言的寄宿学校来迫使当地各个原住民族放弃他们的语言。

本句包含一个由关系代词 that 引导的非限制性定语从句。主语是 the government, 谓语为动词短语forced…to abandon…, 介词词组 through

vehicles 为方式状语。


Understanding Sentencesexamples

1) The Maintenance of Parental Bill was put forth to encourage the traditional virtues that have so far kept Asian nations from some of the breakdown encountered in other affluent societies.

(that 引导的定语从句指代前面的 the traditional virtues)

2) Many Americans do not display the degree of respect for their parents that people in more traditional or family-oriented societies commonly display.

(that 引导的定语从句修饰前面的 the degree of respect)


4. Many indigenous communities have in their native

tongues vast repositories of knowledge about medicinal herbs, information that could provide clues to modern cures.

Translation

Comments

许多土著群族在其本族语种留存着有关草药的大量知识，这些信息可以为现代治疗提供线索。

Back to the Text


information that could provide clues to modern cures 为 vast repositories of knowledge about medicinal herbs 的同位语，其后是由关系代词 that 引导的后置定语从句，对主句进行补充说明。


Understanding Sentencesexamples

1) That concept implies educational opportunity for all children — the right of each child to receive help in learning to the limits of his or her capacity, whether that capacity be small or great.

（ the right 是 opportunity 的同位语，其后为后置定语。之后是 whether 引导的让步状语从句）

2 ） If the small hot spots look as expected, that will be a triumph for yet another scientific idea, a refinement of the Big Bang called the inflationary universe theory.

(a refinement of the Big Bang 是 a triumph for yet another scientific idea 的同位语）


Word Study

1. emblazon v. （ Para. 1） print, draw or decorate sth. with a design/ a symbol or words so that people will notice it easily 用鲜艳颜色印制、绘制、装饰 emblazon A with B. emblazon B on A

baseball cap emblazoned with the team’s logo 印有球队标志的棒球帽 The team’s logo was emblazoned on the baseball cap. 球队的标志印在了棒球帽上。

Back to the Text


2. extinct adj. (Para. 5) 1) (of a type of plant, animal, language, etc. ) no longer in existence 灭绝，绝种，消失 an extinct species 濒临灭绝的物种 become extinct 开始消逝

2) (of a type of person, custom, job or way of life) no longer in

existence because society has changed 不复存在，消失 Servants are now almost extinct in modern society.

如今佣人在现代社会中几乎消失了。

3) (of a volcano) no longer active

extinct volcano 死火山

Back to the Text

Word Study


extinction n. a tribe threatened with / in danger of extinction 濒临消失的部落 plans to save the mining industry from extinction 拯救快要消失的采矿业的计划

Back to the Text

Word Study

extinguish v.

Firefighters tried to extinguish the flames.

消防队员奋力救火。 News of the bombing extinguished all hope of peace.

轰炸的消息使和平的希望全部破灭。

extinguish v.

Firefighters tried to extinguish the flames.

消防队员奋力救火。 News of the bombing extinguished all hope of peace.

轰炸的消息使和平的希望全部破灭。


3. aggregate v. (Para.8) 1) aggregate sth. with sth.

to add amounts together, to amount to, total 总计达 The scores were aggregated with the first rounds totals to

decide the winner.

此次得分与第一轮所得总分合计决出优胜者。

2) to gather into a whole or mass, to put things together in a group

使聚集，使积聚 The data were aggregated for reference. 资料汇集以作参考。

Word Study


4. aboriginal adj. (Para.12)1) relating to the original people living in Australia 澳大利亚土著的 the issue of Aboriginal land rights 澳大利亚土著土地权问题2) relating to the people or animals that have lived in a place or country

since the earliest times 土著的；土生土长的 the aboriginal inhabitants of the island 岛上的原住民 the aboriginal peoples of Canada 加拿大土著 aboriginal culture / art 土著文化 / 艺术 rel. origin n. 开端 , 起源 original adj. 原始的 , 最早的 originate v. 发端 , 起源

Word Study


5. indigenous adj. (Para.13)

1) belonging to a particular place rather than coming to it from

somewhere else ( 人 ) 本地的；当地的

Syn. native

the indigenous people of the area 该地区的本地人 2) Indigenous plants and animals belong to a region because they

developed there ( 动、植物）原产地的；土生土长的

The Kangaroo is indigenous to Australia. 袋鼠原产于澳大利亚。

Word Study


6. immortal adj. (Para. 16)

1) living, lasting, existing for ever 永生的；永存的 The soul is immortal. 灵魂永存。2) famous and likely to be remembered forever 流芳百世的 In the immortal words of Henry Ford,“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”

亨利 · 福特的不朽名言：“如果没有坏掉就不要去修理。 immortal n. 1) a person who is so famous that they will be remembered for ever

不朽的人物，万古流芳的人物 She is one of the Hollywood immortals.

