IELTS Reading Matching Sentence Endings Example 1
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Endangered Languages
| A. Austin and Co. are in no doubt that because languages are unique, even if they do tend to have common underlying features, creating dictionaries and grammars requires prolonged and dedicated work. This requires that documentary linguists observe not only languages’ structural subtleties, but also related social, historical and political factors. Such work calls for persistent funding of field scientists who may sometimes have to venture into harsh and even hazardous places. Once there, they may face difficulties such as community suspicion. As Nick Evans says, a community who speak an endangered language may have reasons to doubt or even oppose efforts to preserve it. They may have seen support and funding for such work come and go. They may have given up using the language with their children, believing they will benefit from speaking a more widely understood one. Plenty of students continue to be drawn to the intellectual thrill of linguistics fieldwork. That’s all the more reason to clear away barriers, contend, Evans, Austin and others.
B.The highest barrier, they agree, is that the linguistics profession’s emphasis on theory gradually wears down the enthusiasm of linguists who work in communities. Chomsky disagrees. He has recently begun to speak in support of language preservation. But his linguistic, as opposed to humanitarian, the argument is, let’s say, unsentimental: the loss of a language, he states, ‘is much more of a tragedy for linguists whose interests are mostly theoretical, like me, than for linguists who focus on describing specific languages, since it means the permanent loss of the most relevant data for general theoretical work’. At the moment, few institutions award doctorates for such work, and that’s the way it should be, he reasons. In linguistics, as in every other discipline, he believes that good descriptive work requires thorough theoretical understanding and should also contribute to building new theory. But that’s precisely what documentation does, objects Evans. The process of immersion in a language, to extract, analyse and sum it up, deserves a PhD because it is ‘the most demanding intellectual task a linguist can engage in’. |
Questions 1-4
Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-O below. Write the correct letter A-O in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
- Linguists like Peter Austin believe that every language is unique.
- Nick Evans suggests a community may resist attempts to save its language.
- Many young researchers are interested in doing practical research
- Chomsky supports work in descriptive linguistics
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Answers:
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Explanation
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| For the first question, the answer is in the first para, first line; “Austin and Co. are in no doubt that because languages are unique, even if they do tend to have common underlying features”
For the second question, the answer is in the first para, sixth line; “Once there, they may face difficulties such as community suspicion. As Nick Evans says, a community who speak an endangered language may have reasons to doubt or even oppose efforts to preserve it.” For the third question, the answer is in the second para, third line; “But his linguistic, as opposed to humanitarian, the argument is, let’s say, unsentimental: the loss of a language, he states, ‘is much more of a tragedy for linguists whose interests are mostly theoretical, like me, than for linguists who focus on describing specific languages, since it means the permanent loss of the most relevant data for general theoretical work’.” For the fourth question, the answer is in the second para, eighth line; “At the moment, few institutions award doctorates for such work, and that’s the way it should be, he reasons. In linguistics, as in every other discipline, he believes that good descriptive work requires thorough theoretical understanding and should also contribute to building new theory.” |
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