六级拔高2

拔高1答案

  1. b
  2. d
  3. b
  4. a
  5. d
  6. c

匹配

a chimpanzee linguistics evolutionary civilized
a species of ape the study of language relating to the way in which living things develop over millions of years socially advanced and developed
to mutate DNA innate an artefact
to change into something different a chemical that carries genetic information existing in us since birth; natural rather than learned an object made by a human, especially one that is of historical interest

正文

1.

Thanks to the field of linguistics we know much about the development of the 5,000 plus languages in existence today. We can describe their grammar and pronunciation and see how their spoken and written forms have changed over time. For example, we understand the origins of the Indo-European group of languages, which includes Norwegian, Hindi and English, and can trace them back to tribes in eastern Europe in about 3000 BC. So, we have mapped out a great deal of the history of language, but there are still areas we know little about. Experts are beginning to look to the field of evolutionary biology to find out how the human species developed to be able to use language. So far, there are far more questions and half-theories than answers.

articulate 口齿清晰的，语言流利的

trace back to 追溯到

map out 绘制出

2.

We know that human language is far more complex than that of even our nearest and most intelligent relatives like chimpanzees. We can express complex thoughts, convey subtle emotions and communicate about abstract concepts such as past and future. And we do this following a set of structural rules, known as grammar. Do only humans use an innate system of rules to govern the order of words? Perhaps not, ass some research may suggest dolphins share this capability because they are able to recognise when these rules are broken.

capability 能力

capacity 容量

3.

If we want to know where our capability for complex language came from, we need to look at how our brains are different from other animals. This relates to more than just brain size it is important what other things our brains can do and when and why they evolved that way. And for this there are very few physical clues; artefacts left by our ancestors don’t tell us what speech they were capable of making. One thing we can see in the remains of early humans, however, is the development of the mouth, throat and tongue. By about 100,000 years ago, humans had evolved the ability to create complex sounds. Before that, evolutionary biologists can only guess whether or not early humans communicated using more basic sounds.

complex - complicated - sophisticated

Odipus complex 俄狄浦斯情结

complex 综合建筑

vowel - consonant

4.

Another question is, what is it about human brains that allowed language to evolve in a way that it did not in other primates? At some point, our brains be came able to make our mouths produce vowel and consonant sounds, and we developed the capacity to invent words to name things around us. These were the basic ingredients for complex language. The next change would have been to put those words into sentences, similar to the ‘protolanguage’ children use when they first learn to speak. No one knows if the next step - adding grammar to signal past, present and future, for example, or plurals and relative clauses - required a further development in the human brain or was simply a response to our increasingly civilised way of living together.

homo sapiens 人类

primate 灵长类

invent 发明

ingredient 成分，材料

没有人知道下一步——例如，添加语法来表示过去、现在和未来，或者复数和关系从句——是需要人类大脑的进一步发展，还是仅仅是对我们日益文明的共同生活方式的一种回应。

5.

Between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, though, we start to see the evidence of early human civilisation, through cave paintings for example; no one knows the connection between this and language. Brains didn’t suddenly get bigger, yet humans did become more complex and more intelligent. Was it using language that caused their brains to develop? Or did their more complex brains start producing language?

More questions lie in looking at the influence of genetics on brain and language development. Are there genes that mutated and gave us language ability? Researchers have found a gene mutation that occurred between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, which seems to have a connection with speaking and how our brains control our mouths and face. Monkeys have a similar gene, but it did not undergo this mutation. It’s too early to say how much influence genes have on language, but one day the answers might be found in our DNA.

cave 山洞

occur = happen

undergo 经历

问题

A. What we know

B. How unique are we

C. The physical evidence

D. How linguistic capacity evolved

E. The tiny change that may seperate us from monkeys

  1. Experts fully understand how the Hindi language developed…
  2. The grammar of dolphin language follows the same rules as human
    language.
  3. Brain size is not the only factor in determining language capability.
  4. The language of very young children has something in common with the way our prehistoric ancestors may have spoken.
  5. When people started using complex language, their brains got bigger.
  6. The role of genetics in language capacity is not yet clear.