首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
It is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France,
It is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France,
admin
2010-03-25
76
问题
It is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English, something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it’s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French businessmen also have to speak English because they want to get their message out to American investors, possessors of the world’s deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the world. And for a number of reasons, they’ve decided upon English as their common tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely Latinate Aventis as the new company name -- and settled on English as the company’s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-speaking bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English’s great success to the sheer weight of its merit. It’s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more efficiently than either of its parents. What’s more, English has remained ungoverned and open to change -- foreign words, coinages, and grammatical shifts -- in a way that French, ruled by the purist Academic Francaise, has not.
So it’s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economics as to the language’s ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is that the competition- first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German -- faded with the waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world’s most important financial centre, which made English a key language for business. England’s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global reach. And as that former colony the US rose to the status of the world’s preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English. The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn’t studied English in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done. Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing, meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially lucrative new industry that had its roots in the US, so if you wanted to get in on it, you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak English well enough to carry on a conversation. That’s a lot more than those who can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don’t speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the US and British media companies that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their bets CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the Financial Times has recently launched a daily German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college students, 69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the European Union’s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English, all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European business hasn’t been all that traumatic, and it’s only going to get easier in the future.
Which of the following statements forecasts the continuous rise of English in the future?
选项
A、About half of Western Europeans are now proficient in English.
B、US and British media companies are operating in Western Europe.
C、Most secondary school students in Europe study English.
D、Most Europeans continue to use their own language.
答案
C
解析
本题问以下哪个句子预测今后英语继续运用的趋势。这题的答案在最后一段内,即绝大部分(91%)的中小学生在学习英语。
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/5XqO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、Itisametaltowerequippedwithdrillingmachinery.B、Itisafloatingshipforthosefishermenworkingonthesea.C、Itis
Doyouknoworworkwithsomeonewhoundervaluesotherpeople’sefforts,ignorestheirviewpoint,evenpubliclyinsultshisorh
MillionsoftouristscometoSiemReap,CambodiaeveryyeartovisittheancientruinsofAngkorWat,aninfluxthathashelped
TheInternetisanexcellentsourceforfindingmanytypesofinformationandforkeepingupwithnewdevelopmentsintheworld.
TheInternetisanexcellentsourceforfindingmanytypesofinformationandforkeepingupwithnewdevelopmentsintheworld.
A、Theauditordoubtedifthefigureswereaccurate.B、Theauditoraskedtheaccountantacoupleofquestions.C、Theauditorprom
Next,let’stalkaboutearthquakesonourPlanet.Somecountrieshavelargenumbersofearthquakes.Japanisoneofthem.Others
ThenumberofpeopleemigratingfromIrelandiscurrentlyestimatedat30,000annually.Thereisnodoubtthatthebulkofyoung
本公司是一家以进出口贸易为主业,以实业生产为依托,兼营国内贸易、物业房产等产业的大型专业公司。公司注册资金8678万元,下辖6家分公司、12家海内外全资和控股公司。自1974年成立以来,在30年的时间里,公司经历了从计划经济向市场经济转变的不同历史阶段,有
TheancientChineseboardgameGowasinventedlongbeforetherewasanywritingtorecorditsrules.Agamefromtheimpossibly
随机试题
简述拘留和逮捕的区别。(中南财大2005年研)
关于风疹病毒的描述,哪一项不正确
男,10岁。因发热7天,抗生素治疗无效入院。查体:球结膜充血,口唇皲裂,草莓舌,颈部淋巴结肿大,全身可见多形性红斑。临床治愈出院后2个月猝死于家中。其最可能的死因是
A.冰硼散B.黄氏响声丸C.桂林西瓜霜D.锡类散E.栀子金花丸某男,30岁,近半年来工作压力较大,加之饮食不规律,常感咽喉肿痛,时有咽喉糜烂症状,证属心胃火盛,宜选用的中成药是()。
由于设备制造原因导致试车达不到验收要求,则该项拆除、修理和重新安装费用应由( )承担。
基本建设资金、更新改造资金、财政预算外资金、社会保障基金等资金的管理和使用,存款人可以申请开立()。
企业合并以外方式以支付现金取得的长期股权投资,应当按照实际支付的购买价款作为初始投资成本,取得长期股权投资发生直接相关费用应计入管理费用。()
接待西欧的游客,导游人员要注意()。
依次填入下面一段文字横线处的语句,衔接最恰当的一组是()我们知道,航天器在太空运行,需要利用推进系统来执行轨道变化、轨道维持、姿态控制等多种任务。________,________,________,________。________,_
电影纪录片的数量正在逐渐下降,能够在影院放映的纪录片已属_________,“幽暗大厅的芳香”越来越被各种各样无色无味的电子雾_________,也越来越成为人们心中的记忆。填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是:
最新回复
(
0
)