Question

Email has brought the art of letter writing back to life, but some experts think the resulting spread of bad English does more harm than good.

Email is a form of communication that is changing, for the worse, the way we write and use language, say some communication researchers. It is also changing the way we interact(交流)  and build relationship. These are a few of the recently recognized features of email, say experts, which should cause individuals and organizations to rethink the way they use email.

“Email has increased the spread of careless writing habits,” says Naomi Baron, a professor of linguistics(语言学) at an American university. She says the poor spelling, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure of emails reflect(反映)  a growing unconcern about the way we write.

Baron argues that we shouldn’t forgive and forget the poor writing often shown in email. “The more we use email and its tasteless writing, the more it becomes the normal way of writing,” the professor says.

Others say that despite its poor writing, email has finished what several generations of English teachers couldn’t: it has made writing fashionable again.

“Email is a critical new communication technology,” says Ian Lancashire, a professor of English at Toronto University.

“It fills the gap between spoken language and the formal methods of writing that existed before email. It is the purest form of written speech.”

Lancashire says email has the mysterious ability to get people who are usually scared by writing to get their thought flowing easily onto a blank screen. He says this is because of e-mail’s close similarity to speech. “It’s like a circle of four or five people around a campfire,” he says.

Still, he accepts that this new-found freedom to express themselves often gets people into trouble. Emails sent in a day almost exceed(超过)  the number of letters mailed in a year. But more people are recognizing the content of a typical email message is not often exact.

1. From what Baron says in the third paragraph we can see that__________.

A. careless people use email more than careful people

B. email requires people to change their native language

C. professors in universities don’t need to use email

D. people communicate by email full of mistakes

2. What does the underlined word “it”(in Paragraph 4)  refer to?

A. The poor writing. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B. Email.

C. The good writing. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　    D. A new communication technology.

3. In Lancashire’s opinion, email is a wonderful technology because__________.

A. it can be useful all over the world

B. it is the fastest way to communicate

C. we can express ourselves in a free way

D. we can save a lot of paper

4. This passage mainly shows us that__________.

A. people should stop using email to communicate

B. experts hold different opinions about email writing

C. Americans only use email to communicate

D. email makes people lose interest in English

5. Which of the following is Not true about email?

A. It is changing the way of communication.

B. It is used more than letters in the US.

C. It helps us write better.

D. It causes was to write more.

 

Answer 1

答案：DACBC
解析：

1.　　   Naomi Baron指出email中错误非常多 2.　　   指的是email 中的tasteless writing即poor writing 3.　　   参见倒数第二三段 4.　　   本文主要讲了两位学者对email写作的不同看法和态度 5.　　   email写作错误百出,很多时候表达不精确, 无法帮助人们写得更好