There are great impediments to the general use of a standard in pronunciation comparable to that existing in spelling (orthography). One is the fact that pronunciation is learnt ‘naturally’ and unconsciously, and orthography __1__
is learnt deliberately and consciously. Large numbers of us, in fact, remain throughout our lives quite unconscious with what our speech sounds __2__
like when we speak out, and it often comes as a shock when we __3__
firstly hear a recording of ourselves. It is not a voice we recognize at once, __4__
whereas our own handwriting is something which we almost always know. We __5__
begin the ‘natural’ learning of pronunciation long before we start learning to
read or write, and in our early years we went on unconsciously imitating and __6__
practicing the pronunciation of those around us for many more hours per every __7__
day than we ever have to spend learning even our difficult English spelling.
This is ‘ natural’, therefore, that our speech-sounds should be those of our im- __8__
mediate circle; after all, as we have seen, speech operates a means of holding a
community and to give a sense of ‘belonging’. We learn quite early to recognize a __9__
‘stranger’, someone who speaks with an accent of a different community—perhaps
only a few miles far. __10__
参考答案及解析:
1. 将and改为whereas/but/yet
2. 将with改为of
unconscious of 是固定搭配。
3. 删掉out
speak out 意思为“大胆地说”，“大声地说”，与此处意思不符。
4. 将firstly改为first
5. 将which改为that或者将which删掉。限制性定语从句前面的先行词是something，因此要用that引导定语从句。也可以将which删掉，不用任何引导词。
6. 将went改为go
7. 删掉per或者every
8. 将This改为It
It在此处做形式主语，后面的that从句是真正的主语。
9. 在community后面加together
此处的大意为“语音是把社区团结在一起的工具”。
10. 将far改为away
“只有几英里远”应是 a few miles away。