她是好莱坞千古流芳的一个人物。 2) a god or other being who is believed to live for ever

永生之神 ( 复数 ) 指古希腊、罗马神话中的诸神）Back to the Text

Word Study


7.proponent n. (Para. 18)

1 ） a person who publicly and actively espouses or supports an idea, policy, plan, a cause or course of action etc. 拥护者；倡导者 Halsey was identified as a leading proponent of the values of progressive education. 赫尔赛作为循序渐进教育的主要倡导者而为人所知。 2 ） a person who make a proposal or proposition 提议者，主张者 pro- in favor of; supporting 拥护；支持；赞成；亲善 e.g. pro-democracy 拥护民主 pro-European 亲欧洲的

Word Study

Syn. advocateAnt. opponent


8. pragmatic adj. (Para. 18) solving problem in a practical and sensible way

讲求实际的，注重实效的，务实的

He found a pragmatic approach to management problems.

他找到了解决管理问题的实用方法。 He is a pragmatic world leader .

他是个实干的世界领导。

Back to the Text

Word Study


9. linguistics n. （ Para. 18） the scientific study of the structure, development, etc. of language or of a particular language 语言学

English linguistics 英语语言学 applied linguistics 应用语言学 psychological linguistics 心理语言学 comparative linguistics 比较语言学 computational linguistics 计算机语言学 structural linguistics 结构语言学

Word Study


Word Study

linguistic adj. 语言学的 linguistic and cultural barrier 语言和文化上的障碍

A child’s innate linguistic ability 儿童的先天语言能力linguist n. 通晓数国语言的人；语言学家

She is an excellent linguist. 她精通数国语言。 I’m afraid I’m no linguist. 对不起，我不懂外语。bilingual adj. 会说两种语言的 bilingual education 双语教育 bilingual dictionary 双语教育


10. resurgence. v. (Para.20)

The start of sth. again that quickly increases in influence, effect, etc. the return and growth of an activity that has stopped

复兴，兴起 , 复活 + of e.g a resurgence of nationalism 民族主义再次兴起 + in e.g the evidence of a resurgence in spending just

before Christmas 圣诞节前夕再次出现的消费高的迹象 Police say drugs traffickers are behind the resurgence of violence.

警方称就在暴力再次出现之后就有贩毒者。 a period of economic resurgence 一个时期的经济复苏

Word Study


Post-Reading

1. Comprehension2. Translation

3. Question on the Article


1. Comprehension

1. Traditional Irish language is ____________________.

A.a remaining language which has been kept alive in

today’s society.

B. an official tongue which has been used by most Irish

adults and children

C. a hidden culture which has been discovered in most

cities in Ireland

D. a core subject which has been taught in Irish schools

and universities


1. Comprehension

2. According to the experts, ______________________.

A.almost all endangered languages are regarded as

extinct

B. more than 2,400 languages are forced to disappear

C. many small languages are bound to be removed

D.around 3,500 remaining languages are likely to die

out


3. Director of the Living Tongues Institute said that________.

A.larger languages developed if larger population groups

aggregated

B.little languages would die if small language groups were

C.dominated

C. little languages would be popular if it was in the pre-

agricultural state

D.small languages would be wiped out if global migration

existed


4. President of the Endangered Language Fund_________.

A. disagreed that all languages should be preserved and

revived

B. thought that extinct languages was not at all easy to be

recovered

C.said that a really indigenous community would be of

great help

D.considered it natural for all languages to change and

disappear over time.


5. Which of the following is key to language preservation?

______________________________

A.Give grants to language-preservation projects.

B. Document indigenous people’s voices.

C. Build up pride in the youth in their native tongue.

D. Bring up children from birth in the second language.

1) 语言保存倡导者说，拯救消失中的语言有文化和务实的原因。

2) 语言保存也是语言学的关键，它可以提供一个通往大脑活动的窗口。

3) 语言消亡是一种现象，从农业开始出现，至少 10 ， 000 年

。

Preserving languages is also key to the field of

linguistics, which could offer a window into the

workings of the brain.

Language extinction has been a phenomenon for at least 10,000 years, since the dawn of agriculture.


2. Translation

Preservation proponents say there are cultural

and pragmatic reasons to save dying

languages.

4) 当我们因为自己对这些群体所做的事情致使原住民语言濒危时，才是真正的原因。

5) 上个月联合国教科文组织发布了濒危语言在线地图册，标示了 2 ， 400 多种濒临消亡的语言。

When we have indigenous languages in danger because of what we’ve done to these communities, that’s the real reason.

Last month, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

launched an online atlas of endangered languages, labeling more than 2,400 at risk of extinction.


1) Why preserving languages is about more

than words?

2) In what way can endangered languages

survive?


3. Question on the Article


Thanks for Your Thanks for Your Attention!Attention!

Documents

Unit 1 Focus 最新英美报刊选读 _Unit 1 Focus Preserving Languages Is About More Than Words 最新英美报刊选读 _Unit 1 Focus Background Information Language Features Detailed