Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this (1)_____, every group has a culture, however un-developed or uncivilized it may seem to us.

To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture (2)_____ another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic (3)_____ among the different languages. People once (4)_____ the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped (5)_____ of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. (6)_____ it is possible that language (7)_____ began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages (8)_____ no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of (9)_____ groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely (10)_____, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They (11)_____ behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, (12)_____ only in their vocabularies, which reflect their speakers' social (13)_____. Even in this department, (14)_____, two things are to be noted: 1) All languages seem to (15)_____ the machinery for vocabulary expansion, either by putting together words already in existence (16)_____ by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2) The objects and activities requiring names and (17)_____ in "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often (18)_____ numerous and complicated. A Western languages 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 (19)_____ and what is removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future. This study of language, in turn, (20)_____ a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank. A.perspective B.sense C.dimension D.manner

时间:2023-09-25 15:13:13

相似题目