Question

Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the experiment of Frederick in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent.

All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected.

Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If there sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly at the right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed.

Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed order and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes vowel-like sounds; at twelve months they can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to five words. At three he knows about 1,000 words, which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar.

Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a toy-bear with the sound pattern “toy bear”. And even more incredible is the young brain’s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyze, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways.

But speech has to be induced（激发，引起）, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the children’s babbling（咿呀声）,grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child’s nonverbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.

1.The writer mentioned the experiment of Frederick to __________.

A. support his idea B. introduce his topic

C. describe a new finding D. give an example of his theory

2.The purpose of Frederick’s experiment was to __________.

A. prove that children are born with the ability to speak

B. discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speech

C. find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak

D. prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language

3.The reason why some children are backward in speaking is most probably that ________.

A. they are not able to learn language rapidly

B. they are exposed to too much language at once

C. their mothers do not respond enough to their attempts to speak

D. their mothers are not clever enough to help them

4. If a child starts to speak later than others, he will __________ in future.

A. have a high IQ B. be less intelligent

C. be insensitive to verbal signals D. not necessarily be backward

5. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A. A child is born with the ability to speak.

B. A child’s brain has a complex system which helps to connect the sight and feel of an object.

C. A child can produce his own sentences.

D. A child owes his speech ability to good nursing.

6. According to the passage, the writer agrees that__________.

A. the infants will certainly die because of lack of language.

B. all children learn their language in fixed stages

C. the child’s brain is highly selective

D. insensitivity to the child’s non-verbal signals will not affect the development of the child’s language

 

Answer 1

1.B

2.B

3.C

4.D

5.D

6.C

【解析】

试题分析: 语言是否像食物一样是人类的一项基本需求，在生命关键的时候，没有它孩子就会饿死或者受到损害呢？实验表明这是有可能的。语言学家认为，语言在人一生中的各个阶段是按固定顺序发展的，如果错过这个关键时期，婴儿就不会轻松地学会语言了。

1.B推理判断题。作者开门见山提出“语言是否像食物一样是人类的一项基本需求，在生命关键的时候，没有它孩子就会饿死或者受到损害”这一问题，接着介绍了费雷德里克二世做的实验及结果，随后在下文中围绕孩子语言的习得这个话题展开行文，由此判断作者提到这个实验的目的是引出话题，故选B。

2.B 细节理解题。根据文章首段Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent.可知他做实验的目的是试图发现如果孩子听不到人类的语言，孩子会说什么语言，故答案选B。

3.C 细节理解题。根据文章第三段内容Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, 可知有些孩子说话迟钝的原因往往是在孩子大脑正处在快速吸收语言的时期，母亲对婴儿的示意和信号无动于衷，故答案选C。

4.D细节理解题。根据文章第四段 but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ可知有些孩子说话晚但智商很高，所以未来未必是落后于别人，答案选D。

5.D细节理解题。根据文章倒数第二段内容可知孩子天生就具有讲话的能力，而且人脑有把物体和这个词的音联系在一起功能，此外还会用新奇的方式对语言进行分析，并重新组合，故ABC选项内容正确，而D选项错误。

6.C 细节理解题。根据文章第五段内容And even more incredible is the young brain’s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him,可知婴儿的大脑有着高度的选择性，可以从周围的喧闹中听出语言表达的某种命令，故答案选C。

考点：考查社会科学类短文阅读。