科大研究生综合英语阅读一

Susanna Mcbee

It began as a rude tongue spoken by obscure Germanic tribes who invaded England in oared warships at the onset of the Dark Ages. Today, 1, 500 years later, the English language encompasses the globe.

When an Argentine pilot lands his airliner in Turkey, he and the ground controller talk in English.

When German physicists want to alert the international scientific community to a new discovery, they publish their findings in English-language journals.

When Japanese executives cut deals with Scandinavian entrepreneurs in Bangkok, they communicate in English.

When the Soviet Union wants to make a propaganda point in the Mideast, it uses English not Russian. When pop singers from Hong Kong to Heidelberg ring out their songs, the lyrics often as not are in English.

English has become to the modern world what Latin was to the ancients, dominating the planet as the medium of exchange in science, technology commerce, tourism, diplomacy and pop culture. Indeed, so wide is its sweep that 345 million people use English as their first language and an additional 400 million as their second. "It, s really amazing that one dialect spoken in one small place has become so important around the world, says Donald Bowen, professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Initially, the language spread with the British Empire. After World War Il, English with a twist-- American jargon- circled the globe, boosted by U.S. economic and political power. Finally, the language captured the lead in the knowledge explosion: English is the medium for 80 percent of information stored in computers around the world.

Inevitable as "English creep" seems to be, it often bumps into walls of opposition. Some Third World countries have banned it or restricted its use, denouncing it as a weapon of"cultural imperialism". But English marches on. "If you need it, you learn it," says one expert. Ambitious people in many countries are scrambling to do just that. The demand for English language broadcasts, texts and other materials has created rich markets. Yet the United States seems barely aware of them. and Britain has captured a firm lead in many areas. Warns one book publisher, Chairman Leo Albert of Prentice-Hal1% International, "This is a battle for people's minds, and we are lagging far behind the British."

After the new language came to England with Germanic tribes in the fifth century, it was augmented by the Scandinavian words of the Vikings in the ninth century and infused with the French of the Norman conquerors after 1066. Still, as recently as 400 years ago, many Britons would not have bet a plugged tuppence on the futureof their language bright and lively though it was. In 1582 a scholar named Richard Mulcaster wrote, "The English tongue is of small account, stretching no further than this island of ours, nay not there over all. "

Little did he realize that in just 25 years, with the settlement of Virginia, the language would make a transoceanic leap from which it would never retreat.

In the early colonial days, 5 million people spoke English. By the 1930s, after centuries of empire building and population growth, the number had jumped to 200 million. By the mid-1960s, after the postwar business and baby booms, the figure had vaulted again to an estimated 400 million, counting those who used English as a second language. Now with the total near 750 million, one of every 7 people in the world claims some knowledge of English.

More speak Chinese--one billion people-but use of Chinese outside its populous homeland or ethnic enclaves in other countries is rare; 250 million Chinese, in fact, are learning English today--more than the number who speak it in the United States.

English is the native language of 12 countries and an official or semiofficial tongue in 33 others where it is used to conduct at least some government business. Further, it is either a required subject or one widely studied in the schools of at least 56 additional countries.

It is not only the language of aviation but with a new British-issued set of maritime terms called "Seaspeak

Millions of people overseas struggle daily to master the irregular verbs, strange idioms and irrational spellings of English. Why? "It's the language of prestige, of practical success," says Barbara Robson of the Washington-based Center for Applied Linguistics.

In Japan recently, a newspaper ad offered a high starting salary, $18,000, to anyone who could write technical manuals in simple English. A knowledge of informal phrases is especially valuable. Some years ago, Sony Corporation, looking to find a slot in its worldwide network, placed this ad: "Wanted: Japanese Who Can Swear in English. "Japanese high school graduates, after six years of required English, often enroll in professional EngiIS-1anguage schools to qualify for better jobs. The high-tech Mitsui& Company boast that 80 percent of its 9, 500 employees can speak, read and write English. Toyota, Japan's top-ranked auto maker, provides six-month in-service English courses to 1,000 employees.

Even in France, where officials still scoff at la langue du Coca-Cola, English, especially American English, is now in State Secondary schools require every student to take four years of English or German. For the young, American phrases are "top of the pops, "and on the street, signs read: "Hi-Fi

In Italy English is a must for many technical jobs. For example, top personnel at Telespazio, the state- ownedsatellite company, are expected to know English, and most economists at the Bank of Italy also speak it.

Despite the recession in Brazil, many job hunters "are taking their last savings and investing in English lessons because so many prospective employers want workers with a knowledge of English, "says John O'Donnell, a partner in the Brasas chain of English-language schools in Rio de Janeiro.

