English and English Community
There is no denying that English is a useful language. The people who speak English today make up the ___1___ speech
community in the world with the exception of speakers of Chinese. Originally they were small tribes of people from northern Europe who ___2___ in England. Their languages became more and more ___3___ to each other. Finally, the language
had enough uniformity to be used by all speakers in England. The people were united into a speech community through
their shared languages.
Speech community is similar to other kinds of ___4___. The people who make up the community share common language. Often they live side by side, as they do in a neighborhood, a village, or a city. More often they form a whole country. National boundaries, however, are not always the same as the boundaries of a speech community. A speech community is any group of people who ___5___ the same language no matter where they happen to live.
We may say that anyone who speaks English ___6___ to the English speech community. For convenience, we may classify the speakers into two groups: one in which the speakers use English as their native language, the other in which the
speakers learn English as a second language for the ___7___ of education, commerce, and so on.
English serves as an alternative language in several areas of public activity for most nations in the world which employ it as an ___8___ second language. English has been adopted as the language of air traffic, commerce, as well as international
diplomacy. Moreover, English is the ___9___ of the majority of published materials in the world so that education has come
to rely ___10___ on an understanding of English.
A. international
B. native
C. speak
D. belongs
E. purpose
F. language
G. communities
H. settled
I. similar
J. same
K. heavily
L. largest