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
Language and Humanity Language is powerful and it can help us do or get things as we wish. Language as a born trait Language
Language and Humanity Language is powerful and it can help us do or get things as we wish. Language as a born trait Language
admin
2019-05-14
77
问题
Language and Humanity
Language is powerful and it can help us do or get things as we wish.
Language as a born trait
Language has evolved only in【T1】______.【T1】______
Comparison between chimpanzees and human beings: —Chimpanzees
—use of tools: once seen as a sign of【T2】______【T2】______
—inability to【T3】______【T3】______
—tendency to【T4】______【T4】______
—Human beings
—able to improve and build on【T5】______【T5】______
—able to【T6】______ideas【T6】______
Language and social learning
Problem of social learning:【T7】______【T7】______
—Cause:
—stealing others’ ideas by【T8】______【T8】______
—Solution:
—【T9】______developed to share ideas【T9】______
Results
—【T10】______made available to every individual【T10】______
—language as social technology to enhance【T11】______【T11】______
Language and the modern world
Existence of many different languages has led to
—separation of cooperative groups
-【T12】______【T12】______
—knowledge protection
—slow flow of ideas and tendency toward【T13】______【T13】______
Globalization needs【T14】______.【T14】______
【T15】______hinder cooperation.【T15】______
Solution: one world with one language
【T9】
Language and Humanity
Good morning, everyone. In today’s lecture, we’re going to discuss the relationship between language and humanity. As we all know, language is very powerful. It allows you to put a thought from your mind directly in someone else’s mind. Languages are like genes talking, getting things they want. And you just imagine the sense of wonder in a baby when it first discovers that, merely by uttering a sound, it can get objects to move across a room as if by magic, and maybe even into its mouth.
(1)Now we need to explain how and why this remarkable trait, you know, humans’ ability to do things with language, has evolved, and why did this trait evolve only in our species? In order to get an answer to the question, we have to go to tool use in the chimpanzees.(2)Chimpanzees can use tools, and we take that phenomenon as a sign of their intelligence. But if they really were intelligent, why would they crack open nuts with a rock? Why wouldn’t they just go to a shop and buy a bag of nuts that somebody else had already cracked open for them? Why not? I mean, that’s what we do.
The reason the chimpanzees don’t do that is that they lack what psychologists and anthropologists call social learning.(3)That is, they seem to lack the ability to learn from others by copying or imitating or simply watching. As a result, they can’t improve on others’ ideas, learn from others’ mistakes, or even benefit from others’ wisdom.(4)And so they just do the same thing over and over and over again. In fact, we could go away for a million years and come back and these chimpanzees would be doing the same thing with the same rocks to crack open the nuts.
Okay, so what this tells us is that, contrary to the old saying "monkey see, monkey do," the surprise really is that all of the other animals really cannot do that—at least not very much. But by comparison, we humans can learn. We can learn by watching other people and copying or imitating what they can do. We can then choose, from among a range of options available, the best one.(5)We can benefit from others’ ideas. We can build on their wisdom.(6)And as a result, our ideas do accumulate, and our technology progresses. And this cumulative cultural adaptation, as anthropologists call this accumulation of ideas, is responsible for everything around you in your bustling and teeming everyday life. I mean the world has changed out of all proportion to what we would recognize even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago. And all of this is because of cumulative cultural adaptation. For instance, the chairs you’re sitting in today, the lights in this lecture hall, my microphone, the iPads and the smart phones that you carry around with you—all are a result of cumulative cultural adaptation.
(7)But, our acquisition of social learning would create an evolutionary dilemma, and the solution to the dilemma, it’s fair to say, would determine not only the future course of our psychology, but the future course of the entire world. And most importantly for this, it’ll tell us why we have language.
And the reason that dilemma arose is, it turns out, that social learning is visual theft.(8)What I mean is, if I can learn by watching you, I can steal your best ideas, and I can benefit from your efforts, without having to put in the same time and energy that you did into developing them. Social learning really is visual theft. And in any species that acquired it, it would encourage you to hide your best ideas, lest somebody steal them from you.
And so some time around 200,000 years ago, our species confronted this crisis.(9)And we chose to develop the systems of communication that would allow us to share ideas and to cooperate amongst others.(10)Choosing this option would mean that a vastly greater fund of knowledge and wisdom would become available to any one individual than would ever arise from within an individual family or an individual person on their own. Well, language is the result.
Language evolved to solve the crisis of visual theft.(11)Language is a piece of social technology for enhancing the benefits of cooperation—for reaching agreements, for striking deals and for coordinating our activities. And you can see that, in a developing society that was beginning to acquire language, not having language would be like a bird without wings.
