在練習(xí)題中學(xué)習(xí)英語四級(jí)閱讀技巧（5）

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All languages stem from the same source, claim scientists, after tracing origins of speech to sub-Saharan Africa around 150,000 years ago.

Using sophisticated analysis of hundreds of languages, the researchers have managed to trace back their beginnings to the same place and the same time.

They now believe that language may have been one of the "tools" that boosted humanity and led to the colonisation of the whole planet.

"We think that this language was a stepping stone in civilisation which led to better co-ordination and co-operation that might have led us to expand," said Dr Quentin Atkinson, at the University of Auckland and Oxford University.

"It could have also led to competition that would have given us a push."

Dr Atkinson analysed 504 languages to see how many phonemes – particular sounds – they contained.

To his surprise he found a direct correlation between the age of the civilisation and the number of phonemes in its language.

So while many African languages had more than 100 phonemes, Hawaiian language had as few as 13. English, French and German had about 45 each.

The analysis, which used the World Atlas of Language Structure as the main resource, relies on the theory that older civilisations have picked up more linguistic diversity as they age – from genes to language.

It then used this to extrapolate back the origins of language to Africa.

It pinpointed the time as around 150,000 years ago as this was when cave art – one of the earliest forms of communication – began.

It is thought that early man then left Africa around 80,000 years go – taking with him some of the diversification but not all of it.

In general, the areas of the globe that were most recently colonised incorporate fewer phonemes into the local languages whereas the areas that have hosted human life for millennia still use the most phonemes, the report concluded.

"The evidence suggests that there was a single origin of language rather than a number that happened independently," said Dr Atkinson.

"I was pretty surprised."

The research is published in the journal Science.

【內(nèi)容簡介】

本文開篇介紹了科學(xué)家們的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)——所有語言發(fā)源于同一個(gè)地方。

接著，文章介紹了語言對于全球文明的促進(jìn)作用及弊端。

然后文章論述了學(xué)者們認(rèn)定人類語言起源于非洲的原因。

最后文章介紹該研究發(fā)現(xiàn)已被載入《科學(xué)》雜志，以證明其權(quán)威性和可信度。

【詞匯短語講解】

①stem from  來源，源自于；某事由……導(dǎo)致

②trace既可以作名詞表示痕跡、蹤跡，也可作動(dòng)詞，表示根據(jù)線索或足跡進(jìn)行跟蹤。用于抽象意義時(shí)指知道到某事物的根源。在本文中即是找到語言起源的根源。

trace back   追溯

③co-ordination  n. 協(xié)調(diào)co-operation  n. 合作  correlation  n. 相互聯(lián)系

我們可以看到這幾個(gè)詞前面都有字母co，這里co就是前綴，它表示一起、共同、相互，聯(lián)合，同類型的詞還有coincide  一致、符合  coordinate  協(xié)調(diào)。

【快速閱讀支招】

這類科研類文章通常會(huì)有一些生詞和長句，為了便于理解，首先就要攻克這兩個(gè)難關(guān)。

對于很專業(yè)的學(xué)術(shù)名我們不需要了解太多，這些一般不會(huì)成為出題點(diǎn)，而對于上文中colonisation、phoneme等這類詞，可以先看單詞結(jié)構(gòu)，如colonisation這個(gè)詞，它的前半部分跟colony 殖民地這個(gè)詞很像，再聯(lián)想這篇文章提到非洲，極有可能跟殖民有關(guān)，而tion這個(gè)后綴一般表示名詞，由此我們可以猜測colonisation這個(gè)詞表示殖民，再結(jié)合整句話理解可以確定該詞的意思就是殖民、殖民地化。

第二種理解單詞意思的方法就是結(jié)合上下文意思猜測，比如文中提到phoneme這個(gè)詞時(shí)后面用破折號(hào)加了注解particular sounds，說話時(shí)發(fā)出的特殊聲音，對語言學(xué)稍有了解的同學(xué)可能會(huì)想到“音素”這一專有名詞，即使不知道這個(gè)名詞的中文翻譯，至少我們了解了它的意思。

而對于英語長句，我們首先要搞清楚長句之所以長的原因：①修飾語過多；②并列成分多；③語言結(jié)構(gòu)層次多。所以在分析時(shí)我們可以采取以下辦法：

（1）找出句子的基本成分，即主謂賓，從整體上把握句子結(jié)構(gòu)。

（2）找出句中的所有謂語結(jié)構(gòu)、非謂語動(dòng)詞、介詞短語和從句引導(dǎo)詞。

（3）分析從句和短語在句子中的功能，從句到底是主語從句，賓語從句，定語從句還是表語從句，它表示的是原因、時(shí)間、結(jié)果還是條件等。

（4）分析單詞、短語和從句之間的關(guān)系。

（5）注意劇中插入語等成分，在不影響理解的前提下，分析時(shí)可先將這部分置于一邊

（6）注意觀察句子中的固定搭配和短語。