[YB-2]7月3日作业 by cclaya

cclayaUID: 2625096

I有点长，看的童鞋辛苦了～
A以前写过但找不到了，所以只列了提纲～

高频48 I-13 Many of the world's lesser-known languages are being lost as fewer and fewer people speak them. The governments of the countries in which these languages are spoken should act to prevent such languages from becoming extinct.

提纲：语言-文化历史-全球化-政府
1. 语言的定义
2. 鲜为人知的语言灭亡是历史的必然，但全球化加速了这一过程。
3. Utilitarianism VS culture diversity 评价某种语言是否具有保留价值
4. 政府的文化保护职能
5. 总结

Language is a phonic symbol-system that used to describe and express the world that we perceive.There are traces of culture and history in a language. It presents a nation’s past, present, and future. As many of the world’s lesser-known languages are being lost, there is a growing worldwide awareness of this problem.

As there is “the survival of the fittest” in every field, according to the view of evolutionism, the decease of lesser-known languages is seemed an inevitable process. When retrospecting the history of culture, we may find many languages have been extinct. Some disappeared with a declined culture or a ruined country; some were merged by other languages or replaced by a new one. However, never before in history has the issue of the lost of languages been more evident than now. With the rising trend of globalization, some old and lesser-known languages become barriers of communicating. Sometimes it even leads to misunderstanding and conflicts. But still, there is no deny that as a carrier of the culture and memories of a nation, old language has its own value that does not fade with time.

The issue of whether to save an lesser-known language is a complex one, since it involves a conflict between our interest in preserving our culture, tradition, and history and using the same money to current utilitarian purposes. Like the biosphere, keeping diversity is needed in human society. With the disappearing of native language, at the same time, native culture constructed on the language is perishing. But for the utilitarianists, the big amount money from the taxpayers that the governments squander to save lesser-known languages has so much better ways to spend than storing books covered by dust. In my view, the final judgment should depend on a case-by-case analysis of two key factors. One is the historic value of the language. An older language may be worth saving because of its individual culture background, as it uniquely represents some bygone era or has been used to record important history events. The other key factor involves the specific utilitarian needs in linguistics. For example, one of the most popular languages in use nowadays could trace back to an old language, therefore, if the old one has been saved in good condition, linguists could easily find sources of the language we speak everyday at present and see the lengthy development of it.

Of all the powers that prevent the lesser-known languages from disappeared, there is no doubt that the act of the governments is at the dominated  position. However, there are still lots of nongovernmental culture organization that dedicate themselves to this enterprise. Like it’s always said that the choice of the people is the choice of the history, time will become the arbiter. The act of governments should try to eliminate the influence that globalization brings to the culture diversity, but not intervene the common process of the development of language.

To sum up, I do believe we need to depend on a case-by-case analysis to make judgment. For those deceasing languages that have highly value in culture and history, the governments should act to prevent them from becoming extinct and support the study. While for those would disappear through the history river because of its own disadvantage, just store the documents in the museums and leave them to the linguists who want to dig in. The governments also do not need to pay close attention to if there is still someone speak a lesser-known language since it should be a choice made by history and people who speak it.

cclayaUID: 2625096

A53.Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli such as an unusual odor or a tape recording of an unknown voice. They discovered that these infants were more likely than other infants to have been conceived in early autumn, a time when their mothers' production of melatonin-a hormone known to affect some brain functions-would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight. In a follow-up study conducted earlier this year, more than half of these children-now teenagers-who had shown signs of distress identified themselves as shy. Clearly, increased levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infancy and this shyness continues into later life.
13年前，研究者研究了一组在受到不熟悉的刺激比如不寻常的气味和未知声音的录音时表现出轻微紧张的25名婴儿。他们发现这些婴儿比其他婴儿更可能在早秋怀孕，而早秋是他们的母亲分泌的melatonin--一种已知会影响一些大脑能的荷尔蒙--因日照的减少而增加的季节。在今年早些时候所作的跟踪调查中，这些表现出紧张迹象的儿童--现在已经是十几岁--有一半以上认为自己害羞。显然，出生前melatonin的增加导致婴儿期的羞涩并且这种羞涩将延续至生命更晚的阶段。

论断：出生前melatonin(M)的高含量会使婴儿害羞，而且这种害羞会在后面的生活中延续。
1.忽略了一个前提：M是否会导致婴儿害羞。论者没有提供任何对M的科学研究以说明其功能或作用。论者甚至没有提供资料证明M是否会对婴儿产生影响。虽然论者说M是一种对某些大脑功能有影响的荷尔蒙，但并没有阐述这种影响是对母亲还是对胎儿。
2.论据没有说服力。论断引用一项13年前25个对陌生刺激反应敏感的婴儿的研究。但论者没有提供资料表明婴儿表现出来的敏感是因为害羞，不能排除这是因为刺激带来的生理上的不舒服。
3.关于害羞会延续的结论很武断。在跟踪研究中，论者没有提供有关这些孩子在这十几年里的生活环境的资料，性格的形成有很多原因，不能排除后天的环境与经历对孩子性格的影响。
结论：若要增加说服力，论者还需要提供有关科学研究资料，进一步说明M对胎儿能造成什么样的影响。而且是否这种影响是永久的，无法消除的，也需要再进一步证明。