As I said at the beginning, language really is the voice of our genes. But, as we spread out around the world, we developed thousands of different languages. Currently, there are about seven or 8,000 different languages spoken on Earth. And then another problem occurred.(12)It seems that we use our language, not just to cooperate, but to draw rings around our cooperative groups and to establish identities, and perhaps to protect our knowledge and wisdom and skills from being stolen from outside. And we know this because when we study different language groups and associate them with their cultures, we see that different languages slow the flow of ideas between groups.
(13)(14-1)Okay, this tendency we have, this seemingly natural tendency we have, goes towards isolation, towards keeping everything to ourselves, whereas our modern world is communicating with itself and with each other more than it has at any time in its past.(14-2)And that communication, that connectivity around the world, that globalization now raises a burden.(15)Because these different languages impose a barrier, as we’ve just seen, to the transfer of goods and ideas and technologies and wisdom. And they impose a barrier to cooperation.
What will be the solution? In a world in which we want to promote cooperation and exchange, and in a world that might be dependent more than ever before on cooperation to maintain and enhance our levels of prosperity, I think it might be inevitable that we have to confront the idea that our destiny is to be one world with one language. What do you think of the solution?
Okay, in today’s lecture, I have presented to you how language shapes our humanity, what kind of dilemma social learning has created, and the possible solutions to the dilemma. In our next lecture, I am going to talk about lingua franca and its functions.
选项
答案
systems of communication
解析
细节辨认题。讲话者提到,为了应对visual theft这一问题,人类又发展出了systems of communication——沟通体系,使我们能够交换思想、相互协作。因此,systems of communication为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/iiEK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Weuselanguageeveryday.Weliveinaworldofwords.Hardlyanymomentpasseswithsomeonetalking,writingor【S1】______read
Secondlanguageteachingshouldfocusonencouragingacquisition,andonprovidinginputthatstimulatestheconscious【S1】______
Acomputerrecordofthebirds’four-monthstudyperiodhasshownsurprisinglysimilaritiesbetweenthepigeons’andhumanperfor
NaturallanguageinterfacesenabletheusertocommunicatewiththecomputerinFrench,English,German,orahuman【S1】______la
Forthelongesttime,Icouldn’tgetworkedupaboutprivacy:myrighttoit;howit’sdying;howwe’reheadedforanevenmore
EuropeanimmigrantstoColonialAmericabroughtwiththemtheirculture,traditionsandphilosophyabouteducation.Manyof【S1】_
EuropeanimmigrantstoColonialAmericabroughtwiththemtheirculture,traditionsandphilosophyabouteducation.Manyof【S1】_
A、Thelessdiscussionthebetter.B、Themorediscussionthebetter.C、Youmayconsultyourparents.D、Youmayconsultanadvisor
A、Psychiatrist.B、Psychologist.C、Physician.D、Photographer.A根据句(1)可知,大卫.巴赫是一名精神病学家,同时是消费者与商业频道“内在的百万富翁”节目的金钱顾问,因此[A]为本题答案。
A、PrecorExercisefacilities.B、Thenavysealworkoutcourse.C、Gymsopening24hoursaday.D、Healthydiet.A本题考查重要细节。根据句(9一1)可
随机试题
导游语言的生动性体现在()。
某市(市政府及其部门位于B区)A区甲律师事务所为招揽更多的业务,实行按案件标的额为介绍案件的人提取一定的“案件介绍费”的措施,并且对几个较为重大的案件,都给予了介绍人一定数额的费用。由于其在某一案件上通过这一办法将乙律师事务所的案件争揽过去,乙律师事务所对
骨肿瘤的发病部位有一定的规律性,以下表述正确的是
下列各项中哪—项不符合戊型肝炎病毒的特性
"胀病亦不外水裹、气结、血瘀"之说出自
A.硝苯地平B.卡托普利C.普萘洛尔D.氯沙坦E.氢氯噻嗪
对未取得建设工程规划许可证或者违反建设工程规划许可证的规定进行建设的单位有关责任人员,可以由其所在单位或者上级主管机关给予()。
陡峭的收益率曲线预示长短期债券之间( )。
某企业,2006年度共计拥有土地65000平方米,其中免费租给邻近部队训练占地3000平方米、幼儿园占地1200平方米,企业内部绿化占地2000平方米。2004年度的上半年企业共有房产原值4000万元,7月1日起企业将原值200万元、占地面积40
Homesaleswillbeweakerthisyearthanearlierforecastandarelikelytofallbelowyear-ago______asbuyerswaitforpricest
最新回复
(
0
)