2022年12月英语四级美文：Is There a Backward Language

　　四级写作在考试中比重比较大，大家在日常积累时，多准备一些话题及素材相当重要。找大学在线英语四级频道为同学们整理了“2022年12月英语四级美文：Is There a Backward Language”，希望可以为大家带来帮助，一起来学习一下吧。

　　2022年12月英语四级美文：Is There a Backward Language

　　Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs,and ways of life of a given group of human beings.In this sense, every group has a culture,however savage, underdeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.To the professional anthropologist,there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another,just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic rank among languages.

　　People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage,underdeveloped forms of speech,consisting largely of grunts and groans.While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans,it is a fact established,by the study of “backward” languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today.Most languages of uncivilized groups are,by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate,and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas.

　　They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures,which usually are fully adequate for all language needs,but only in their vocabularies,which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers.Even in this department,however, two things are to be noted:All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system.

　　The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in “backward” languages,while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated.A Western language is distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness (“this” and “that”);some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker,or to the person addressed, or removed from both,or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.This study of language, in turn,casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently,and without ideas of rank.

　　以上是找大学在线英语四级频道小编为大家带来的“2022年12月英语四级美文：Is There a Backward Language”，希望考生们都能备考顺利，取得出色的成绩，顺利通过四级考试。