2. 外语
  3. Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sens

Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sens

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问题     Culture is the sum total of all the tradition, 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, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy (等级,阶层) among languages.
    People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, misting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grants and groans, it is a fact established by the study if "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 fifty 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 requiting names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A Western language distinguished 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 addressed or removed 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 that all culture are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.
The main purpose of the passage is to tell us______.
选项 A、Cultures are not hierarchical
B、Languages are not hierarchical
C、The relation between language and culture
D、The study of language
答案A
解析 主旨题。文章主要论述文化的平等性，从第一段和第二段的叙述可得知。后面几段关于语言研究的描述是为了说明文化的平等性。
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