Question

【題目】The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts has found. Researchers have studied each of her messages to the Commonwealth countries since 1952 to find out the change in her pronunciation from the noble Upper Received to the Standard Received.

Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent changes recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.

He said the noble way of pronouncing vowels (元音) had gradually lost ground as the noble upper-class accent over the past years. “Her accent sounds slightly less noble than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very small and slow changes that we don’t notice from year to year.”

“We may be able to relate it to changes in the social classes,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “In 1952 she would have been heard saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. Similarly, she would have spoken of ‘the citay’ and ‘dutay’, rather than ‘citee’ and ‘dutee’, and ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”

The Queen’s broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth countries. Each Christmas, the 10-minute broadcast is put on TV at 3 p.m. in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.

The results were published in the Journal of Phonetics.

【1】What is the text mainly about?

A. The relationship between accents and social classes.

B. The Queen’s Christmas speeches on TV.

C. The changes in a person’s accent.

D. The recent development of the English language.

【2】The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ___.

A. she has been Queen for many years

B. she has a less upper-class accent now

C. her speeches are familiar to many people

D. her speeches have been recorded for 50 years

【3】We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on ___.

A. speech sounds B. Christmas customs

C. TV broadcasting D. personal messages

【4】Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?

A. “dutay” B. “citee” C. “hame” D. “l(fā)orst”

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】C

【2】D

【3】A

【4】B

【解析】

試題分析：本文主要介紹了一項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果。研究人員通過比較英女王50年來的圣誕致辭發(fā)現(xiàn)，女王那著名的女王式發(fā)音和以前相比較，已經(jīng)減少了些貴族的味道。由此看出一個(gè)人的口音在50年內(nèi)是否會(huì)發(fā)生變化。

【1】主旨大意題。根據(jù)對文章主題段第一段的理解可知，女王的口音發(fā)生了變化。而通過第二段的Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent changes recorded over the past half century would take place within one person.。可知本文主要講述的是一個(gè)人口音的變化，故選擇C，

【2】推理判斷題。根據(jù)第二段的wanted to discover whether accent changes recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.可知Jonathan Harrington想發(fā)現(xiàn)，一個(gè)人的口音在50年內(nèi)是否會(huì)發(fā)生變化，而女王這50年來每年都有圣誕致辭并錄制下來，這是其他人所沒有的。故選擇女王的錄音是因?yàn)樗�的錄音已�?jīng)有50年了，故選擇D。

【3】推理判斷題。根據(jù)對文章的理解可知，這篇文章主要講述的是語言語音的變化，而這篇文章會(huì)在這本雜志上刊登，故這本雜志就是和語言相關(guān)的。所以選擇A。

【4】細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)倒數(shù)第三段的Similarly, she would have spoken of ‘the citay’ and ‘dutay’, rather than ‘citee’ and ‘dutee’, and ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”可知citay、dutay、hame、lorst都是具有貴族口音的詞。故選項(xiàng)A、C、D都是錯(cuò)誤的，選擇B。