阅读理解。
English is fast becoming the language of science around the world, but what is its future among
everyday speakers? One expert points out that the percentage of native English speakers is declining
(降低) while the languages of other rapidly growing regions are being spoken by increasing numbers
of people. But English will continue to remain widespread and important.
However, British language scholar David Graddol says English will probably drop in dominance(主
导) by the middle of this century to rank,after Chinese, about equally with Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu. 'The
number of people speaking English as a first language continues to rise,but it isn't rising nearly as fast as
the numbers of many other languages around the world,simply because the main population group has
been largely in the less developed countries where languages other than English have been spoken,' he
says.
In a recent article in the journal Science, Mr. Graddol noted that three languages that are not near the
top of the list of the most widely spoken now might be there soon. These are Bengali,Tamil,and Malay,
spoken in south and southeast Asia.
David Crystal,the author of The Cambridge Encyclo?edia of the English L徵guage, says about
1. 5 billion of the world's six billion people speak it as a second tongue compared to the 400 million
native speakers. But another expert on the English language says Mr. Graddol underestimates (低估) the
future of its dominance. 'All the evidence suggests that the English language snowball is rolling down a hill
and is getting faster,but nobody quite knows what's going to happen because no language has been in this position before. ' he said.
1. In David Graddol' s opinion, English will .
A. remain widespread and important
B. be more important than any other language
C. lose its dominant position
D. die away in the near future
2. The underlined sentence in the last paragraph implies that .
A. snowballs will roll down faster than language balls
B. the English language snowball is rolling down faster than any time in the past
C. English language will soon drop in dominance
D. more and more language users will choose English
3. How many experts express their ideas about the future of English in the passage?
A. 2.
B. 3.
C. 4.
D. 5
4. According to David Graddol,which of the folowing will possibly be one of the languages that
will be most widely spoken?
A. Malay.
B. Arabic.
C. Urdu.
D. German.
5. What should be the best title for the passage?
A. English Remaining the Dominant Position
B. The Future of English? Who Knows?
C. Opinions from Different Experts
D. The English Language Snowball Rolling Down