In the Soviet Union, more than half of the secondary-school students study English. Universities offer five-year courses. A few years ago, the Kremlin would not allow its diplomats to take posts in English- speaking countries unless their wives also spoke the language. Now such diplomats’ families are routinely given short courses in English before leaving on assignment.

In their rush to English, foreigners often mangle the language--just as Americans and Britons stumble over the idioms or pronunciations of other tongues. In Shanghai recently, tourists were told by their Chinese guide that population pressure was so great that "the city is pouring out to the skirts. "In Tokyo, one can see storefront signs advertising "Hair Saloon" or listen to a nightclub singer croon an otherwise perfect "Moon Liver".

In Argentina, restaurants sometimes translate scrambled eggs as "revolting eggs" from the Spanish huevos revueltos.

An idiomatic goof sometimes leads to a diplomatic gaffe. A middle-echelon Soviet envoy once raised his glass after delivering some elegant words at a Washington dinner party. He intended to say, "Bottoms up. "But it came out, "Up your bottoms."

The flubs signal a deeper problem: The low quality of English language instruction in many parts of the world. In Switzerland, despite a growing demand for English, experts say that no more than 10 percent of the population has enough skill to write a letter in the language. For all the Soviet youngsters who study English, dull teaching methods leave many unable to speak it.

Resistance to English is still strong in some countries. Officialdom in France, irked by the nonstop invasion of the French language by Anglicisms, has reorganized its efforts to protect and expand French, which English has displaced as the language of diplomacy. The High Commission of the French Language, created by President Francois Mitterrand, plans to introduce new terms, supervise the medias vocabulary and prod executives into trying French first in dealing with foreigners.

Although it is now possible in France to sue someone for using non-French words such as weekend or drugstore, a group of socialist deputies wants to make such usage a crime. The proposed law prompted the newspaper Le Monde to suggest that the widely used Anglicism sandwich could be rendered deux morceaux de pain avec quelque chose au mileu-- two pieces of bread with something in the middle. Less concise but more French, Le Monde observed.

Yet France seems to be fighting a rear-guard action. Even the prestigious French Academy has admitted thewords holdup and gadget to its dictionary while rejecting terms such as flashback and brainstorming. A few years ago, when Culture Minister Jack Lang tried to clamp a limit on the number of songs in English on radio and television, the industry balked. In one recent week, 11 of the top 20 tunes on government radio were in English.

In the anti-English war, France is a cream puff compared with Canada's province of Quebec. There, a French-only policy, set in 1977, is enforced by a corps of 400"language police". Fines go as high as $760. Recently, the language cops told a Montreal insurance company to stop using English date stamps on incoming mail. The flow of investment money from France into Quebec increased, but the French-only policy has led to a brain drain. Some 14,000 senior corporate executives have left Quebec since 1977. Recently, Quebec softened its policy slightly. Cities with Anglo-Saxon majorities now may use English in day-to-day government communications.

In the Third World, unwanted results have sometimes followed efforts to downgrade English. Burma's strong man Ne Win banned it in 1962. In 1981, after his favorite daughter flunked an English test required for graduate study in Britain, he ordered instruction reinstated. But an entire generation had lost out in the meantime. English-speaking ability has also been eroded in the Philippines, Malaysia Nepal and Pakistan, where nationwide governments have pushed local languages at the expense of English.

Most of the world is going the other way, and teaching English has become a multimillion-dollar business. So far, British English is winning over American English as the language of choice. Britain's main channels for spreading the language are the British Broadcasting Corporation and a quasi-governmental agency, the British Council.

A BBC English teaching telecast, Follow Me, is seen by 100 million viewers in China alone. The programs textbooks sold a million copies in Germany and Spain within the first three months of

publication. America has nothing comparable, but the United States Information Agency is planning a radio-TV series with texts and study guides appealing to young adults. The British Council is spending about S million this year on English instruction It provides 611 language specialists to help dozens of nations develop ways to teach English. The USIA spends S8 million on English teaching and has about 210 such specialists.

For all the problems, growing numbers around the world want to learn American English. "Were seen as the country of the future, "says Lois Roth, a USIA official. Some 450,000 people, mostly in Latin America, are now studying English in 103 USIA-supported binational centers and 26 USIA-funded English- teaching institutes.

While clipped Oxford English has a certain snob appeal in Europe, American English is making inroads. In France, some school systems are using Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy films to teach the language. No longer do Europeans automatically agree with the joke in My Fair Lady that Americans haven't spoken English in years.

Whether it comes with an American or British accent, the world's latest lingua franca will keep spreading." It’s like the primordial ooze, "contends James Alatis, dean of the School of Languages and Linguistics at GeorgetownUniversity in Washington, D.C. Citing the link between American power and the English language, Alatis insists that "its growth is ineluctable, inexorable and inevitable."