中國(guó)網(wǎng)站品牌欄目（頻道）
|
 Popular US fiction such as the Twilight vampire novels and films is thought to be fuelling the increasing use of American vocabulary and spelling |
|
The future of written English will owe more to Hollywood films than Dickens or Shakespeare, if the findings of a study into children’s writing are anything to go by. The analysis of 74,000 short stories found that their written work was littered with Americanisms, exclamation marks and references to celebrities. Researchers who looked at the entries to a national competition found they were increasingly using American words such as garbage, trash can, sidewalk, candy, sneakers, soda, cranky and flashlight. The stories, written by pupils aged seven to 13, show how fairy cakes are referred to as cupcakes and a dinner jacket has become a tuxedo. ‘Smart’ is now often used for ‘clever’ and ‘cranky’ for ‘irritable’. Celebrity culture also has a powerful influence on children’s work, with Simon Cowell and Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi among the famous names cropping up repeatedly. But pupils are let down by basic spelling, punctuation and grammar, according to the study by Oxford University Press, which looked at the entries to BBC Radio 2’s ‘500 Words’ competition. Children stumbled over simple spellings such as ‘does’ and ‘clothes’ and struggled to use the past tense correctly, often saying ‘rised’ instead of ‘rose’ or ‘thinked’ instead of ‘thought’. Researchers also found that punctuation was underused, especially semi-colons and speech marks. Some did not know how to use capital letters. However, exclamation marks were overused. Researchers found 35,171 examples in total, with some young writers using five at a time. The study of more than 31million words will be compared with future research to see how written language evolves. Popular US fiction such as the Twilight vampire novels and films is thought to be fuelling the increasing use of American vocabulary and spelling. Modern technology was also influential. Out of almost 300 references to ‘blackberry’, nearly half referred to mobile phones. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
如果一項(xiàng)對(duì)兒童作文的研究結(jié)果可靠的話(huà)，那么比起狄更斯或莎士比亞的影響，書(shū)面英語(yǔ)的未來(lái)受好萊塢電影的影響會(huì)更大。 對(duì)7.4萬(wàn)個(gè)短篇故事的分析發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些書(shū)面作品中到處都是美式英語(yǔ)、感嘆號(hào)和名人的名字。 研究人員閱讀了全國(guó)作文比賽的參賽作品后發(fā)現(xiàn)，作文中越來(lái)越多地使用美式英語(yǔ)詞匯，如garbage（垃圾）、trash can（垃圾桶）、sidewalk（人行道）、candy（糖果）、sneakers（運(yùn)動(dòng)鞋）、soda（蘇打水）、cranky（暴躁不安的）和flashlight（手電筒）。 這些故事是由7歲至13歲的小學(xué)生寫(xiě)作的，從中可見(jiàn)小學(xué)生們用fairy cake（仙女蛋糕）來(lái)指代cupcake（杯形蛋糕），晚禮服的說(shuō)法也從tuxedo變成了dinner jacket。 現(xiàn)在小學(xué)生常用美式英語(yǔ)smart來(lái)取代英式英語(yǔ)clever，用cranky來(lái)取代irritable。 名人文化對(duì)兒童作文也有強(qiáng)大的影響力，真人秀評(píng)委西蒙?考威爾和阿根廷足球運(yùn)動(dòng)員里奧內(nèi)爾?梅西都是反復(fù)出現(xiàn)的名人名字。 但是牛津大學(xué)出版社的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，小學(xué)生們?cè)诨酒磳?xiě)、標(biāo)點(diǎn)和語(yǔ)法上很成問(wèn)題。該研究查看了英國(guó)廣播公司第二電臺(tái)舉辦的“500單詞”作文比賽的參賽作品。 孩子們總是弄錯(cuò)一些簡(jiǎn)單的拼寫(xiě)，如does和clothes，許多孩子不會(huì)用過(guò)去時(shí)態(tài)，常常把rose寫(xiě)成rised，把thought寫(xiě)成thinked。 研究人員還發(fā)現(xiàn)，許多標(biāo)點(diǎn)該用的時(shí)候沒(méi)有用，尤其是分號(hào)和引號(hào)。有些孩子不知如何應(yīng)用大寫(xiě)字母。 與此同時(shí)，感嘆號(hào)卻被過(guò)度使用。研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，濫用感嘆號(hào)的情況總共出現(xiàn)了35171次，有些小作者一次用了5個(gè)感嘆號(hào)。 這次閱讀量超過(guò)3100萬(wàn)個(gè)詞的研究將和未來(lái)的研究作比較，分析書(shū)面語(yǔ)言的演變情況。 據(jù)認(rèn)為，熱門(mén)美國(guó)作品，如《暮光之城》吸血鬼小說(shuō)和電影，促使孩子們?cè)絹?lái)越多地使用美式英語(yǔ)詞匯和拼寫(xiě)方法。 現(xiàn)代科技對(duì)英語(yǔ)也有影響。在這些作文中，blackberry一詞出現(xiàn)了近300次，其中近一半指的是黑莓手機(jī)。 相關(guān)閱讀 父母認(rèn)為傳統(tǒng)童話(huà)故事“太嚇人” 少兒不宜 英青少年對(duì)未來(lái)收入太樂(lè)觀 欲25歲前買(mǎi)房 （中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 陳丹妮 編輯：Julie） |
|
Vocabulary: entry: 參賽作品 stumble: 犯錯(cuò)誤 underuse: 未充分利用 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
