单选题
American no longer expect public figures, whether in speech
or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. Nor do they
aspire to such command themselves. In his latest book, Doing Our Own Thing, the
Degradation of language and Music and why we should like, care, John Mc Whorter,
a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, sees
the triumph of 1960 scounter-culture as responsible for the decline of formal
English. But the cult of the authentic and the personal, "doing
our own thing", has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music.
While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to
paper before the 1960s, even the most well regarded writing since then has
sought to capture spoken English on the page. Equally, in poetry, the highly
personal, performative gene is the only form that could claim real liveliness.
In both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking,
spontaneity over craft. Illustrated with an entertaining array
of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. Mc Whorter
documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his
subtitle, why we should, like care. As a linguist, he acknowledges that all
varieties of human language, including non-standard ones like Black English, can
be powerfully expressive-there exists no language or dialect in the world that
cannot convey complex ideas. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no
longer think straight because we do not talk proper. Russians
have a deep love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorized
poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that
would seem old-fashioned to most English-speakers. Mr. Mc Whorter acknowledges
that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical
education reforms—he is really grieving over the loss of something beautiful
more than useful. We now take our English "on paper plates instead of china". A
shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.
单选题
According to Mc Whorter, the decline of formal English ______
A. is inevitable in radical education reforms.
B. is but all too natural in language development.
C. has caused the controversy over the counter-culture.
D. brought about changes in public attitudes in the 1960s.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 文章第二段第二句中讲到，麦克沃特认为“whom”消失是一种自然的现象，而“whom”的消失便是the decline of formal English的一个例子，B的意思是正式英语的没落在语言发展中只不过是非常自然的，与文意相符，所以B为答案，值得一提的是B中的but这里是副词，表示simply，only，merely的意思，如果将but理解为否定含义，则此题容易选错。
单选题
The word "talking" (Line 5, Paragraph 2) denotes ______