题目内容
Culture is the total sum 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, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.
To the professional anthropologist(人类学者), there is no intrinsic (本质的) 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, undeveloped 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 reflects the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to be noted: 1. 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. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A Western language distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness (" this" and "that" ); some languages or the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or remote 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: all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.
The author says that professional linguists recognize that ______.
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It is very common for fireworks to contain aluminum, iron, steel, zinc or magnesium dust.
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W: Really？
M: Yeah.
W: So what are you doing this summer, anything special？
M: Well, actually yeah. My parents have always liked taking my sister and me to different places in the United States. You know, places with historical significance. I guess they wanted to reinforce the stuff we learned in school about history. And so even though we are older now, they still do once in a while. Oh so where are you going this summer？
W: Well, this summer it's finally going to be Gettysburg.
M: Finally？ You mean they never took you yet？ I mean Gettysburg. It's probably the most famous Civil War site in the country. It's only a couple of hours away. I thought that would be one of the first places that they' d have taken you. I have been there a couple of times.
W: We were going to go about ten, well, no, it was exactly ten years ago, but I don' t know, something happened, 1 cannot remember what.
M: Something changed your plans？
W: Yeah, don't ask me what it was, but we ended up not going anywhere that year. I hope that doesn't happen again this year. I wrote a paper about Gettysburg last semester for a history class I was taking. Well, about the political situation in the United States right after the battle at Gettysburg. ,So I'm eager to see the place.
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