Read carefully the following excerpt on the decline of dialects and then write your response in NO LESS THAN 200 words, in which you should: summarize the main message of the excerpt, and then comment on the significance of protecting dialects. You should support yourself with information from the excerpt. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. Is Beijing's Dialect in Need of Protection? Beijing released China's first survey on the healthiness of the capital's dialect in late May, revealing that students in middle schools know less and less about it. Therefore, Beijing has begun to try to open courses on this and related cultural activities on campus, with a view to protecting and spreading the local tongue. The decline of dialects is not a problem unique to Beijing; all dialects across the country are being squeezed out by Putonghua. In recent years, Putonghua has spread smoothly across the country. A substantial number of middle and primary schools stipulate that students should not speak dialects within schools. Some schools even demand that students speak Putonghua at home, so that they can help their parents to do so too. In the past decades, due to urbanization and migration, Putonghua has been accepted by a vast majority of Chinese people. Will the rise of Putonghua inevitably lead to the demise of local dialects? Is it possible to push forward dialect education in primary and middle schools? The significance of Putonghua is undeniable, as it makes communication among people from around China easy and efficient. If people all speak their local dialects, they'll find it almost impossible to understand each other. However, the importance of dialects is also clear. They are the carriers of local culture and history, and their disappearance will diminish the exclusive characteristics of local societies.
【正确答案】正确答案： The Significance of Protecting Dialects Recently, the smooth spread of Mandarin has led to the decline of dialects across the country. This trend, on the one hand, makes communication among people all over the country easier and more efficient. On the other hand, it undermines the position of local dialects that carry local culture and history. In my opinion, protecting dialects is of vital significance, the reasons are as follows. Firstly, keeping a dialect is beneficial to the inheritance of local culture. Migrant workers throng into big cities and settle down there with their families. Gradually, they will find there is little scope for speaking their dialects when Mandarin has become the common language for them to commune with each other, therefore they will not pass on their dialect along with their local culture to their descendants. This will inevitably lead to losses of many local cultures. Secondly, dialects make people from the same region more closely connected. For example, students, who study in universities far away from home, always find themselves grouped with people of the same dialects and sharing secrets in their dialects. Thirdly, some expressions in dialects cannot find equivalence in Mandarin, and therefore keeping a dialect makes it easier and more efficients for locals to communicate. In conclusion, I think protecting dialects is of great significance.