問題詳情
Questions 51-55 Inter-language switching, once the pariah of language learners, is now an eminently respectable partof both bilingual language performance and linguistic analysis. Switching involves the use of more thanone language code or system in an utterance. Such inter-language switching is endemic, creative andpopular in many of the Outer Circle communities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. In places likeSingapore, it may routinely involve three languages or even more—in Singapore that means especiallyEnglish, Chinese and Malay. Most studies of switching are concerned with the forms of languages. This can be phonological, ashappens when we swap from authentic to foreign pronunciation. It can be morphological, for instance inthe unstable realization of the plural in Asian Englishes in public signs. Such forms may well becomeeither standard or fully accepted variants respectively in Macao and Malaysia. As things stand at present,however, this use (or not) of the plural is not standard, and constitutes switching or cross-code interference. Switching requires that both speakers share sufficient knowledge of two or more shared languages. Itis also typically asymmetrical, in that one speaker will be more competent than the other, or that onespeaker will make more accommodation than the other. This may involve the negotiation and choice of thelanguage which the two speakers best share for communication, or it may involve the selection of languageforms appropriate to the language level of both, and especially the weaker speaker. Switching is therefore acommunicative strategy. It is often deliberate and strategic, as when a stronger speaker accommodates to aless competent interlocutor. But it can also be motivated by language gaps, when a speaker lacks commandof language forms for a particular task of communication. And with really competent bilinguals switchescan be part of competent, witty, expressive interpersonal communication, where the enjoyment andexploitation of language resources seem to emerge naturally, rapidly, and seamlessly in the flow ofcommunication. Bilingual children do this with particular ease and unconscious grace. Switching is anatural part of finding appropriate expression for a message.
【題組】D 51. What is the primary purpose of this passage?
(A) To define inter-language switching.
(B) To ban inter-language switching among bilingual children.
(C) To promote inter-language switching among bilingual children.
(D) To introduce inter-language switching.
參考答案
答案：D
難度：簡單0.761905
統計：A(0),B(1),C(4),D(16),E(0)