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2008年专业八级考试听力部分Mini-lecture录音文稿Good morning, everyone. Today’s lecture is about the popularity of English. As we all know,English is widely used in the world. Although English is NOT the language with t he largest number of native or “first” language speakers, it has really become a lingua franca.Then, what is a lingua franca? The term refers to a language which is widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native language s are different from each other’s, and where one or both speakers are using it as a “second” language. For example, when an Indian talks to a Singaporean using English, then English is the lingua franca.Then, actually how many pe ople speak English as either a “first” or a “second”language? Some researchers suggested a few years ago that between 320-380 million people spoke English as a first language, and anywhere between 250 - 350 million as a second language.And of course, if we include people who are learning English as a foreign language all over the world, that number may increase dramatically.Then, we may ask a question: how did English get there? That is, how did English gain the present status of popularity? There are, in fact, a number of interlocking reasons for the popularity of English as a lingua franca. Many of the reasons are historical, but they also include economic and cultural factors that have influenced and sustained the spread of the language. Let’s go through the reasons one by one.First is the historical reason. This is related to the colonial history. As we know, when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the Massachusetts coast in 1620, after their journey from England, they brought with them not just a set of religious beliefs, a pioneering spirit or a desire for colonization, but also their language. Although many years later the Americans broke away from their colonial master, the language of English remained, and still does.It was the same in Australia, too. When Commander Philip planted the British flag in Sydney Cove on 26th Jan. 1788, it was not just a bunch of British convicts and their guardians, but also a language.In other parts of the former British Empire, English rapidly became a unifying or dominating means of control. For example, it became a lingua franca in India, where a variety of indigenous languages made the use of any one of them as a whole-country system/problematic. So, the imposition of English as the one language of administration helped maintain the colonizer's control and power.Thus, English traveled around many parts of the world in those days, and long after that colonial power has faded away, it is still widely used as a main or at least an institutional language in countries as far apart as Jamaica and Pakistan, Uganda, and New Zealand.That is the first factor. Now, the second major factor in the spread of English has been the spread of commerce throughout the world: the spread of international commerce has taken English along with it. This is the 20th-century phenomenon of “globalization”. Therefore, one of the first sights many travelers see when arriving incountries as diverse as Brazil, China, for example, is the yellow twin-arched sign of a McDonald’s fast food restaurant, or some other famous brands’ outlets. And without doubt, English is used as the language of communication in the international business community.And the third factor related to the popular use of English is the boom in international travel. And you will find that much travel and tourism is carried on, around the world, in English. Of course, this is NOT always the case, as the mutilingualism of many tourism workers in different countries demonstrate. But, a visit to most airports on the globe will show signs not only in the language of that country, but also in English, just as many airline announcements are broadcast in English, too, whatever the language of the country the airport is situated in.So far,English is also the preferred language of air traffic control in many countries and is used widely in sea travel communication.Another factor has something to do with information exchange around the world. As we all know, a great deal of academic discourse around the world takes place in English. It is often a lingua franca of conferences, for example, and many journal articles in fields as diverse as astronomy, child psychology and zoology have English as a kind of default language.The last factor I cite here concerns popular culture. In the western world, at least, English is a dominating language in popular culture. Pop music in English can be heard on many radios. Thus many people who are not English speakers can sing words from their favourite English medium songs. And many people who are regular cinemagoers or (TV viewers) can frequently hear English in subtitled films coming out of the USA.Now, to sum up, in today's lecture, we have reviewed some of the reasons or factors that lie behind the popular use of English as the number one world language. Before we finish, I would like to leave a few questions for you to think about: Is the status of English as the number-one world language assured in the future? Will it split into varieties that become less mutually intelligible? OR will some other language or languages take the place of English as world language in future? These questions are not easy to answer, I know, but they are definitely worth pondering over after the lecture.OK, this brings us to the end of today’s lecture. Thank you for your attention.Now, you have 2 minutes to check your notes, and then please complete the gap-filling task on Answer Sheet One in ten minutes.。
八级听力对策首先是Mini-lecture部分，这是个确实让人挠头的部分，刚开始练习的时候正确率比较低，所以大家一定要耐心，多做练习，反复听，其中做mini的小窍门就是答案大多是名词居多，然后是形容词，最后才是动词。
所以大家听的时候一定要对文章中的名词和形容词多留个心眼儿，还有就是一定要把握文章的结构，参考书大家可以选用《英语听力快速突破—英语专业八级》点此查看。
刚开始用这本书来练习，因为书中的答案讲得比较详细。
练得多了，自然就有感觉了。
还有就是速记符号的使用，这个东西因人而异，所以不必拘泥于一种速记符号，只要自己能明白就好，举例来说，information--info，但是大家千万不要陷入到这样一个误区，就是光想着速记，而忘了你使用这些符号的目的，为的就是得分嘛，所以在听的时候要有个模糊的general idea，通过大约一个月左右的训练，基本上可以达到四五个的正确率了。
如果说mini部分的难度值是9的话，那么下面部分的难度值就会直线下降，但是大家依然还是要给与高度重视，因为这是八级考试。
2. Conversation。
大家在听的时候，一定要提前读题，这不仅包括要读题的题干，还要读题的选项。
大家也许会问，在以前的英语考试中，老师只让我们读题干啊，说不用读题的选项阿?那么我告诉你，这是八级考试，不是大英四六级，所以每个选项都要看，看的时候要标记每个选项的主题词，当然还包括题干的反正意(即到底这句话是肯定的?还是否定的?)，尤其要注意提干中的NOT,EXCEPT,INCORRECT,WHY,HOW 等词，这样的词在每年的考试中都几乎出现2-3个，具体可以参看历年试题。
所以做conversation的方法就是，看清题干，看清选项主题词，做出选择!!只要大家每天都坚持练习，相信此部分不会丢很多分，这部分是送分题，可能会有一两个拿不准的，无论是听力，还是阅读，历年试题中答案都有模棱俩可的答案和解析，这也是很多人质疑八级考试可信度的原因。
