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A Debate on the English Language A measure declaring English the national l...

admin2020-12-24  31
问题 A Debate on the English Language
A measure declaring English the national language is under intense debate in the United States.The U. S. Senate passed two declarations last week. One calls English the nation’s official language and the other says it is the “common and unifying （统一的）" tongue. But Americans found themselves divided on the issue.
Since people worldwide know most Americans speak only English，many can’t understand why the issue is so controversial（有争议的）.
"The discussion is related to fears of immigration issues，" says Dick Tucker，a social scientist at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. “It’s related to a worry about the changing demography （人口统计）of the U. S. It’s a worry about who will continue to have political and economic influence.
In fact，the notion of protecting the language has been kicked around almost since the nation’s founding .John Adams lobbied（游说）in 1780 for the creation of a national academy to correcte and improve the English language .But his proposal died，since
lawmakers saw it as a royalist （保皇主义者）attempt to define personal behavior.
Since then，the country hasn’t had a national language，but the idea of recognizing the special status of English lived on.
The emotions surounding language resurface （再次浮现）not because people feel comfortable with English It is more about the discomfort many Americans feel with the new languages，says Walt Wolfram,a professor at North Carolina State University.
"Language is never about language ," he says .
According to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau report，of 209 million Americans over 18 years old, 172 million speak only English at home.
About 37 million speak languages other than English. Among them,6.5 million speak poor English and 3.1 million don’t speak English at all.

The phrase "kicked around" (paragraph 4) could be best replaced by___ .
选项 A. “invented”
B. “formed”
C. “shaped”
D. “discussed”
答案D
解析问题是："kicked around”最有可能被哪个词替换？这个短语出现第四段第一句"In fact，the notion of protecting the language has been kicked around almost since the nation’s founding.”，事实保护的思想几乎从这个国家建立时就幵始讨论了。这个短语的意义可以从上下文中推出。
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