The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts had 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 (口音) changers 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 hears saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. 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 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch. (传统火鸡午餐).
The results were published (发表) in the Journal of Phonetics.
1.The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ______.
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A．she has been Queen for many years |
B．she has a less upper-class accent now |
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C．her speeches are familiar to many people |
D．her speeches have been recorded for 50 years |
2.Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?
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A．“duaty” |
B．“citee” |
C．“hame” |
D．“lorst” |
3.We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on _______.
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A．speech sounds |
B．Christmas customs |
C．TV broadcasting |
D．personal messages |
4.What is the text mainly about?
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A．The relationship between accents and social classes. |
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B．The Queen’s Christmas speeches on TV. |
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C．The changes in a person’s accent. |
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D．The recent development of the English language. |
There was a story many years ago of a school teacher--- Mrs. Thompson. She told the children on the first day that she loved them all the same. But that was a lie. There in the front row was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. He didn’t play well with the other children and he always needed a bath. She did not like him.
Then Mrs. Thompson got to know that Teddy was actually a very good boy before the death of his mother. Mrs. Thompson was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when, like all her other students, Teddy brought her a Christmas present too. It was his mother’s perfume(香水)。
Teddy said, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smell just like my Mom used to.” After the children left she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she stopped teaching reading, writing and math. Instead, she began to teach children.
Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. The boy’s mind seemed to come alive. The more she encourage him, the faster he improved. By the end of the sixth grade, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class.
Six years went by before she got a note from Teddy. He wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole lift. He went to college. Mrs. Thompson got two more letters from him with the last one signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, M. D.(医学博士).
The story doesn’t end there. On his wedding day, Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for believing in me. You made me feel important and showed me that I could make a difference.”
Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back, “Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.”
1.What did Mrs. Thompson do on the first day of school?
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A．She made Teddy feel ashamed. |
B．She asked the children to play with Teddy. |
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C．She changed Teddy’s seat to the front row. |
|
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D．She told the class something untrue about herself. |
2.What did Mrs. Thompson find out about Teddy?
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A．He often told lies. |
B．He was good at math. |
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C．He needed motherly care. |
D．He enjoyed playing with others. |
3.In what way did Mrs. Thompson change?
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A．She taught fewer school subjects. |
B．She became stricter with her students. |
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C．She no longer liked her job as a teacher. |
D．She cared more about educating students. |
4.Why did Teddy thank Mrs. Thompson at his wedding?
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A．She had kept in touch with him. |
B．She had given him encouragement. |
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C．She had sent him Christmas presents. |
D．She had taught him how to judge people. |
—Sorry, I made a mistake again.
— ______. Practice more and you’ll succeed.
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A．Never mind |
B．Certainly not |
C．Not at all |
D．Don’t mention it |
The English spoken in the United States is only slightly different from ______ spoken in England.
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A．which |
B．what |
C．that |
D．the one |
The weather was ______ cold that I didn’t like to leave my room.
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A．really |
B．such |
C．too |
D．so |
—Have you got any idea for the summer vacation?
—I don’t mind where we go ______ there’s sun, sea and beach.
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A．as if |
B．as long as |
C．now that |
D．in order that |
